The latest trio of rankings are out, as the MPSF and Big West continue their domination of the rankings for the west coast. The MIVA continues to garner a host of teams in the top 15 and 20 as well throughout, but are looking for someone like Ohio State and Loyola Chicago to jump into the top four.
| VM TOP 20 | VM AVG. RK | AVCA (15) | AVCA AVG. RK | RPI TOP 20 | RPI T20 AVG. RK | |||
| MPSF | 6 | 10.0 | 5 | 7.6 | 5 | 7.8 | ||
| MIVA | 6 | 10.5 | 5 | 10.4 | 6 | 12.2 | ||
| Big West | 5 | 6.6 | 5 | 6.0 | 5 | 7.2 | ||
| EIVA | 3 | 18.0 | 0 | — | 2 | 14.0 | ||
| Conf. Carolinas | 0 | — | 0 | — | 2 | 17.0 | ||
| Independents | 0 | — | 0 | — | 0 | — |
At this point the rankings tell us that whoever wins the EIVA and Conference Carolinas will likely be the #6 and #7 seeds in the NCAA Tournament, while the strength of the top three leagues means the two at-larges are almost a sure thing to come from there. Just based on the numbers, there is a great chance at least one and maybe both are from the west coast even. Even if they use an at-large to get a lower-seed, that could be important since the NCAA Tournament takes place in Los Angeles on the west coast, where they could have more of a friendly arena.
It’s unclear how much the committee utilizes strength of conference as opposed to just evaluating each team individually, but if so that west coast frenzy would definitely remain relevant, especially when looking at the RPI. In the VolleyMob rankings though – which are based on team resume and would be a good look at evaluating each team individually – the MIVA is a lot closer to the MPSF than the others. That should make for a great discussion, along with which conference is the best based on average ranking vs. quantity of teams in the polls.
Leave a Reply