It was a busy first week in NCAA men's season. Unfortunately, I missed most of it. A combination of real-life intrusions into volleyball watching (the audacity of things like work to intrude upon volleyball!) and some technical issues kept me from writing up any more than the season-opener. But let's get caught up.
I have to start in the Midwest, where three MIVA schools played host to some of the MPSF's elite. The season kicked off with the Lewis Flyers hosting the two-time defending champion UC Irvine Anteaters, a match I thankfully did see and write up. It wasn't the best-executed volleyball, at least not on the offensive side, but ask any coach — an ugly win beats a pretty loss any time, so I'm sure UCI coach David Kniffin left the arena that night more satisfied than not with his team's four-set win.
The next stop for the Anteaters was Loyola, host site of this year's national semifinals and final. No doubt that fact drew some of Loyola's early-season non-conference opponents to make the trip east.
The Ramblers got their season off to a huge start this week, defeating the Anteaters in five grueling sets. Home court or not, early season or otherwise, that's a huge win, and the week only got better for Loyola. The very next night, they swept aside last season's other national finalists, the BYU Cougars. It had people talking that they could be the new #1 in the next national poll, but the four-set loss to USC the next night (which I tried to watch, but technology wouldn't cooperate) probably keeps that from happening.
Who's #1 now? Who knows. For UCI's part, they closed out their Midwest road trip with a sweep win over Ball State. National polls are usually a measure of "who lost least recently," so the conventional wisdom would be that the Anteaters will lose that ranking. But with how turbulent the first week was all around (more on that later), honestly, who knows? I'm fairly sure they'll still at least get some votes.
There was a big party out in California at the UCSB Asics Invitational. I perhaps characterised this event a little inconsistently in my preview pieces, as all but one of its matches were non-counters. Indeed, they aren't even regulation matches, in the event's pool play — it's best 2 of 3 (to 25, 25, and 15), to accommodate playing four of them in one day. It allows for lots of experimentation in terms of positions and matchups, and chances to play opponents you otherwise wouldn't.
Those matches I don't so much care about; they're great fun for the people in attendance and a chance, as said, for coaches to tinker a little, but there's ample reason why they don't count. That was on Friday. On Saturday, everyone played crossover matches, under regulation rules, and these do count. The top teams in each pool played each other, likewise the second-ranked, third-ranked, fourth-ranked, and fifth-ranked.
The ninth-place match featured Pacific against Cal-State Northridge. Each of them lost all their pool play matches, but Pacific managed to leave Santa Barbara with a victory in their back pockets, defeating the Matadors in four. For seventh place, there was a matchup I would have loved to see in person, as it pitted Stanford against UCLA. The Cardinal prevailed in this one, also in four sets. The fifth-place match featured Cal Baptist against the MIVA's IPFW. The Volleydons emerged victorious, once again in four sets. For third place, the homestanding Gauchos gave the crowd a thrill, dispatching with the UCSD Tritons in a sweep. The championship final was Harvard against Long Beach State, with the 49ers winning the title.
I generally don't talk about polls or national rankings until a few weeks into the season, and this week is a good example of why. You just don't know yet. You need some basis on which to make your rankings. Now, I get that there will always be for-realsies national polls before the season and in the early weeks. Schools like to be able to puff out their chests about having a number next to their name. I get that. But you've got to take it all with a pretty healthy pinch of salt (not to say you wouldn't at all other times, either).
That said, this was the inaugural AVCA poll for the 2014 season:
1. UC Irvine (9)
2. UCLA (3)
3. BYU (4)
4. Long Beach State (1)
5. Stanford (1)
6. Pepperdine
7. Loyola
8. UC Santa Barbara
9. Penn State
10. Lewis
11. USC
12. Ohio State
13. Hawaii
14. Cal State Northridge
15. Cal Baptist
Boldfaced teams played and didn't lose any counting matches, italicised teams didn't play. So do Long Beach or Stanford make the jump to #1? Probably, but I'd expect it to be even closer in tomorrow's poll than in the preseason rankings, and maybe with an even wider constellation of first-place votes.
For what(ever) it's worth, my own rankings for this season will go only 10-deep. There's a certain logic to emulating the most widely-disseminated national poll, but last season I really struggled going 15 deep, and wound up naming teams I thought had no business being ranked. Fifteen teams is nearly half the number of teams sponsoring the sport at the National Collegiate level, and many of those will (rightfully) never sniff the rankings, at least not this season. I don't feel we need the whole entire MPSF to be nationally ranked, and I think a rankings list to 10 is more meaningful. I believe the AVCA rankings used to only go to 10, but were expanded to be more inclusive. That's nice, I guess. They don't really mean anything anyway.
Onward we go to another full schedule this week. Pretty much everyone will have gotten underway by this time next week (the notable exception being Princeton). Crossing my fingers and toes to hope I'm around for more of it.
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