In a small surprise, UC Irvine remain the #1 team in the land, though obviously the margin is much closer. They received 8 of 16 first-place votes. Stanford, the team I expected to take the top spot, are now #2, with seven first-place votes. BYU fall from #2 only to #3, in fact receiving a single first-place vote themselves. I suppose the message is that Stanford haven’t played any truly difficult competition yet. Our friends over at Off the Block suggest that Grand Canyon and George Mason, both of whom Stanford have played and beaten (the Cardinal are actually, and already, the only team who have played who have not yet lost a match) may well be solid squads this year, and I felt the same of George Mason watching them personally. But the AVCA voters, at least on majority decision, seem to disagree.
The same 15 teams are in the poll as last week — no one dropped out. In the post-match report after Hawaii’s terrific win over UCLA, some of their analysts said that the Warriors “had better be” ranked this week. I thought the notion patently absurd, but they’re actually the defacto “#16” this week, by appearing first in the “also receiving votes” section, ahead of Loyola.
Everyone in the top 15 has now played at least two matches. There are some EIVA teams whose seasons still haven’t begun yet, but Penn State are actually the only EIVA team in the top 15. I might have been wrong to suggest the MIVA were the weakest conference, because they at least have two of the top 15 in Ohio State and Lewis, who despite falling to 1-4 in a really poorly-played match Saturday night actually do move up a notch from last week, from #13 to #12.
You can view the complete poll here.
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
