AVCA Rankings--October 8, 2018

[carrolltonsker]

We dropped from 3rd to 5th after the loss to Minnesota.

AVCA COACHES
Through Games OCT. 1, 2018
RANK SCHOOL TOTAL POINTS ADJUSTED 2018 RECORD PREVIOUS RANK
RANK SCHOOL TOTAL POINTS ADJUSTED 2018 RECORD PREVIOUS RANK
1 BYU (60) 1596 16-0 1
2 Stanford (4) 1539 14-1 2
3 Minnesota 1447 12-2 5
4 Texas 1406 10-3 4
5 Nebraska 1365 14-2 3
6 Pittsburgh 1209 17-0 8
7 Illinois 1158 15-2 7
8 Wisconsin 1153 11-3 6
9 Penn State 1135 13-3 9
10 Creighton 991 14-4 10
11 Florida 971 15-3 11
12 Cal Poly 885 16-1 13
13 Michigan 769 15-2 16
14 Oregon 713 11-5 20
15 Southern California 681 12-5 12
16 Kentucky 630 10-4 18
17 Purdue 581 14-3 14
18 Washington 509 12-4 15
19 Marquette 501 14-4 19
20 UCLA 418 8-5 17
21 Washington State 413 13-3 22
22 Louisville 213 13-4 25
23 Arizona 161 14-4 21
24 Baylor 95 10-6 23
25 Arizona State 72 13-5 NR

Others receiving votes and listed on two or more ballots: Northern Iowa 39; Tennessee 30; South Carolina 20; Colorado 19; Cincinnati 18; Utah 16; Kansas 10; Iowa 7; Missouri 7; Loyola Marymount 6; Texas Tech 4; Pepperdine 2

Six teams mentioned on only one ballot for a total of 11 combined points.

Dropped Out: Utah 24

https://www.ncaa.com/rankings/volleyball-women/d1/avca-coaches

 

[Undertow]

The drop of Big Red to 5th was about right and to be expected. I was glad to see Minnesota jump past UT@SUCKS, but unfortunately Nebraska fell below the Shorthorns.

BYU actually lost a set in their CONFERENCE THAT SUCKS, but did win both their matches. The Inexplicably Ranked (no more) Toreros of San Diego actually pushed the Latter Day Saints to a 4th set. The Color Cardinal won the Mountain Range swing and beat Utah and Colorado. Texas beat Iowa State and TCU but were pushed to 5 sets in Fort Worth.

I must admit in making an error in predicting the top 10 in an earlier post. I indicated that Wisconsin had won both of their matches for the week. That is factually false. While they did beat the Illini on Wednesday, they turned around and lost to Iowa in 5 sets at Iowa City. The Hawkeyes Cali Hoye (she is the unheralded outside that is just this year, as a junior, starting to contribute) had 70 swings and 30 kills. Someone was jacked up.

Sooooo……..with Illinois and the Badgers losing last week, unbeaten Pittsburg moved up to 6th, followed by the Illini, Wiskey, and The Cult that is Penn State. The B1G still maintains 5 team in the top 10. Creighton had easy straight set wins over Seton Hall and St. Johns and remained at 10. Expect Pittsburg to continue to move up the rankings as they have only one ranked opponent remaining on their schedule (Louisville on Oct 21st).

Florida remained at 11 for what seems like over a month and, like Kentucky, are undefeated in SEC play. Both matches this week went 5 sets though (aTm and Georgia). Kentucky is gradually moving up and now sits at 16. Florida and Kentucky play only once this year, at Lexington. Again, the only remaining ranked match either plays the remainder of the season.

12 through 25 again had a lot of movement because of PAC-12 results. Cal Poly continues to dominate their weak conference (The Big West) and they moved up to 12. Michigan beat Purdue in straight sets, then beat Indiana in 5 and moved up to 13. Purdue split with the Michigan schools and dropped from 14 to 17. After losing at home to the Arizona schools last week, this week Oregon beat both the SoCal teams on the road in straights. Go figure. They jumped from 20 to 14. USC had a split, as did Washington and UCLA. All three teams dropped 3 spots in the poll. Inexplicably Washington State won both matches on the road with the Arizona schools, and moved up a grand total of 1 spot, 22 to 21. By beating Washington, ASU moved into the top 25 replacing another PAC-12 team, Utah, which lost to Stanford in 4 (expected), and lost to Cal in 5 (huh?) both at home. Utah is 1 – 5 in conference and is playing itself out of a Tournament Bid. The end result is that PAC-12 still has 7 teams in the 11-25 range.

It appears that the B1G will maintain 5 teams in the top 10 until one of them hits the 5 or 6 loss threshold. Then a team like Creighton, Florida, or even Cal Poly may move past them if they remain undefeated in their conference play. Overall the PAC-12 has 8 teams and the B1G has 7 teams in the top 25. No other conference has more than two.

Next up for Big Red is Indiana which lost to both Michigan schools on the road in 5 sets. At the weekly presser today, Coach Cook indicated that he threw up in his mouth a few times watching the Minnesota replay. He delved into the inconsistent passing game, but didn’t mention much on the service game, except that Minnesota wasn’t stressed often.

I still don’t understand how this team can only get 1 service ace the whole game. I CAN understand having a poor ratio of aces to errors but I’m having difficulty remembering a match, even a three setter, where Nebraska didn’t have at least 6 aces. I also don’t understand how Foecke can be so off in so many aspects of her game (serve, block, dig, & pass). Even in the Florida match where she struggled a bit offensively, the remainder of her game was solid.

Regardless, the Indiana match is at home on Wednesday, the last home match before a ridiculous 4 game road swing. The schedule says it’s on BTN. Let’s hope the Gopher match was a one off, and the girls come out dialed in and beat the Hoosiers in straights.