Schedule Analysis – St Norbert

I’ve got the sixth schedule analysis for you and this one will be a little different. I decided to look for a team that you don’t normally associate with the NCAA Tournament but still a team that seems to pull off an upset or two every year. A team that is consistently good but not necessarily great. I give you St Norbert out of Region VIII and the Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference (NACC). Here is a reminder on what I’m doing with this series.

This series attempts to look at schedules through an NCAA Power Index (NPI) viewfinder and evaluate them on an NPI basis. Ned has gifted me an Excel sheet that allows me to plug in the 2025 schedule of a team and see how it would do if they were playing the 2024 versions of their opponent. From this, I can see what their max NPI would theoretically be (with an undefeated season) and how their spread of opponents look when examining their NPIs. I can even play some what-if games with wins and losses. Remember, when looking at 2024 NPIs, that a win gives you a match NPI that is about 10 points higher while a loss will give you 80% less. If we assume the at-large bid cut-line will be around 59.5 NPI then this means any team above 50 NPI will be beneficial with a win. The Quality Win Bonus (QWB) is set to 55.5 in women’s volleyball so most of the opponents between 55 and 60 will also give you a QWB. In doing these simulations, just know that I do not feed in the results and alter team’s NPIs. Most importantly, 2024 NPIs will not equal that team’s NPI in 2025. If you want that information, someone will have to learn to look into the future.

Here is our table of the schedules analyzed so far in this series. I’m thinking “Loss a” isn’t something worth tracking but I haven’t taken it away, just yet.

(Loss n = Simulated losses against NCAA Tournament teams above the at-large cut-line.) (Loss a = Simulated losses that causes the team to use all of their 50+ NPI results.) (Max L = Maximum number of losses to their best opponents and stay above the at-large cut-line.)

Below is the St Norbert Schedule with their opponent’s 2024 NPI. St Norbert finished the 2024 season 147^th in NPI at 52.69 winning 19 matches. They were not close to the at-large cut-line. They lost in the NACC semi-finals so they did not receive their conference’s Automatic Qualifier (AQ). Their 2025 schedule uses all of the 22 allowed play dates and consists of 30 matches.

Here is their spread of opponents across the NPI range:

• 60+…1 opponents

• 55-60…3 opponents

• 50-55…10 opponents

• Less than 50…16 opponents

If you’ve been following along in this series or even if you have the short-term memory that enables you to recall the table from above, you’ll notice that the NPI spread is very different from what we’ve documented so far. St Norbert is only playing one elite team from 2024 and only 4 total from teams that were 55 NPI or higher. The next closest to that number from the teams we’ve covered was Calvin. This schedule also has, by far, the most low-NPI opponents. The next highest was, once again, Calvin at 11 versus the 16 we see above. It’s obvious that this schedule is going to grade out as the worst (from an NPI standpoint) that we’ve looked at but the thing to remember is that each program have their own set of goals. There are, obviously, the teams that are going for a national championship. We also have teams that are looking to make the NCAA Tournament through an AQ or at-large bid. Then, we have teams that are looking just for the AQ out of their conference. Lastly, there are the teams that are just trying to improve and really don’t have their sights set on the tournament. I would say that St Norbert is in that group of teams looking to win their AQ without really focusing on the at-large bid. I’ve talked to coaches in the past that have mentioned this approach but that was with the old selection criteria. There was definitely a thought process that some conferences would never receive a second bid. With NPI, should that change the thinking? The answer isn’t that easy because in some cases I think this is true but in the case of St Norbert (specifically), I think they may still be in a one-bid conference. (This really could be a different article but let’s hit it here…briefly.) NPI doesn’t do favors to teams that are locked into a lot of conference matches against opponents that won’t help their NPI. St Norbert will use 13 play dates for conference with 10 of those against opponents with low NPIs in 2024. That means they only get 3 matches that can get them to the cut-line but they spend 13 dates! They have to use the other 9 dates to get around 15 to 20 matches against 50+ NPI teams and that just isn’t possible. Remember, when playing tournaments, you don’t get to always select the opponents assigned to you. So, in this case, I really have no issue with what St Norbert is doing.

With this schedule, St Norbert has only 14 matches that will be useful when determining NPI. That is the lowest number from the teams we’ve looked at. Next lowest was, you guessed it, Calvin at 16. Remember, no team wants to start using the wins against the low NPI teams because it will drag their NPI towards or below the at-large cut-line.

Assuming St Norbert goes undefeated in 2025, their maximum NPI with this schedule is 66.40. That is the lowest number, so far, with them falling just over a point lower than Calvin. That maximum would be good for 9^th last season placing them outside the Top 8.

Next, we’ll look at their “Loss n” number which is the result when we assign losses to every match where they play a team that was above the at-large cut-line last year. For this schedule, that would give them 3-losses (Gallaudet, UW-Stevens Point and UW-Oshkosh) and result in a 27-3 record. Their NPI would be 59.67, which would have been 0.05 points above the 2024 at-large cut-line. To get that number, St Norbert will have to use all of their remaining good wins (11 total) to compensate.

Say goodbye to “Loss a” as I’ll drop it for the next analysis. This was meant to show you the NPI when a team had to use all of their good NPI wins but that typically has to happen for “Loss n”, as is the case for St Norbert.

When considering the maximum losses a team can afford while still being above the 2024 at-large cut-line, I simply switch their next best win to a loss. For St Norbert, we are already there because if I switch the next win to a loss, the team falls below the cut-line. This means their maximum number of losses they can absorb and still get about the anticipated cut-line is 3. This is smallest number of losses we’ve seen so far in this series.

Let’s look at the table from the top and include St Norbert.

We definitely have a different schedule here, but it’s not that far from what Calvin is doing. Calvin having more teams scheduled that were 55+ means they have a higher ceiling and a little more wiggle room. With St Norbert, however, they are the first team encountered that only has to beat one team that finished with a 55+ NPI and still make the at-large cut-line. Think about that because this is where I have a big problem with NPI. Should a team that receives just one Quality Win Bonus (QWB) receive an at-large bid? I think this is an easy “no” but the NPI powers to be disagree. There appears to be an easy solution championed by “Ned” who has found that increasing the QWB multiplier favors teams that play a tougher schedule. Hopefully, we’ll see that change in the future. Until that time, we can’t blame teams for stumbling into this NPI loophole.

Alright, now it’s time to hear from St Norbert Head Coach BJ Bryant right after more annoying words from me.

I would love to wave a magic wand and replace five of those low NPI matches to matches in the 55 to 60 range. That would change this schedule to be slightly better than what Calvin put together. Saying that, I would guess that Coach Bryant would agree with me. The problem is that you can’t pick and choose your opponents and he’s really hamstrung by the quality of his conference. Their schedule last season had an Opponent’s NPI of 0.514 while this season it’s at 0.498 so it’s a bit weaker. I’ve mentioned how teams should target teams in the NPI range that St Norbert is in but you also have to be worried about these types of opponents. Last season the Green Knights took sets off of UW-Stevens Point, St Olaf, Dubuque, WashU and Chicago. They always seem to have the ability to bite someone and that becomes an NPI killer to an unsuspecting opponent counting on a win. St Norbert will be losing about 30% of their offense so they should be in decent shape to have another strong season but with this schedule, it will probably be AQ or bust with regards to the NCAA Tournament.

Now, to the questions and answers:

Question: How much did NPI go into the thought process of constructing your 2025 schedule?

Answer: “NPI plays a role as we do look to schedule as many quality opponents as we possibly can. We have a number of tournament teams from 2024 on the schedule including UW-Oshkosh, UW-Stevens Point, Gallaudet, and Maine Maritime including some others with quality NPI numbers.”

Question: Were there teams you avoided playing because of NPI?

Answer: “Not specifically, but it’s somewhat difficult with away multi-match events where we don’t have a ton of say over who we get to play outside of the host school.”

Question: Did you find that teams were more willing to play you this season because your NPI would be helpful to your opponents if they managed to beat you?

Answer: “We are fortunate that teams are willing to play us due to our number being relatively neutral in NPI. To date, we have not had any opponents decline a match due to our NPI number (at least openly).”

Question: When constructing your schedule, are you thinking about an at-large bid and whether the schedule will get you there or really just trying to put your team in position for your AQ?

Answer: “The NACC has only had an at-large NCAA selection one time in the league’s history (to the best of my knowledge). It is my hope that we can build a schedule to put us into the conversation for an at-large in the event we can win a decent portion of our “good” non-conference matches along with all the others that we “should” win. However, due to the size of our league (14 teams) and the poor NPI numbers for the bottom 1/2-1/3 of the group, it becomes a math problem that doesn’t work out in our favor. Unfortunately, our only realistic hope for an NCAA bid is via the league AQ.”

Question: You scheduled 6 non-conference opponent’s that were below 50 NPI last year. Was there any concern that these teams really can’t help you when it comes to NPI?

Answer: “Again, several of the opponents were assigned to us without any input from me. Due to the fact our number takes such a big hit with teams in the league who schedule zero or only a few strong NPI opponents it’s something that will be a roadblock for 2025 and future seasons, unfortunately. I think it’s also important to balance the schedule a bit to have a mix of non-conference opponents to, hopefully, make sure that we get some wins and build some momentum heading into the NACC schedule.”

This was my first interaction with my newest BFF in Coach Bryant. I really thank him for his insight and describing some of the issues they face when scheduling.

That’s our sixth baseline in the system as we search for the perfect NPI schedule. I definitely want to do a rebuilding team that doesn’t have the NCAA Tournament as a realistic goal. These are teams that may be getting avoided by other teams. I will, of course, also look at a few more traditional tournament teams.

Remember to visit the D3VbWest Store for the merch you had no clue you needed! Remember, Father’s Day is right around the corner. There is no reason to give him another dumb gift!