NCAA Releases First RPI Rankings of 2017 Men’s Season

  0 Braden Keith | March 30th, 2017 | Big West, College - Men's Indoor, Conference Carolinas, EIVA, Independents, MIVA, MPSF, News, Rankings

The NCAA has released its first RPI rankings of the 2017 men’s indoor volleyball season, and the Ohio State Buckeyes are on top. The rankings were compiled before the Buckeyes’ recent loss to #13 Penn State, however, so either BYU or Long Beach State could leap-frog them in next week’s results.

The RPI system, used in basketball, baseball, softball, hockey, soccer, lacrosse, and volleyball, is designed to help committees select teams for the 64-team NCAA tournament as well as the seeding of those teams once they get there.

The index comprises a team’s winning percentage (25%), its opponents’ winning percentage (50%), and the winning percentage of those opponents’ opponents (25%).

As compared to the AVCA polls, the RPI rankings are not voted on, but instead are calculated mathematically. The intent is to create a more objective ranking to juxtapose the subjectivity of the AVCA poll, though by their nature there is still some subjectivity as to which numbers matter more than others in their calculations.

The MPSF holds 5 of the top 6 spots in the latest RPI Rankings, which means that the 2 at-large slots available for the 6-team NCAA tournament will likely go their way. The only upset to that could be if someone other than Ohio State wins the MIVA.

So deep is the MPSF, with 11 teams in the top 19 in the RPI, that it’s likely at least one team ranked in the top 15 won’t even make their conference tournament. That bottle neck should be at least partially alleviated next season when the Big West begins sponsoring men’s volleyball, which will break up the MPSF a little bit.

The currrent top-ranked team in the EIVA is those Penn State Nittany Lions, who rank 13th with a 13-9 record. That will climb next week after their upset win. The top team in Conference Carolinas is 24-2 King at #23.

All 43 teams in the NCAA’s Divisions I and II are ranked, including the four non-affiliated independent teams – led by Concordia at #29.

The full RPI rankings are below:

RANK SCHOOL CONFERENCE RECORD ROAD NEUTRAL HOME NON DIV I
1 Ohio St. MIVA 23-1 9-0 0-0 14-1 0-0
2 BYU Mountain Pacific 21-3 8-1 0-0 13-2 0-0
3 Long Beach St. Mountain Pacific 22-3 7-3 4-0 11-0 0-0
4 Hawaii Mountain Pacific 22-4 5-4 0-0 15-0 2-0
5 UC Irvine Mountain Pacific 16-6 9-3 1-0 6-3 0-0
6 UCLA Mountain Pacific 15-7 4-5 1-0 10-2 0-0
7 Lewis MIVA 19-6 8-4 0-0 11-2 0-0
8 Stanford Mountain Pacific 11-10 3-5 4-0 4-5 0-0
9 Southern California Mountain Pacific 11-12 3-8 0-1 8-3 0-0
10 Loyola Chicago MIVA 14-8 3-4 1-0 10-4 0-0
11 Ball St. MIVA 15-8 5-5 3-1 7-2 0-0
12 Pepperdine Mountain Pacific 8-10 4-5 0-0 4-5 0-0
13 Penn St. EIVA 13-9 5-5 1-1 7-3 0-0
14 Grand Canyon MIVA 15-9 7-5 0-0 6-4 2-0
15 UC Santa Barbara Mountain Pacific 10-12 1-7 1-0 8-5 0-0
16 UC San Diego Mountain Pacific 7-15 2-8 0-1 4-6 1-0
17 Princeton EIVA 10-10 2-8 1-1 7-1 0-0
18 Saint Francis (PA) EIVA 9-14 4-7 2-2 3-5 0-0
19 CSUN Mountain Pacific 12-14 2-6 3-2 4-6 3-0
20 NJIT EIVA 13-7 5-6 0-0 5-1 3-0
21 George Mason EIVA 10-11 4-8 1-0 5-3 0-0
22 Sacred Heart EIVA 12-7 1-5 0-0 11-2 0-0
23 King (TN) Conference Carolinas 24-2 9-1 0-0 11-1 4-0
24 Harvard EIVA 7-10 1-7 0-0 6-3 0-0
25 Barton Conference Carolinas 15-5 7-4 0-1 8-0 0-0
26 McKendree MIVA 9-16 3-9 1-2 5-5 0-0
27 Mount Olive Conference Carolinas 15-7 8-4 0-2 6-1 1-0
28 Fort Wayne MIVA 5-19 2-12 0-2 3-4 0-1
29 Concordia (CA) Independent 16-10 2-5 2-1 2-4 10-0
30 Limestone Conference Carolinas 9-8 3-4 0-0 6-3 0-1
31 Lindenwood (MO) MIVA 4-15 1-9 0-2 3-3 0-1
32 California Baptist Mountain Pacific 6-18 2-11 1-0 3-7 0-0
33 Quincy MIVA 5-18 1-6 1-3 2-6 1-3
34 Coker Independent 10-8 4-6 0-0 3-2 3-0
35 Charleston (WV) EIVA 11-13 4-6 0-0 1-7 6-0
36 North Greenville Conference Carolinas 7-14 3-8 0-0 4-6 0-0
37 Erskine Conference Carolinas 3-17 0-8 0-3 3-6 0-0
38 Lees-McRae Conference Carolinas 9-13 3-5 0-2 6-6 0-0
39 Alderson Broaddus Independent 4-14 2-7 0-0 1-5 1-2
40 Belmont Abbey Conference Carolinas 4-16 2-7 0-1 2-8 0-0
41 Lincoln Memorial Independent 9-15 0-7 0-0 4-5 5-3
42 Emmanuel (GA) Conference Carolinas 5-17 1-9 0-0 3-7 1-1
43 Pfeiffer Conference Carolinas 0-14 0-8 0-0 0-5 0-1

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About Braden Keith

Braden Keith

Braden Keith is the Editor-in-Chief and co-founder of VolleyMob.com. Braden's first foray into sports journalism came in 2010, when he launched a swimming website called The Swimmers' Circle. Two years later, he joined SwimSwam.com as a co-founder. Long huge fans of volleyball, when Braden and the SwimSwam partners sought an opportunity to …

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