My guess of the top 10 proved to be a lucky one with Nebraska ending up 9th as predicted. The coaches appear to grade on 3 curves in conference play. The B1G curve whereas if as long as you lose to a fellow top 5 or top 10 opponent, you stay in the top 10. The PAC-12 curve where if your nickname isn’t a color, as long as you don’t tank on consecutive weekends (i.e. go 0-4 in matches), we’ll find a spot somewhere in the 14 to 25 range. For everyone else, it’s the Your Conference SUCKS curve, where one loss can have a significant impact on your rankings.
Speaking of crappy conferences, BYU won their matches in the Weak Coast Conference. They won both matches in straights. However, Loyola Marymount AND Pepperdine BOTH won moral victories by scoring 20 points or more in a set against the Cougars. Pepperdine actually pushed a set to deuce and the Lions did one better by pushing a set to deuce and scoring 21 in another set to grab a first place tie in crappy conference moral victories at 2.
Stanford beat the Oregon schools on the road, including a solid 4 set victory over Oregon after losing the 1st set. Pittsburgh beat Louisville in 4 at home in the ONLY meeting of ranked teams in the ACC for the entire conference season. The Panthers moved up to 5.
5 teams remain in the top 10 for the B1G. Nebraska losing twice pushed them to the back of the 5 team line. The other 4 teams won twice resulting in Minnesota and Penn State staying at 3 and 4 with Illinois moving up 1 to 6th and Bucky hopping over the Shorthorns to move up to 7th.
And speaking of UT@SUCKS, they only had 1 match this week, but it was a decent sweep over Texas Tech and they remained ranked 8th nationally. The other ranked teams in the Big 12 had less than spectacular weeks. After Kansas took the conference lead, they promptly got beat by Kansas State in 4 at the Little Apple, THEN got swept at home by Iowa State. Baylor also had only 1 match and they wet the bed at home by losing to Kansas State in straights. Both Baylor and Kansas dropped out of the top 25 into the RV category.
I had predicted the status quo from 10 to 13 for another week but Florida had other intentions. Creighton won both matches to remain at 10 although yet another conference team, Xavier, took them to 5. The Bluejays play Marquette, the only other ranked team in the Big East (at 18th by the way), on Friday the 26th in Milwaukee. Marquette’s only loss in conference was to Creighton earlier in the year. This match is to determine whether Creighton is the champion or co-champion of the conference and will go a long way in determining whether they get the first two matches in the NCAA’s at home. Florida, on the other hand, had been playing with fire by going 5 sets in 3 of the previous 4 matches. They finally got burned at home by Missouri in 5. That dropped the Gators to 13. This allowed Cal Poly and Michigan to move up 1, even though Michigan halved their week by beating Northwestern and losing to 6th ranked Illinois in 5 sets. Kentucky follows Florida at 14 and Missouri enters the rankings at 24. Note the only other ranked B1G team, Purdue, remained at 17th even though they won both matches.
Then we have the amorphous assortment of PAC-12 teams littering 15 through 23. In summary: Stanford, Arizona, and Washington State went 2-0; Oregon State, Arizona State, and Washington went 0-2; the remaining 6 teams where 1-1. This resulted in USC ranked at 15 (down one), Oregon 16 (the same), Washington State 19 (up 4), UCLA 20 (no change), Washington 21 (down two), and Arizona 23 (up two).
The PAC-12 has 7 teams with the concentration of six teams in the 15 to 23 range, while the B1G also has 7 teams with the concentration of six teams in the 3 to 12 range. The SEC now has 3 teams ranked, with Missouri literally being one loss away from being unranked again. All other conferences have 2 or less ranked teams.
As was pointed out last week by couple of people on the forum, the RPI is a mess with teams like Central Florida, playing in a secondary conference like the AAC, ranked at 9, while Penn State and Nebraska are 14 and 15. The top B1G team is Illinois at 3. I realize the selection committee uses the RPI in some fashion to select and rank teams for the NCAA tournament, but they should follow basketball and just scrap it. It really is a useless tool.
The Fightin’ Schwarzenbachs travel to Columbus to face the Buckenidiots on Wednesday. tOSU has a good conference win over Penn State, but lately they have returned to earth, as it were. Ohio State enters action at 3 – 7 in B1G play, but seem to play better at home. The Huskers have had problems with tOSU teams in the past, but typically those teams were at least ranked. I think the Huskers dispatch the Buckenidiots handily, but it may go 4 since it is in Columbus.
