Whoopsie doodle, I kinda forgot new polls came out…yesterday now.
The top 12 in the D-I poll are all precisely the same as last week. Minnesota has been #10 since approximately forever. Louisville and Dayton move up, at the expense of the two West Coast Conference teams that lost this past week, those being San Diego and BYU. Another big gainer is Kansas, who have come a bit out of nowhere as of a few weeks ago to now look like one of the stronger teams in the nation. They’re at #17. Purdue tumbles to #21 with their struggles this past week. Illinois at last falls from the poll after their rough straight-sets home loss to Nebraska. The team that takes their place at #25? Well hello there fourth West Coast Conference team in the rankings. That’s right, St. Mary’s breaks into the top 25. They play Santa Clara this week in a critical match for both sides. Whoever wins has the inside track to an at-large tournament bid, because this league’s getting at least four and may even get five bids. They’re that strong this year.
The full Division I poll is here.
Over on the D-II side, the big result of the week is Tampa’s four-set loss to West Florida. West Florida are no slouches, entering that match at #22 in the nation, but when you’re #2 in the land, more is expected of you (apparently). The Spartans fall four places to #6. Three NSIC teams fill the top five, with Southwest Minnesota State remaining number one with 28 of 32 first-place votes, Concordia-St. Paul #2 with three first-place votes, and Minnesota-Duluth rounding out the top five behind Washburn and Nebraska-Kearney. Someone still stubbornly has BYU-Hawaii at the top of his or her poll, despite the rest of the votes leaving the Seasiders just #8 overall. And yes, my Western Washington Vikings were finally rewarded in the polls. After two dominant home wins this past week, our girls move up from #15 to #12. Central Washington slipped only a single place to #22. There’s no doubt in my mind that both WWU and CWU are NCAA tournament teams. We’ll see if the selection committee agrees.
No one dropped out of the D-II poll this week. It is available in its entirety here.
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