Very little changed on the D-I side. No one dropped out of the poll, and only a few teams moved much. The big result of the week was Stanford’s five-set win over Oregon, to hand the Ducks their first loss of the season. It deprives us of what could have been a potential matchup of unbeatens next week, as Washington remains undefeated following easy wins at Utah and Colorado. Stanford is one of the big gainers this week, moving up from #7 to #4, past conference-mates Oregon, USC, and UCLA. Surprisingly, Oregon still garnered one first-place vote in this poll. They fall from a tie for #2 down to #5. Numbers 8 through 10 remain precisely the same for the third week in a row.
Penn State remains #1, though they needed a full five sets to defeat Illinois. They play at home this week against Purdue and Indiana, and probably shouldn’t have much trouble with either. Purdue especially is a team on the ropes. They didn’t win a set this week, being swept first by Nebraska, which is fine. Nebraska’s a national powerhouse, and Purdue is a team that would have to depend on a hot run through the NCAA tournament to have any championship aspirations, and not simply hope for such a run. But then they got swept by Iowa? Iowa, who came into the match 9-9 on the season and just 1-4 in the Big Ten? Iowa, who had not won at Purdue in twelve years? In a sport where colossal upsets are as rare as the phrase suggests they should be, that’s one of the biggest ones in some time. Purdue was #12 last week, and they fell to #17 this week — I’d say the voters were merciful.
Over in the West Coast Conference, after San Diego defeated St. Mary’s in four sets, they then did the same with the suddenly-freefalling Pepperdine, extending their winning streak to 11 matches (the last 7 of which have all been 3-1) and keeping them undefeated in a very strong volleyball conference. But alarm bells have to be going off for Pepperdine. They were #14 three weeks ago — they are now #24. If they don’t get their act together, they will be giving the NCAA selection committee a hard time when considering them. Particularly with San Diego, BYU, and now St. Mary’s doing so well. After showing competitively against San Diego, the Gaels held their home court against Loyola Marymount, and have moved up from sixth in ‘also receiving votes’ to third. They’re still quite a long way from being ranked, but it’s also quite a long way from where they were just two short weeks ago.
You can view the complete D-I poll here.
There was a tad bit more movement on the D-II side. Former #22 Sonoma State dropped out of the poll, following two losses on their home court and are now fifth in ‘also receiving votes.’ Ouch. The new team in the rankings is the Northwood (Michigan) Timberwolves, coming off their eighth straight conference win.
Nebraska-Kearney quite deservedly remain #1 in the nation, as the only undefeated team, but it is not unanimous. Two votes went to NSIC teams, Southwest Minnesota State, and despite their three losses, Concordia-St. Paul still gained one as well. My WWU Vikings move up two notches to #14, though that probably has more to do with losses sustained by Grand Canyon and Wheeling Jesuit than our girls’ two wins up in Alaska. Our nemeses Central Washington move up to #22, making for a potential for a very exciting night of volleyball Thursday next week when the two teams square off for the second time.
You can view the complete D-II poll here.
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