2017 Horizon League Volleyball Championship Tournament
- November 17th-19th, 2017
- Cleveland State University, Cleveland, Ohio
- Live Stream: WatchESPN.com
- Bracket
- Tournament Central
Two-time defending champions Cleveland State will host the 2017 Horizon League Volleyball Championship for the 3rd-straight year, as a result of winning the regular season conference title with a 13-3 record in conference play (20-7 overall).
With just one team, the hosts, in the top 100 RPI, the tournament winner will likely be the only bid to the NCAA Championship tournament in December. The league plays a 6-team bracket, with a pair of “play-in” games match #3 IUPUI vs. #6 Northern Kentucky and #4 Green Bay vs. #5 UIC for the right to play the top two seeds in the semi-finals.
Horizon League Tournament Team RPIs (By Seed)
- Cleveland State – #75
- Oakland – #108
- IUPUI – #102
- Green Bay – #127
- UIC – #162
- Northern Kentucky – #171
The host of the Horizon League tournament has won each of the last 6 tournament titles (in other words, the regular season champions do well in the tournament historically). After a rocky start to conference play for the Cleveland State Vikings, which saw them lose 3 of their first 5 Horizon League games, the team went on a roll and won their last 10 in a row. The dominance that the team has shown in the past 2 title-winning seasons hasn’t been there in those wins, however. In 2016, where the team went 14-2 in conference play, they gave up just 13 sets to Horizon League opponents, sweeping 9 games by 3-0 scores and taking both of their losses in tie-break sets. In 2015 they finished 13-3, giving up 19 sets.
In 2017, they finished 13-3 again but swept just 3 of their conference games (none of which came against the league’s top 5 teams), and gave up 23 sets. Oakland only gave up 22 sets this season, and had 4 sweeps.
They did lead the conference in hitting percentage (.254) and were 2nd in opponents’ hitting percentage (.196). They were also 3rd in blocks (2.16/set) and had two of the 3 most efficient hitters in the league (Alexis Middlebrooks and Gina Kilner).
The main contenders to prevent the 3-peat have to be the Oakland Grizzlies (the last team besides Cleveland State to represent the Horizon in the NCAA tournament, in 2014). Oakland has a similarly-slow start to conference play this season – they lost their first two Horizon League games, which capped off an overall 4-game losing streak After a 4-game homestand, though, which included beating Cleveland State 3-1, they were on a roll, losing just 2 of their last 14 (including a 3-2 drop in the revenge game to Cleveland State).
The Grizzlies were arguably the best team in the Horizon League this season – if it weren’t for two anomalous losses to Milwaukee. Milwaukee is the must successful team in the history of the Horizon League with 8 conference titles, but are in a down period, having gone just 5-11 in Horizon League play this year. The Grizzlies put 4 players onto all-Horizon League teams, including captain Sammy Condon earning her 4th all-league honor (first team) and senior Darien Bandel winning Conference Player of the Year honors. Bandel led the league with 4.81 points/set and 4.34 kills/set, and Krysteena Davis led the league, by far, with 1.44 blocks/set. Both rank in the top 25 nationally in those categories.
In their two matchups, which were split, Oakland’s block had big runs. In the first game, a 3-1 Oakland win, they out-blocked Cleveland State 14-5. In the 2nd, a 3-2 Cleveland State win, Oakland still held the edge in blocks 12.5-10. Neither team was able to get much going in their service game.
Oakland went early-and-often to Bandel in both games. She had 60 and 61 attacks, respectively, and wound up with over 20 kills in each game. In spite of their reliance on her, the team was not wholly dependent on her for offense – Jamie Walling had 240 kills and hit .299 this season.
Prediction
As long as Bandel is playing well, Oakland can, and should, be conference champions. And she has been playing well – averaging 4.86 kills/set with just 15 hitting errors over her last 3 games (.361 hitting percentage) in her last 3 games Bandel didn’t play well in last year’s conference tournament – she averaged only 2.6 kills/set and hit just .109 in 2 games. But that was her first real post-season experience as the focal-point of the Oakland offense. Now, with a full second season as the star under her belt, she should be ready for the biggest stage yet of her career.
We like Oakland to win the rubber match and get back to the tournament for the first time since this year’s seniors were freshmen.
Bracket
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