I wanted to another ‘hypothetical vote’ post (it was fun, I think I’m gonna keep doing those), but I had way too good a night last night to be thinking about blogging. And it had nothing to do with the Super Bowl.
I knew today’s poll would be an interesting one, but I had no idea how cool it would be. I figured UC Irvine would re-gain the #1 national ranking, since they’ve kept winning while pretty much everyone else has lost in recent weeks. Well, they did regain the #1 ranking. But BYU didn’t lose it.
We have a tie atop the national rankings.
This is pretty neat, because both teams play twice this week. Doesn’t look like any of the four matches are broadcast or webcast, which is unfortunate, but it has me thinking how this tie will be broken (it can’t possibly be tied again next week, can it?) even if both win-win. Obviously, if either or both lose even once, they’ll stand a good chance of falling from the top of the mountain. It’s a shame they don’t play each other this week. UCI have Stanford and Pacific, BYU play Santa Barbara and UCLA. Home matches for the Cougars, road for the Anteaters, but it’s not like it’s a cross-country flight.
Long Beach State gain big this week, moving up from #7 up to #3, on the virtue of their five-set win over #1 BYU as well as a four-set triumph against California Baptist. Stanford slip from third to fourth, with their split over in Hawaii, and that’s probably fair. To my great satisfaction, the Warriors themselves attain a national ranking this week, sneaking into the poll at #13 overall. Santa Barbara slip from #12 to #15, but the team falling out of the rankings is UC San Diego, which is probably just. They, Loyola, and Princeton remain in the ‘also receiving votes’ category. Strangely, Ball State, the one team who haven’t lost yet, aren’t listed there. You have to be named on at least two ballots to wind up there, and at the bottom of the poll we find:
“One team mentioned on only one ballot for a total of four combined points.”
I suspect that team was probably the Cardinals.
You can view the complete poll here.
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