For the first time this season in the D-I poll, we’ve got a unanimous #1 (Concordia-St. Paul enjoyed a few weeks as the unanimous #1 in the D-II poll at the beginning of the season). Stanford received all sixty first-place votes, and it’s tough to argue that anyone else is even in the conversation. The Cardinal are 22-2, winners of 20 straight, a perfect 14-0 in the Pac 12 (no mean feat) and their only losses this season are in four sets to Hawaii and in a full five to Penn State. Eleven of their 22 wins have been sweeps. They do have return engagements with the LA schools still to play, and in SoCal this time, so they may not run the table in the conference. But the scary part is they still may. This is a damn good team, and they’ll surely be playing at home and in Berkeley come tournament time.
Obviously, Nebraska was the big loser of the week after their two losses to the Michigan schools. They fall five notches down to #9. Texas is once again getting a little respect in the poll, moving up four notches to #3. Hawaii have moved up from #9 to #7, though I suspect that’s more about the upsets sustained by the other teams toward the top of the poll than anything the Rainbow Wahine have done in the lowly Big West Conference. BYU also logged a good week, moving up three spots. There’s also movement at the bottom of the poll, as Miami and St. Mary’s both dropped out (though both still receive votes from multiple voters). The two new teams in the top 25 are #21 North Carolina (and that’s a long time coming, let me tell you) and #25 Creighton (who quietly have been pretty solid this season).
The full D-I poll is available here.
Not a lot changed on the D-II side. The top nine schools are the same and in the same order as last week, with NSIC powerhouses Southwest Minnesota State and, to be sure, Concordia-St. Paul continuing to lead the way. And still one voter has BYU-Hawaii topping their poll. I….I would like to meet this man or woman. This is just bizarre. Chances are excellent that the Seasiders will win out, so they’ll get that one vote next week and the week after as well (just two polls left on the D-II side). The one big loser on the D-II side is Indianapolis, coming off a pair of five-set road losses last week to mediocre competition. They drop from #10 to #15. For their part, my hometown Western Washington Vikings stay moored at #17 after sweeps at home this week against the Alaska schools. They have just one match this week, Senior Night this Saturday against Simon Fraser. The chances of WWU finishing off the regular season having swept every home match are extreme.
Two teams dropped out of the D-II poll just as two did on the D-I side. UC San Diego and Ferris State no longer have numbers next to their names. The new teams in the rankings are Arkansas-Fort Smith, and…well, would you look at that. For the first time since a 4-6 start knocked them out of the polls after three weeks (they didn’t even receive votes the fourth week), Cal State San Bernardino is back among the top 25. They’re 14-1 since that grotesque start, and are playing again like the team that was ranked #3 to start the season. And just in time, too.
The full Division II poll is available here.
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