My 2021 Week 2 regional rankings

The official Week 2 regional rankings, which come out Wednesday, will be hamstrung a bit due to the alphabetical listing in Week 1. In effect the Week 1 rankings are kind of wasted if there are not orders in each region because not all ranked results are the same. For example, it matters if the ranked result is against the No. 3 team or the No. 7 team in a region.

The Week 2 rankings also do not matter much in terms of the NCAA field since teams are considered ranked (in regard to results versus ranked opponents) at the time of selection only if they appear in the Week 3 or final regional rankings.

This is what I think the Week 2 regional rankings should be in Regions VIII and IX.

REGION VIII 1. Wisconsin-Eau Claire 2. Wisconsin-Whitewater 3. Wisconsin-Stevens Point 4. Chicago 5. Concordia Wisconsin 6. Aurora 7. Carthage 8. Wisconsin-La Crosse 9. Wisconsin-Oshkosh 10. Earlham

The Week 1 rankings had Illinois Wesleyan, Mount St. Joseph and Washington-St. Louis instead of Carthage, UW-La Crosse and UW-Oshkosh. I did not have Earlham in my Week 1 rankings, but the Quakers took the spot I gave to Wheaton last week. Illinois Wesleyan and, to a lesser extent, The Mount and Wheaton are fine candidates once again this week. However, I think the criteria favor others more.

REGION IX 1. Wartburg 2. Northwestern 3. Bethel 4. Hamline 5. Gustavus Adolphus 6. Cornell 7. Coe 8. Loras

Fine with me if the MIAC ordering is different in Wednesday’s official ranking. Parsing those three teams was the toughest part of the exercise. I still think Cornell and Coe have better resumes than the committee’s Week 1 ranked teams St. Olaf and Augsburg. Yes, Coe’s strength of schedule is a concern.

As an added bonus, here is some of my homework. The shorthand should be easy to decipher. Strength of schedule is approximate, unfortunately.

2021 VB regional rankings prep Week 2Download

-Ricky Nelson