Week 13 Preview (Weekend), And A Little Rant

This is the last weekend of the regular season, and although there are a couple other tournaments that may affect the tournament bubble, the focus is on the power conferences, their matchups, and the jockeying for seeding and titles.

• The premier conference in women’s college volleyball, the Pac-10, has four final matchups between teams in the AVCA Top 25, and a two-way tie for the conference title.  Washington, #4 in the poll, swept Oregon St. last night to forge a tie with Stanford for the lead.  They will end their regular season Friday night facing 18th-ranked Oregon at home.  Washington has won the last 17 matches against the Ducks.  They serve it up beginning at 9 CST.  I thank the University of Washington for offering the game up to watch online for free.
• Meanwhile, Stanford (6th in the poll), who have been chasing the Huskies all season, finish their year with the back half of the Big Spike.  The first half was their conference opener, and at Cal, they dropped a five-setter in front of a record-breaking crowd in Berkeley.  If the Cardinal defeat the Bears (12), they will at least share the title with Washington.  And since the two teams won their matchup at home, I don’t know who get the conference’s automatic bid.  The Big Spike is Friday night at 9; track here.
• One final gauntlet run in the Pac-10, and that falls on Arizona, who have to travel to Los Angeles.  The 19th-ranked Wildcats face UCLA (9) Friday afternoon at 5 (watch), then go up against USC (16) Saturday afternoon at 4 (track).
• By the way, all the ranked teams, all seven of them, should be able to make the postseason.  The bubble teams in the Pac-10 are Washington St. and Oregon St., and both teams lost to Oregon and Washington, respectively, Thanksgiving Eve, so they may be in big trouble.
• In case you don’t know, Penn St. has got the Big Ten as soon as they started playing the season.  They’ve won 94 straight matches, their seventh consecutive conference title, and will, with wins over Michigan St. and #12 Michigan, run the Big Ten table for the third year in a row.  The #1 Lady Lions play both squads at home.  The game against the Wolverines starts at 6 on Saturday; you can listen to the audio feed here.
• The other two ranked teams in the Big Ten will also square off in their last game of the season.  It’ll be Senior Night in Minneapolis as 13th-ranked Minnesota hosts #5 Illinois Saturday night at 7.  No free stream and I don’t think there’s a place you can track the match, but you can listen to it if you sign up here on the Gophers’ website.
• From my estimation, the bubble teams in the Big 10 are Northwestern, Purdue and Wisconsin.  The Wildcats have already lost to Illinois on Wednesday and must play at Minnesota Friday to finish their year.  The Boilermakers finish this weekend at Iowa and at Wisconsin, the Badgers’ last game of the regular season.
• Texas, right behind Penn St. in every single weekly poll this year, won the Big 12 title outright with their sweep of Oklahoma Wednesday.  The fight comes from the Sooners, Kansas and Missouri.  Unfortunately, their last games, all on Saturday, are on the road.  Worst of all, the Jayhawks must face the wrath of Senior Night at Texas.  Oklahoma has to go to uprising Iowa St.  At least the Tigers get unranked (though pretty good) Texas A&M.
• Finally, there is at least things going on in Women’s College Volleyball Nation right now: The Missouri Valley Conference Championship.  The first game of the conference tournament just kicked off live at Omaha, Neb. at 6 o’clock; details on the tourney here.  While Northern Iowa (20) is the number-one seed and an almost-lock for the NCAA regardless, scrutinize the 2-seed, Missouri St., and even 3-seed (and once-ranked team) Wichita St.  Both teams are on the bubble — though it’s debatable with the Shockers — so a win or two or three would help their postseason hopes a lot.

Finally, onto my rant.  If you look at Bo Rottenborn’s NCAA women’s volleyblog, you can see that of the 31 conferences in the sport, nine of them do not have end-of-season conference tournaments.  Of those, five of them are five of the BCS Six; the Big East has a conference tourney, won by Louisville.  Two of the remaining four are the West Coast and Big West Conferences, both of whom have some history of success with women’s volleyball, seeing that the sport has been dominated by Left Coast teams.  One of the leagues that doesn’t have a postseason tournament is the Ivy League, which doesn’t have them in any sport.  The only conference I don’t have an explanation for is the Mountain West.

Explanation for what, exactly?  The need for a postseason tournament.  Actually, when you look at it, a team’s fitness for the NCAA Tourney should be based only on what they did playing in the league, and no postseason conference set-up should skew those results.  But I’m sort of pleased that conferences known to churn out the best programs in women’s college volleyball don’t feel the need to make some or all the teams come together around Thanksgiving to play each other for potentially the third time in the year.  Tournament champions get the automatic bid, but power conferences will get multiple bids regardless; manipulating the ends of schedules just to goose the RPI rating of their best teams is overkill.  So I applaud these nine conferences for rewarding true conference achievement.

This also brings up another question: If five of the BCS Six don’t have tournaments in college volleyball, why do they (and all conferences except the Ivy) do it for college basketball?  It’s just as pointless for high-majors in that sport, yet they do it, which oftentimes only does nothing but get a marginal team an automatic bid and let coaches of teams that know they’re in regardless to rest their starters and play half-ass basketball (and don’t start with me on this; there is no good reason for tournament locks to play well in tourney games because they could get injured and miss the Big Dance, and they don’t play as hard).  So it’s the money, right?  The money they get from TV contracts is the reason they do it, otherwise the logistics and expense of renting and operating an arena that has to be less than full would not be worth it.  So why do it for women’s volleyball?  I love the sport, but there’s no money in it.  I can’t believe that any of the 22 conferences running a tournament are making enough money to justify it.  Why not just run a regular season without a tournament?

End of rant.  I can’t wait for Selection Sunday!

Week 12 Review; Week 13 (Sort Of) Preview — Midweek

The third-to-the-last AVCA poll is here.  The bottom line is the Top six teams are unchanged from last week: Penn St., Texas, Hawai’i, Washington, Illinois and Stanford.  Adding two from Iowa St., Nebraska and UCLA, and unless I’m going to get a nasty education come Selection Sunday, you’re looking at your top eight seeds for the NCAA Tournament right here.

We’ll get back to the other end of the tournament later, but first, the results of the weekend’s top matches:

• Two teams in the Pac-10, back-to-back with each other in last week’s and this week’s polls, were the teams facing Top 25 teams for both of their matches, and both of them ended the weekend with a split.  Oregon, staying at #18, were swept off their home court against USC (16, down a spot from last week) Friday night, 22-18-19.  On Saturday night’s game against UCLA (9, down two places) — which was also Senior Night — they continued their recent awful play, losing the first two sets.  But they turned it around miraculously, winning the match in five hard-fought sets.  That broke the Ducks’ losing streak at three, and the third-set win broke a string of six sets lost in a row.
• Arizona also lost their first game and won their second.  The Wildcats gave away the last two sets and lost to Stanford in five sets Friday night.  However, on Senior Day Sunday afternoon, they beat Cal (stable at #11) in four sets.
• Bo Rottenborn, the women’s volleyball blogger for the NCAA, points out in his blog that Florida had won the last 18 SEC conference titles.  But not 19; a loss Friday night at Tennessee put an end to a remarkable two-decade streak of dominance.  They did come back to defeat Kentucky at Kentucky in four sets Sunday.  That avenges an earlier loss by the Wildcats in Gainesville.  The Gators slip two spots to 15th in the AVCA.  Kentucky, staying level at #10, can claim the conference title with a win Wednesday night over the Lady Vols.
• As has happened all but once in Big 12 play, Texas completely crushed the team on the other side.  Baylor is a good team, yet they were still no match from being shamed off its own court Saturday night in a 18-18-23 sweep.  That loss pushes Baylor out of the AVCA Top 25.  Meanwhile, Texas can claim the conference crown by beating Oklahoma tonight.
• In the marquee matchup in the Big 10, Michigan did its seniors proud on their night, sweeping Minnesota, 23-14-25, Friday.  Outside Hitter Juliana Paz racked up a career-high 23 kills in that game, and she was named the AVCA Offensive Player Of The Week.  The match flip-flopped the two teams in the AVCA: the Wolverines rose two spots to 12th, while the Gophers slipped one to 13th.
• The team that replaced Baylor in this week’s poll: Dayton, appearing for the first time in the Top 25 this year, at #24.  The Flyers have won eight in a row, the last two coming in the Atlantic 10 Tournament.  They came back from two sets down in the championship match to defeat Saint Louis and take the conference’s automatic bid.

Let’s get down to the brass tacks and talk about the end of the selection process, namely the bubble teams that might have to sweat it out after eating turkey this weekend.  Cribbing liberally from Rottenborn again, he has identified the teams that dominate their mid- and low-major conferences and are good enough to merit at-large consideration if they somehow lost in their conference tournaments.  Well, there seemed to be a rash of upsets in last weekend’s tournaments, so that armageddon scenario has happened.  Some teams could, in my estimation, eff up like they did and still get in: Notre Dame, Saint Louis, and Florida International.  The other teams, the ones that weren’t able to finish and are thus fighting for space on the women’s volleyball bubble:

• Albany (current RPI: 63)
• Cincinnati (42)
• Furman (49)
• North Dakota St. (45)
• Tulane (32)

The following teams have RPI’s inbetween 41 and 69, which I’m estimating is the cutoff for the last teams to be invited into the Tournament.  If that’s the case, and I could be totally off on this, the following schools will have to sweat it out until 2 p.m. CST Sunday because the teams listed above didn’t win their conference tournament.  The bubble teams, listed in alphabetical order by conference:

• Atlantic 10: Xavier (current RPI: 62)
• ACC: Miami (47), Georgia Tech (50), Clemson (57), North Carolina (64)
• Big 12: Oklahoma (48), Kansas (56), Missouri (58)
• Big East: Pittsburgh (44), South Florida (54)
• Big 10: Purdue (55), Northwestern (59), Wisconsin (66)
• Big West: UC-Santa Barbara (46), UC-Irvine (69)
• CAA: Delaware (52)
• CUSA: Southern Miss (61), Tulsa (67)
• MAC: Western Michigan (68)
• MVC: Missouri St. (51)
• MWC: New Mexico (41), TCU (43)
• Pac-10: Washington St. (53), Oregon St. (65)
• WCC: San Diego (60)

We’ll see how it all shakes out.  Have a Safe and Happy Thanksgiving!

Week 12 Preview; Weekend

We start in the Pac-10, where, thankfully for me, the matchups are such that only four of them involve teams ranked in the AVCA Top 25:

• Oregon, 18th in the poll after dropping both of its games against the NorCal schools last week, try to get back into the win column by taking on both SoCal schools in Eugene, Ore.  USC (tied for 15th) drops by for a game Friday at 9 CDT.  Seventh-ranked UCLA follows Saturday, and since that’s Senior Day, first serve has been pushed back to 10.  Sadly, and shockingly, I can’t find any online presence for either game — no video, no audio, no radio, no tracking, nothing.  This is a weekend of matchups between Top 15 teams.  This is a non-revenue sport that needs all the exposure it can get.  And I can’t even find out who’s winning in real time?  Seriously, what the hell??
• Arizona (19) also plays a pair of ranked teams at home.  Friday night at 8 they play against sixth-ranked and conference co-leader Stanford (watch the match for free here).  Sunday afternoon at 2 they host #11 Cal (track; don’t know why Arizona won’t show both matches — maybe it’s a Cal thing).

The other three power conferences feature one clash between AVCA Top 25 teams this weekend:

• There is a big showdown in the SEC Sunday afternoon: 13th-ranked Florida plays at #10 Kentucky.  While the Gators led the conference early, a midseason stumble allowed the Wildcats to take a two-game lead in the SEC East.  Obviously a win here would give Kentucky the division and eliminate any hopes that Florida could clinch the conference title.  They serve it up starting at 1, and you can listen to the game on Florida’s WRUF, AM 850; link here.
• The Big 12 matchup is second-ranked Texas travels to #24 Baylor Saturday night.  These two teams met in Austin, Texas the first game of the Big 12 regular season and the Longhorns swept the Bears.  Game starts at 7; listen here.
• The sole Big Ten game is #12 Minnesota playing at 14th-ranked Michigan.  It’s Senior Night in Ann Arbor.  They start at 6 Friday night, and you can here the match here.

This being the weekend before Thanksgiving Weekend, nearly all of the conferences that have tournaments are holding them now.  A few started yesterday; the only upset was in the Big South, where third-seeded Winthrop was eliminated by sixth-seeded Charleston Southern.  The vast majority of tourneys begins today.  By this time Monday, nearly half of the 64-team field will be filled.

Here’s this week’s RPI.  I want to see how closely the NCAA Tournament Committee hews to this listing when they give out the 33 at-large bids.

Finally, a hearty shout-out has to go to Bo Rottenborn.  I wanted to fill a niche for fans of women’s college volleyball, and unbeknownst to me, the NCAA had decided to do it for themselves.  I have to admit that I have cribbed information and style tips from Mr. Rottenborn freely this season, and he has done a very thorough job (when you get paid to do it, you should!).  So thank you to him, and if there is any information you don’t think you’re getting from me, to go Rottenborn’s women’s volleyball blog at the NCAA site.

Week 12 Review And Week 13 Preview; Midweek

Latest AVCA poll here.

Penn St. has run its winning streak to 92 games with sweeps of both Illinois and Northwestern this past weekend.  Blair Brown tied a career high with 17 kills in the 20-25-15 ass-kicking she helped deliver on the Illini Friday night.  They now tie North Carolina’s women’s soccer program with the second-longest winning stretch in NCAA history, and they will break that tie after steamrolling Purdue at Purdue this Friday.  Another amazing stat that shows just how good the #1-ranked Lady Lions are this year: They have dropped four sets all year, none in a match in over a month.  Meanwhile, Illinois remains ranked 5th.

In the Pac-10:

• For the first time all year, it’s USC that had the best weekend in Pac-10 play.  The Women Of Troy, who went from 17th to a tie for 15th this week, upset Washington in five sets at home Friday night, then dispatched of Washington St. in four at home Saturday night.  Middle Blocker Lauren Williams was a force this weekend, recording eight blocks (four of them solo) in beating the Huskies and notching a career-high 19 kills in beating the Cougars.  Those stats mean Williams is the conference’s Player Of The Week.
• Washington bounced back in a big win after getting upset in South Central by travelling to Westwood and blitzing UCLA, 19-18-21, Saturday night.  The Huskies, who recorded 17.5 blocks and lost at ‘SC, got another 10.5 against the Bruins, and their defense was so stifling that no UCLA player reached double digits in kills.  U-Dub remained in 4th in the AVCA.
• Passing the pain along, UCLA did defeat Washington St. Friday in four sets.  Nevertheless, UCLA slid one place to 7th in the AVCA.  One of the two big losers in the Pac-10 is Washington St., who went on the road and lost to comparable teams and was voted off the poll.
• The other big loser: Oregon.  They visited Northern California and got swept, 23-16-23, by Stanford Friday and bowed out to Cal in four Sunday.  The Ducks drop two to #18.  The Bears go up a spot to 11th.  And the Cardinal float up one notch to #6.  With two weekends to go, Stanford is tied with Washington for the Pac-10 lead with UCLA a half-game back and Cal a full game back.

Things have gotten interesting in the SEC as well.  LSU defeated Florida in an impressive road win Friday night.  They followed up that four-set victory with a sweep of South Carolina Sunday afternoon to stretch its winning streak to seven matches.  They have already wrapped up the SEC West (although second place is Auburn, and they’re a very bad 7-10 in the division).  And they rise two places to 17th in the poll.  Florida stumbles down three to 13th.

Congratulations to St. Mary’s for winning its first-ever WCC title by surviving visitors San Diego in five sets Saturday afternoon.  The Gaels (whose website seems to be down, otherwise I would’ve linked to the victor’s PR report, like I usually do) took the first two sets and had to withstand the Toreros before taking the last set, 15-10.  SMC, by the way, are up one to #22.

Impressive first-place teams in what is turning out to be one-horse conferences winning on the road Saturday against teams that are tied with other teams for second-place:  Florida St., which remains 15th in the AVCA, are well on their way to taking the ACC crown, having only lost once in-conference.  The Seminoles convincingly avenged that loss by marching into Atlanta and sweeping Georgia Tech, 20-23-23.  They have won 13 in a row.  And in the MVC, Northern Iowa remains perfect and claimed the conference crown with a five-set win at Wichita St.  They are now unbeaten in their last 24.  The Panthers rise one to #21.

Don’t let the poll fool you.  Colorado St. drops four spots to #25, but they’ve won their last six matches.  The last one, a five-set win at BYU Saturday, gave the Rams their 11th conference championship and automatically secure a spot in the NCAA Tournament.  Then again, you should trust the AVCA: Baylor was the only Top 25 team to be upset by an unranked team.  The Bears went into Kansas and laid a four-set egg, even though Setter Taylor Barnes registered a triple-double (10 kills, 40 assists, 12 digs).  That’s why they drop three to 24th.

And speaking of Baylor … their match with ninth-ranked Nebraska is the only match between Top 25 teams before the weekend.  Game begins at 7 CDT in Lincoln, Neb., and you can hear it through the Baylor website here.  (For some reason the Nebraska website, like the St. Mary’s website, is down also.)

Week 12 Preview; Weekend

• The Pac-10 has six matchups between AVCA Top 25 teams, including a swapping of the Washington schools visiting the SoCal schools.  Fast-rising UCLA, currently sixth in the AVCA poll, plays #25 Washington St. Friday, then #4 and current Pac-10 leader Washington Saturday, both games at 9 CDT.  I shouldn’t pimp my alma mater’s hated rival, but you can watch both games, for free, here.  Meanwhile, USC, currently 17th but losers of three in a row, play the Huskies tonight at 9, then the Cougars Saturday at a special time of 7:30 (to accomdate the football game that afternoon).  I shouldn’t rip my own alma mater, but if UCLA can provide complete volleyball games over the Internet — video, audio, everything, like you’re watching a game on the TV — for free, you can do it too.  You can only track the Women of Troy’s games against U-Dub here and Wazzu … ah, I don’t know where the link for tracking that game is.  Sheesh.
• Meanwhile, 16th-ranked Oregon will be visiting the NorCal schools this weekend.  It’ll be the Ducks versus 7th-ranked Stanford Friday at 9 (track), then #12 Cal, winners of three in a row, Sunday afternoon at 2:30 (watch — thank you, Berkeley!).
• One game between ranked teams in the Big 10.  It is now fifth-ranked Illinois’ turn to try and end overall #1 Penn St.’s 90-match winning streak.  If the Lady Lions defeat the Fighting Illini and Northwestern this weekend, they will tie the North Carolina women’s soccer team’s winning streak between 1990 and 1994 for second in the NCAA’s all-time unbeaten stretch in any sport ever.  The match is tonight at 6, and you can keep track of the game here.
• And there’s a Top 25 matchup in the SEC too: #19 LSU visits #10 Florida.  First serve is 6 tonight; you can watch the game for free, through the Florida website and with a partnership with Yahoo!, here starting at 5:50.
• Finally, a huge match in the West Coast Conference Saturday afternoon.  St. Mary’s (CA; #23) hosts San Diego (tied with Washington St. at #25).  The Gaels are two games clear of the Toreros.  If they win this match, they claim their first conference title ever.  First serve is at 3, and you can track the game here starting at a quarter till.

Interesting in-conference games:

• In the ACC, Florida St. is slowly climbing the AVCA Top 25 while bearing the torch as the conference’s only known entity.  They are at #15 and hold a two-game lead for the regular season crown and the tournament bid that goes with it.  However, they travel to one of the teams in second place, Georgia Tech, to play Saturday afternoon at 3.  It’ll be the Yellow Jackets’ annual “Gold Out” game.  Thankfully, you can hear the game online through the school’s radio station, WREK; the page to link to the audio stream can be found on the team’s homepage.
• Similarly to the Seminoles in the ACC, Northern Iowa is head and shoulders above the rest of the Missouri Valley Conference, undefeated at 14-0 in the MVC (three games clear of their closest competitors) and ranked 22nd in the AVCA.  However, the Panthers travel to one of those second-place teams, Wichita St., and face the Shockers for a game Saturday night starting at 7; listen to the game through Wichita St. Internet radio here.

Week 11 Review

This week’s AVCA poll is here.  Despite Texas’ upset loss to Iowa St. Wednesday, they still remain at #2, right behind Penn St. like they’ve been all year.  However, the Lady Lions now have all 60 first-place votes.  That’s what you get for winning 90 games in a row, third-longest winning streak of any sport at any level in NCAA history:

• However, the Cyclones couldn’t follow through on the afterglow of that rousing victory over the Longhorns Saturday night.  Before a record home crowd of 10,203 fans who heard about the upset win, Iowa St. promptly flopped in a 16-22-23 sweep at the calloused forearms and ponytails of Nebraska.  The Cyclones could have stayed one game behind Texas for the Big 12 conference lead, but are now two games behind, with the Huskers now only a game behind them for second place.  Coincidentally, Nebraska climbs one spot to ninth in the AVCA poll, right behind Iowa St.
• Meanwhile, in the other pivotal Big 12 matchup over the weekend, Baylor went on the road and came back from a 2-1 set deficit to defeat Texas A&M in five sets Saturday.  It was the Bears’ first win over a ranked opponent on the road in over a decade.  The loss pushes the Aggies out of the AVCA Top 25.  However, Baylor actually loses a spot to 21st because they were upset midweek by Oklahoma, which is a somewhat surprising 4th in the league.
• This Past Weekend In The Pac-10: Cal was the big winner, going on the road and beating both Washington St. (in four sets) and then Washington (in five) to improve to 8-5 in the conference and rise a spot in the poll to twelth.  Outside Hitter Hana Cutura became the all-time kills leader in Bears history in Saturday night’s upset of Washington by notching her third 30-kill match this season.  She’s the conference Player Of The Week for the second time this season.  And it’s the first time the Huskies have lost at home this year.  They now hold a half-game lead over UCLA in the Pac-10.
• Speaking of UCLA … They improved to 19-6 overall and sixth-place ranking in the AVCA (up one) after their five-set defeat at crosstown rival USC Friday night.  Make that six in a row for the Bruins.
• Washington St. was the big loser of the weekend after losses to both Cal and Stanford, the latter in a 17-20-22 sweep.  The Cougars still remain the eighth and final member of the Pac-10 in the Top 25, though barely and tied with San Diego at 25th.
• Arizona, level at #18, had an usual weekend.  The Wildcats went into Eugene, Ore. and beat Oregon in four sets Friday night in a matchup of two very good teams in the middle of the Pac-10 and AVCA pack.  But they lost the next night in a trap game against Oregon St. in four sets.  The Beavers outblocked ‘Zona 14-4.  By the way, the Ducks slip two notches to #16.
• Oh yeah … in what was a match between the top two Pac-10 teams according to the AVCA, Washington swept Stanford, 21-23-19, Friday night, snapping a four-match losing streak to the Cardinal.  They may have, uh, ahem, blown their wad in that cathartic win; their upset loss to Cal was the next night.  They remain 4th in the poll, however, while Stanford slips from a tie for 5th to 7th.
• In the only matchup of ranked teams in the Big 10, Illinois beat Michigan in four sets Friday night.  The Illini, still in fifth in the AVCA, are winners of 11 in a row.
• San Diego is tied with Washington St. at 25th due to their 15-23-23 sweep at the hands of San Francisco Saturday afternoon.  Dons Libero Haley Carroll became the 45th player in top-flight women’s volleyball with 2,000 digs.  St. Mary’s (CA), who rise to #23, now enjoy a two-game lead in the West Coast Conference in the standings.
• And there is one new entrant into this week’s poll: Notre Dame, whose perfect 12-0 record in the Big East is also the Irish’s current winning streak.  They appear at #24.  This means that all the conferences of the BCS Six are represented in the AVCA Top 25.  And, for some reason, that seems just right.

Week 10 Review and Week 11 Preview; Weekend

Holy crap!  I just saw the result, and I still can’t believe it.  Iowa St. took out unbeaten #2 Texas in five sets Wednesday night in Ames!  The Cyclones have never beaten a team ranked this high.  Texas sees their 27-game winning streak end while Iowa St. extends their winning streak to 11 matches.  Ladies, I still hate you for upsetting Minnesota in last year’s tournament, but damn, way to go!

The Cyclones (#8 in the AVCA Top 25 this week) kick off our weekend coverage:

• Iowa St.’s already going to get a program-high ranking after beating Texas, but they can make this a week to remember if they can also dispose of tenth-ranked Nebraska at the Hilton Coliseum Saturday night.  Remember, Iowa St. beat Nebraska in Lincoln for the first time in school history earlier this season.  The game starts up late, 8 CST; you might be able to track the game here.
• Also in the Big 12, Baylor (20) and Texas A&M (23).  First serve for this match, being played in College Station, Texas starts at 6:30.  Both teams are coming off upset losses on Wednesday, although the Bears had it worse (they were swept by Oklahoma at home).  The loser will surely be out of the poll next week.  Watch the game here.
• In the Big 10, there is one clash between ranked teams.  On Friday night, Illinois (tied for fifth) will welcome Michigan (15); they serve it up starting at around 7.  However, the Illini, who have won nine straight, will do battle without starting Libero Ashley Edinger, who tore her left ACL in their Halloween sweep at Purdue.  Edinger’s done for the year, and since she’s a senior, she’s done for her career.  She ends her time at Illinois holding the records for most digs all-time (1,921, which is ninth-most in Big 10 history) and most digs in a season (564 in ’07).  Apparently you can watch this match for free from the Michigan side but not the Illinois side.  Tsk-tsk, Illini.
• Another action-packed weekend in the Pac-10.  This time the NorCal schools go up to the Evergreen State and take on the Washington schools.  Friday features quite possibly the Match Of The Weekend, Stanford (tied for fifth) at Washington (fourth); 9 o’clock it begins, and you should be able to watch it here.  Friday also has Cal (13) at Washington St. (24); this match also starts at 9 and you can track the game.  They swap Saturday night — Cal at Washington at 9 (watch — thank you so much, U-Dub, you guys rock!) and Stanford at Washington St., also starting at 9 (track — why can’t you do what the Huskies do and offer it online for free, Wazzu?)
• Meanwhile, Arizona (18) will be playing at Oregon (14) Friday night at 9.  No online presence whatsoever.  Huh???
• And finally, the two SoCal schools will be playing each other, also on Friday night.  UCLA (7) will venture into South Central to take on USC (17); first serve’s at 9.  UCLA provides free audio here.  And by the way, ‘SC’s going to try out a “White Out” and they’ll assist you.  First 2,500 people that go to the game will receive a free white t-shirt to wear.

Week 10 Preview; Midweek

Only game of import before the weekend.  A lot of firsts Wednesday night in what is shaping up to be The Most Important Season In Iowa St. History.  The Cyclones have won 10 matches in a row, a program record.  They are ranked 8th in the latest AVCA Top 25 poll, the school’s highest ranking ever (and the fifth time they’ve done that this year).  And they will host its first-ever Top 10 matchup as they’re the latest squad to try and take down undefeated and AVCA #2 Texas in another high-powered Big 12 throwdown at the Hilton Coliseum.  First serve is at 6:30 CST, and you might be able to track the game here.

Week 9 Review

AVCA poll here.  No big news; since this is women’s volleyball, the top three teams of Penn St., Texas and Hawai’i continue their winning ways and remain the top three teams in the poll and the country.  As for the rest:

• All eight Pac-10 teams that were ranked in last week’s AVCA are ranked in this week’s AVCA.  The Team Of The Weekend, however, is UCLA, which went up to the Bay Area and defeated both Cal (in four sets) and Stanford (in five).  The upset victory over the Cardinal Halloween Night was a particularly pulsating one.  The Bruins took the first two sets, the second going extra serves before winning 34-32.  The Farm clawed back to tie up the match, but UCLA took the last set 15-11.  The Bruins beat Stanford for the first time since 2000, a losing streak that lasted 18 games, and gave legendary Coach Andy Banachowski the 1,100th victory as a coach.  Outside Hitter Kaitlin Sather had a double-double both games and was named Conference Player Of The Week.  UCLA is the biggest riser of the week, going up four notches to #7, and are now tied with Stanford for second place in the Pac-10.  Meanwhile, Stanford slips from fourth to a tie for fifth with Illinois.
• The NorCal schools took out the embarrassment of UCLA’s successful home invasions by battering the other visiting SoCal school, USC.  The Women Of Troy were beaten in four-set matches to Stanford and Cal.  That dropped USC to a 4-7 conference record and a one-rank slip to #17.  Cal, by the way, rises one to 13th.
• Arizona defeated Washington St. Halloween night in four sets after losing to Washington Friday night in four sets.  Thus, the Wildcats remains level at 18th, the Huskies move up back to fourth, and the Cougars drop three spots to #24.  (The eighth team, by the way, is Oregon; after beating Oregon St. Friday, they rise one spot to #14.)
• The biggest dropper in the week’s AVCA is Minnesota, who were swept at top-ranked Penn St. and unranked Ohio St.  I saw them in person for their game against Michigan St., and believe me, even though they finally that match in five sets, what I saw was not play of a Top 10 team.  That 25-15 third set to complete their sweep at the hands of the Buckeyes is really puzzling.  They pay with a five-place drop to #12.
• Nebraska was also a volleybal power that was humbled by the conference bully, getting swept at second-ranked Texas Friday night.  It is the first time in Big 12 history that the Longhorns have swept the season series from the Huskers.  And it’s the first time Nebraska has lost to a team three straight times since falling thrice to Long Beach St. in meetings at the turn of the millenium.  Since it was their only game of the weekend, the Huskers fell from eighth to tenth.
• Other explanations for the movement in the AVCA Top 25: In a match between the top two teams in the Big West, UC-Davis upset UC-Irvine in four sets at home All Hallows’ Eve Eve, giving the Aggies sole possession of first place and knocking the Anteaters out of the poll this week … Michigan goes from 13th to 15th after being upset in their annual breast cancer charity match (they call it their “Pink Out” game) at the hands of Wisconsin in four sets … Texas A&M rebounded from their midweek sweep by Texas by sweeping Kansas All Hallows’ Eve and managed to rise two notches to #23 … Saint Louis rises three spots to #21 on back-to-back sweeps of Atlantic-10 foes Duquesne and Fordham … and there are two newcomers to the poll, both tied for 25th: Northern Iowa appears in the poll for the first time in five years while riding a 20-match winning streak, while St. Mary’s (CA) reappears in the AVCA for the first time since mid-September.

And in lower-conference action previewed in the previous post … Lipscomb remains unbeaten in the Atlantic Sun after sweeping Jacksonville, 28-27-22.  With a sweep over North Florida Saturday night, the Lady Bisons wrapped up the A-Sun regular-season title.  They are also 41st in the latest RPI standings … UCSB swept Long Beach St. at home Halloween night, 23-20-16, snapping an eight-match losing streak to the Beach/49ers … Delaware, after getting upset by Virginia Commonwealth Friday night, rebounded to notch a five-set victory over William & Mary, keeping the Blue Hens in first place in the Colonial Athletic Association … Conference USA co-leader Tulane split in their anticipated games this weekend, winning Friday at SMU in four sets, snapping the Mustangs’ 11-match home winning streak and extending their winning streak to six, then seeing that streak get snapped at Tulsa Halloween night, also in four sets.  The losers in both matches won the first set before petering out and losing the next three … In another battle of a conference’s top teams Saturday afternoon, host North Dakota downed Utah Valley in five sets to take stand atop the Great West Conference all by their lonesome … Meanwhile, Maryland-Eastern Shore grabbed a stranglehold of the Mid-Eastern Atlantic Conference’s Northern Division Friday night with a sweep at home over second-place Delaware St.  The Hawks sweep the season series over the Hornets and have now won 10 straight.  OH Caylin Woodward had a triple-double (10 kills, 10 assists, 10 digs) and repeated as MEAC Player Of The Week.  UMES followed up with another sweep, this one at Hampton, Sunday to clinch the division … Long Island is kicking ass in the Northeast Conference.  The Blackbirds went to 12-0 in the conference after rolling to a 19-21-15 sweep at second-place Sacred Heart Saturday afternoon … And Yale failed to climb into a first-place tie in the Ivy League with Penn after the Bulldogs lost in four sets Friday night in Philadelphia.  The Quakers followed that up with a win over Brown to remain undefeated (9-0) in the Ivy.