Points/Set Standings (3/17/21)

Alright, it took over a month but we have all of the eligible 29 teams from the West Region accounted for at last. George Fox was the last holdout but they got a DIII match in against Pacific this past week (and it was a good one).

As a reminder, this article attempts to create a West Region standing based on Points/Set. I also want to highlight matches where a team was out performed in the statistic but still won the match. Quick refresher, Points/Set are the points a team “earns” in a match divided by the sets played. Earned points are kills, service aces and team blocks. Errors by the other team obviously help you win the match but they hurt you in this statistic. The statistic is only presented for DIII matches against DIII opponents. Let’s go ahead and drop the standings of the 29 teams in the West based on Points/Set:

UT-Dallas holds on to our top spot, dropping 0.36 but still holding an insane 18.92 P/S number. Trinity recovered a bit this past week as and moved into the second spot. Trinity had the highest P/S match (19) of the week in their first match against Centenary. These are the only two teams sitting at an elite or great tier or level. George Fox jumps into the Top 5 at number 3 on the basis of a 5-set loss, which is just astounding. UMHB drops a couple of spots to 4 and Whitworth drops a spot to 5^th. Southwestern was the team to drop from the Top 5 as they ran into Colorado College. They now sit in 16^th so a warning to GFU, I guess.

Looking at the four records I track, we did have one get broken this past weekend when George Fox scored a 16.6 P/S while losing to Pacific and their 12.8 number. That’s a difference of 3.8 and it broke the record of highest positive differential for a losing team by a full point.

There was something in air this week as five teams scored higher P/S than the team that beat them. LETU beat ETBU in their first match 11.8 to 14.2. UMHB beat Concordia in their first match 14.25 to 16.75. Dallas beat St. Thomas in their first match 12.8 to 13.2. Belhaven beat ETBU in their first match 13 to 14.75. The lesson here is be ready in those first matches of the double-header! As I mentioned above, the fifth one was the George Fox/Pacific match.

Tacked Records

Highest P/S differential for a winning team: UT-Dallas +11.67 P/S over Belhaven Highest P/S differential for a losing team: George Fox +3.8 P/S in loss to Pacific Lowest P/S by a winning team: ETBU 10.4 in win over HSU Highest P/S by a losing team: PLU 18.5 in a loss to Puget Sound