NWC Preseason Poll

The NWC has released their preseason volleyball coaches poll, which you can find here.

My NWC preview/prediction post differs quite a bit more than we’ve seen with the ASC or SCAC polls. To start with, we differ on the predicted conference champion. The NWC coaches have Pacific Lutheran winning where I had the Lutes coming in 4th. To be fair, the Lutes are typically at the top of the NWC standings so if they finish where I had them then it would be borderline historic. The Lutes did receive 5 of the 9 first place votes and you have to remember that coaches cannot vote for their own team.

My choice for the NWC was Pacific followed by Puget Sound, Whitworth and then Pacific Lutheran. The NWC coaches had Pacific and then Whitworth and Puget Sound following the Lutes. Each of these teams received at least one first place vote with Puget Sound actually getting two but still ending up in 4th. The total points margin between the top 4 was only 11 points with a 19 point margin between 4th place Puget Sound and 5th place Whitman.

That segues nicely into the differences between our predictions found in the bottom half of the conference. It basically boils down to the coaches having Whitman 5th where as I have them in 9th due to their large amount of turnover in the roster. I also like Linfield slightly more than the coaches who had them almost as a consensus last place team.

Here is their poll:

Team	Pts.	’18 NWC finish
Pacific Lutheran (5)	59	1st
Pacific (Ore.) (1)	54	3rd
Whitworth (1)	51	2nd
Puget Sound (2)	48	4th
Whitman	29	T-6th
Willamette	27	5th
George Fox	24	8th
Lewis & Clark	23	T-6th
Linfield	9	9th

(Points awarded on an 8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 basis. Coaches could not vote for their own teams; numbers in parentheses indicate first place votes)

Regardless of where the coaches or I have these teams, I think we all agree that this conference will be the most competitive of the four West Region conferences.

The SCIAC poll should be out tomorrow.