Big 12 Gains Ground on Big Ten in Latest NCAA Conference Rankings

The Pac-12 Conference remains on top of the VolleyMob RPI Conference Power Rankings, with their teams averaging a rank of 43rd nationally out of 334 Division I women’s programs.

The Pac-12 have been the highest-rated conference in each of the 3 versions of these power rankings, though in each case they’ve given ground back to the Big Ten Conference (though the Big Ten also slipped this week).

The Big 12 continues to rise despite only having 2 teams ranked in the top 25 of either the AVCA Coaches’ Poll (Texas and Kansas) or the RPI rankings (Texas and Kansas State). The conference’s strength doesn’t lie in its top-end power, like the Big Ten and Pac-12 have; rather it’s in the conference’s depth. Each of the conference’s 9 teams (Oklahoma State doesn’t sponsor volleyball) is ranked in the top 120 programs in the country, and only 1 has a losing record. That lone exception is Texas Tech, and even they were 10-5 when Big 12 play started (and have gone 0-7 since).

That, combined with several programs playing challenging out-of-conference schedules, have lifted the conference’s overall ranking.

The ACC continues to be the lowest-ranked of the “Power 5” conferences – they were jumped by the Big East and slid back down to 9th in the latest standings.

• See Week 7 Conference Power Rankings here.