Region VII Statistics Loss (2025)

It’s time for Region VII and, yes, I remembered that we were also going to tackle the UAA in this one. The normal conferences out of this region are Allegheny Mountain (AMCC), Michigan Intercollegiate (MIAA), North Coast (NCAC), Ohio Athletic (OAC) and President’s Athletic (PAC). Whoa. This was the wrong region to stuff the UAA into. Lots of work ahead of me here.

As a reminder, “statistics loss” or “statistics lost” are the statistics accumulated the previous season by seniors. These are the stats that will be lost to the team in 2025 due to their graduation. I like to look at this data as it gives us an indication as to how the team should fare in the upcoming season. Of course, with any rule or theory, we have caveats. Caveats like some seniors are seniors academically but may have another year of eligibility. This would be a caveat that helps the team. Caveats that hurt the team further are players that leave due to injury or homesickness or financial reasons. These statistics also don’t account for the recruits coming in or that prized DI transfer. This is simply a baseline of where the team is probably going to be without those caveats running amok. From doing this for a number of years, we’ve learned that teams are much better at replacing assists and digs. Where teams can struggle is with Points Lost and getting to 45% or higher is a red flag. Points are kills plus aces plus blocks.

Here are the six (6!) conferences we’ll cover in this article. Each table shows not only the Points Lost but also assists and digs lost to graduation. I also include the Points/Set number from last season. Remember that 18+ is elite, 17+ typically gets you into the NCAA Tournament, 16+ is good and then we go down from there. Below the table, I’ll give out some general thoughts but not go specifically into each team. Oh, one item to note is that I’m not moving teams to new conferences in this effort.

AMCC

Special note about Carlow is that they are not a full DIII member until 2026. They played last season but their matches did not count as they transition from NAIA. Penn State-Altoona took home the Automatic Qualifier (AQ) from this conference despite finishing second in NPI (to Alfred State at 50.90), third in Points/Set and next to last in schedule strength (Opponent NPI was 46.10). They just don’t play by the rules, I guess. Carlow looks to be losing the most offense, which isn’t important if their matches don’t count but I think they will for NPI purposes in 2025. They could be our new Ferrum in 2025 where we have no clue what to do until the NCAA releases their official rankings. Offensively, the rest of the teams are in pretty good shape. The two leaders from this conference last season, however, are the next two for Points lost so that’s good news for the rest of the teams. The team to watch would be Mount Aloysius as they return most of their squad and were second in Points/Set last season. If they can get into the 15+ range, it might be enough to secure the AQ until Altoona cheats again (Joke!).

MIAA

It was kind of crazy that the MIAA didn’t have two teams in the NCAA Tournament but Calvin just missed the cut-line. Hope made their Elite 8 run after a great season but 2025 looks to be a bit of a problem with 61% of their offense leaving. Of course, this doesn’t factor in the 19 DI transfers coming in and former Olympians who realized they could also get an extra year of eligibility. I josh. I kid. I joke. I think. The thing about programs like Hope is that they can lose a lot but will always recruit well so you never really now how graduation losses will impact them. With that percentage, I’d say they should take a step back but should have enough to still make the NCAA Tournament. I’m less sure about Olivet and Trine who suffer fewer losses but won’t be in the same position as Hope to recover. Trine had a nice season in 2024 but finishing above 0.500 will be difficult this upcoming season. This conference is all about Hope and Calvin and the Knights take some losses but seem to be in a decent position to make a run at the AQ. I really don’t see anyone else in that picture. Albion has a lot of room to make up and I’m not sure just having their offense back will be enough. This should be a two-team race with the rest of the conference fighting for third. I do think they get both Calvin and Hope in the tournament in 2025.

NCAC

One of the benefits of doing this statistics loss nationally is coming across interesting stories that I missed during the year. The NCAC is usually a really good volleyball conference with teams like DePauw, Ohio Wesleyan, Denison and Wittenberg always competing really well. In a sense they all did in 2024 but look at those Points/Set numbers. The leader was Denison but they were just in the 15s. That’s a bit shocking to me. Wittenberg had the high NPI for the conference at 55.43 but that comes no where close to the cut-line. Ohio Wesleyan actually took home the AQ from this conference but they were the only team to make the NCAA Tournament. (Ohio Wesleyan did play the toughest schedule per Opponent NPI at 54.48.) Looking at 2025, only three teams lose less than 38% of their points to graduation with four teams above the 45% mark. Hiram at nearly 74% is in for a tough road along with Wooster and Oberlin. (Hiram will be taking their road over to the PAC in 2025.) DePauw should be in better shape but a 0.500 season from them would be a minor victory. The race looks like it will come down to Denison and Wittenberg with Ohio Wesleyan as the dark horse. (Make sure you read the OAC write-up for another player in this conference.) Kenyon returns everyone but are starting from a 13.04 Points/Set base so they will need improvement from their returners but also help from recruiting. Of course, it doesn’t appear they need to get to 16 Points/Set in this conference, which, again, is surprising.

OAC

Marietta took the AQ here (finishing 9^th in NPI) while Otterbein earned an at-large bid. Ohio Northern finished at 58.33 and just below the cut-line. All three teams were in the 17+ Points/Set range and this conference had two others (Mount Union and John Carroll) in the 16s range. Definitely tough competition here last season. For the upcoming season, just a lot of offense going across the stage as every team except Muskingum will lose over 30% of their points. There are also a bunch of setters and liberos graduating, as well. Ohio Northern is the big loser when it comes to their offense followed by Marietta, Mount Union and Baldwin Wallace. With Otterbein losing 40%, this really leaves this conference pretty open in 2025. Can Muskingum capitalize on returning their offense and make up 2 Points/Set while everyone else looks to maintain? I’m not sure any of these teams can get back to the 17 Points/Set range with these losses so I think Muskingum might be the sneaky pick for the AQ this upcoming season. Ohio Northern is always good and it will be interesting to see how Marietta comes back from their amazing season. Another AQ option is John Carroll as they might be the baseline every other team needs to pass at the 16.5 to 16.7 Points/Set range. The kicker, however, is that will play out in the NCAC (John Carroll will move to that conference this upcoming season) where no one reached 16 Points/Set last season.

PAC

Alleghany was the star of this conference in 2024 with the best Points/Set and NPI (57.62). With no team above the 45% mark in Points Lost, it would appear that a status quo might play out in the PAC. Heck, I don’t think they are brining in or losing anyone so this conference could be downright boring. Grove City interests me as they lose a setter and pretty much nothing else. Averaging 15.43 Points/Set against an Opponent NPI schedule of 0.506 isn’t that bad. Still, there is some room to make up if Allegheny holds steady, which they should do. Wash & Jeff and Westminster are also interesting teams in this conference. Yes, boring…but some interesting teams fighting for what will be their only bid to the tournament.

UAA

Here we are with the UAA. Where to start? This is the only conference to get 5 at-large bids. If you want to see an impact of NPI, you can start there. This conference would not have received that many bids under the old system just because the committees wouldn’t have felt right doing it. That’s not a criticism…it’s just human nature but NPI isn’t human. Maybe I should have started with the fact that only 2 teams from this conference didn’t make the tournament and both of those teams (Brandeis and Rochester) would have won AQs in their respective regions in the right conference. Or maybe I should have gone with the fact that the worst schedule played was by Rochester and it was an Opponent’s NPI of 0.560! They also had the lowest NPI at 53.89. Yeah, that Rochester team stunk it up. They were the gold nugget found in the platinum mine. Looking towards 2025 and there is a lot of graduation going on in the UAA. We’ve got setters and liberos gone and a lot of offense as five of the eight teams are above the 45% mark. That really opens the door for NYU and Carnegie Mellon but the thing with these teams like WashU, Chicago and Emory is that they just reload…they don’t rebuild. You might be able to look at CWRU’s Points/Set number and say that they could be the team to really take a hit this upcoming season. I would also be unsure if Brandeis can recover their numbers. Other than those two teams, it should be another red wedding in the UAA as they continue their Game of Thrones adventures.  

We put Region VII to bed along with the UAA. Just two more regions to go and I can’t wait to see what the WIAC will give us.

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