Got into a spirited chat with a couple of Northridge fans on twitter who seemed to take exception to my bellyaching about the near MPSF whitewash in today’s AVCA coaches’ poll. Unfortunately, I had a few errands to run so I had to leave the discussion rather abruptly, and I do feel a little bad about that. But moreover, I don’t fancy compressing what I have to say into 140 characters at a time, so here’s a full post on the matter.
Look, you’ll get no argument from me that the MPSF is the strongest conference. If it’s not BYU, LBSU, or UCI hoisting the trophy in two months’ time (exactly two months, as it happens), it’ll be a major upset. Frankly, it’ll be a pretty big upset if it’s not an all-MPSF final. MPSF teams are better than MIVA and EIVA teams top to bottom, but this does not and can not mean that the bottom of the MPSF (the very bottom) is better than the near top of the MIVA and EIVA. For goodness sakes, UC San Diego got votes in this week’s poll. That tells me that at least 2 voters (you need to be on 2 ballots to be named in RV) had the whole entire MPSF in their rankings. That’s just lunacy.
I’m not a big follower of college basketball, but I know enough to know that arguments like this used to be made about the Gonzaga basketball team. Oh, sure, they’ve got a great record, but who have they played. Nobody! Those wins don’t even count as wins! If they were really an elite team, they’d win by 30, not just 15! Put them in the ACC/Big East/Big Ten/whatever, and they get slaughtered!! 15-1 in the WCC can’t compare to 5-11 in the ACC!
It doesn’t seem like anyone’s making those claims anymore. I don’t know. Maybe this is a spurious comparison (I freely admit I don’t know a lot about basketball). But I just don’t like winning becoming so meaningless. I’m willing to bend a little. I was willing to buy into the idea that a 4-7 Hawaii team, who had suffered many close losses to the top teams in the nation, belonged in the conversation. But a now 5-12 Hawaii team, fresh off two home losses against Northridge (and they’re a good team, but Northridge at home is not Irvine on the road)? No. You win only 5 out of 17 matches, you’re not one of the top teams in the nation. Love ya Warriors, but you shouldn’t be ranked.
Winning has to mean something. If BYU were in the EIVA or MIVA, would their dominance over teams like NJIT and Rutgers, or Quincy and Lindenwood, mean “nothing” the way that Penn State’s or Lewis’ such dominance does? Balderdash. Again, I think BYU probably would comfortably defeat Penn State (though they carry a home loss to Lewis), but I don’t think UC San Diego or Pacific would. Who is to say if Penn State were in BYU’s place that they wouldn’t have done as well? All right, they probably would not have done equally as well, but they would not be doormats of the conference, I promise you that.
Would UCSD and Pacific have better records in the EIVA or MIVA? It’s possible. I know a lot of people are going to point to Pacific’s sweep of George Mason and UCSD’s win over Lewis as evidence that the MPSF conquers all, but I don’t know how much stock you can put into the first matches of a season (and particularly in Lewis’ case as they were battling injuries early in the year). Seems like the prevailing opinion is that the MPSF champion is all but anointed NCAA champion right then and there. The other two conferences aren’t just playing for medals of participation.
Maybe that’s not controversial. Maybe my feelings that the same would be true of Princeton or George Mason are. I just can’t imagine how their wins mean less in terms of national esteem than losses for the UCSDs, Pacifics, and Hawaiis of the world. A team can only play the teams they play, and in a low-revenue sport like men’s volleyball, I can’t imagine non-conference scheduling could be as simple as getting on the phone and “Hey, we’d like to play you next season.” You have to give a team credit for achieving well on the task set before them. The counter-argument to that, of course, is that 5-12 for Hawaii constitutes performing well on the task set before them, but I just don’t agree with that.
And now I’m going to completely contradict myself, after writing 750 words on the topic, by saying that none of this really matters. We’re talking about the lower reaches of the AVCA poll. None of these teams are gonna be playing for a national championship. It’s just kind of a ‘feel-good’ thing to have a number next to your name. Frankly, if the poll wanted to be meaningful, it really ought to just be a top 10 poll. Top 15 is half the teams in the three major conferences (13+8+8), so unless a Carolina Conference team gets in there it seems a little hollow an achievement to be named as top-half of the nation.
But I won’t lose any sleep about it. It is what it is.
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