Tournament — Sweet Sixteen

How nasty will the Big 12 Conference Mini-Tournament in the heart of Big 12 country get?

Will the Bay Area schools make up for the loss of six Pac-10 teams before the second weekend?

Could the Big Ten get three schools into the Final Four?

And who will survive into the Elite Eight?

• 2:30 CST: Cal (seed: 9) vs. Baylor – watch
• 4:30: Texas (2) vs. Texas A&M – listen
• 5: Florida St. (3) vs. Kentucky – track
• Approx. 5: Penn St. (1) at Florida (16) – watch
• 7: Illinois (5) vs. Hawai’i (12) – watch
• Approx. 7: Iowa St. (7) at Nebraska (10) – track
• Approx. 7: Colorado St. at Minnesota (11) – listen
• Approx. 9: Michigan (13) at Stanford (4) – watch

Tournament — Day 4 Review

As expected, Florida St. swept Jacksonville St., 18-24-22, at home and advanced to the Sweet Sixteen for the first time in school history.  Congratulations to the Seminoles.

So the first two rounds are complete.  Grouping the survivors by conference shows that the breakdown is similar to what you’d see in the college basketball tournament.  In fact, this year’s last 16 completely comprise of teams in conferences that have teams in this year’s Bowl Championship Series.  You can’t say that every year in March Madness, where a Gonzaga, Xavier or Davidson always sneaks into the second weekend to represent for all the top-flight-in-basketball-only conferences.  As I identified last night, the Big 12 leads all conferences with five of the Sweet Sixteen.  The Big Ten is next with four.  The Pac-10 is tied with the SEC with two.  The last three represent the ACC (Florida St.), WAC (Hawai’i) and Mountain West (Colorado St.).

Again, I don’t mean to malign the Pac-10 more than I did in my previous post.  They’ll probably always be the premiere conference in women’s volleyball.  But you can’t ignore the math that six of their teams, three-quarters of their delegation, is gone.  And there’s also the fact that five of the eight teams were national seeds, and three of them have been knocked off.  On the other hand, the Big 12 has only lost one, Oklahoma, and their three national seeds remain in contention.  The Big Ten has four of their six bids alive, all of them seeded.  And the SEC is two-for-four.

(To give the Pac-10 someone to laugh at, only Florida St. is alive from the ACC; the other four teams were all bumped off in the first round.  And they’re definitely not the Big East, whose three schools were completely wiped off the bracket on Friday.  When it comes to v-ball, the ACC and Big East truly are closer in talent to mid-majors than the other BCS conferences.)

I’m surprised at the number of upsets.  The six- (Washington), eight- (UCLA), 14- (Oregon) and 15- (LSU) seeds have lost, being replaced by, respectively, Colorado St., Baylor, Kentucky and Texas A&M.  Sadly, I’m not surpised that there have been many more 3-0 games than 3-2 games.  A more detailed analysis of the Sweet Sixteen matches will come later, but right now I’m hoping that the thinning of the field means more competitive matches, including a five-set affair (one can dream) for the final.

Tournament — Day 3 Review (Tale Of Two Conferences); Day 4 Preview

When you think of volleyball conferences, you have to think of the Pac-10.  Volleyball was born there and it’s in the DNA of California culture.  In the women’s college ranks, at least, the indoor, six-on-six version of it has spread somewhat eastward to Big 12 and Big Ten country.  While play within those conferences is wild and woolly, year in and year out, including this year, the Pac-10 stood above all.  One would think that tough in-conference battles, where this blog consistenly pointed out four or six matches pitting two ranked teams every single week, is great conditioning for the one-and-done NCAA Tournament when a team has to face unknown but pretty good opponents, sometimes on consecutive nights.  And if the Pac-10 has the greatest collection of talent, so much so that there’s usually one team that has to face two ranked opponents per weekend, you’d figure they would fare best to survive and advance through the tourney.  Right?

I wouldn’t have written such a long and windy lede paragraph if I didn’t contradict myself, so: No.

The Sweet Sixteen is 15/16ths full, and the conference breakdown is startling.  Four of the teams, fully one-quarter, come from the Big Ten.  Five of them represent the Big 12.  And the Pac-10, wire-to-wire the most competitive conference in the land, has just two teams left standing — the Bay Area schools of Stanford and Cal.  This is analysis derived only from one year, but it does show that rugged in-conference play doesn’t guarantee you’ll have been there and done that once the postseason commences.

In fact, of the four national seeds knocked off so far, three of them came from the Pac-10.  The shocker remains six-seed Washington bowing out in four sets at Colorado St.  Yet, on their home floor, the venerable John Wooden Court in Pauley Pavilion, eight-seed UCLA was also defeated in four sets by the Big 12′s Baylor.  The Bears advanced to the Sweet Sixteen for the first time on the strength of 94 digs.  Five Baylor players had at least a dozen digs.

Another upset that has its own unique reasons to raise eyebrows: Kentucky obliterated 14th-seeded Oregon, 20-22-17.  Like Baylor, the Wildcats engineered the win on the strength of defense, namely blocks; the team had a season-high 17 blocks, led by a career-high 10 by Middle Blocker Lauren Rapp.

It was a complete wipeout Saturday night for v-ball in L.A.  The school in South Central, USC hosted the subregional won by 12th-seeded Hawai’i, who beat the Women of Troy in four sets.  They’ve done this before; in fact, the Rainbow Wahine beat USC at the Galen Center in the second round of the NCAAs for the second year in a row.

Meanwhile, it was a little better for fans of the NorCal schools.  Cal had little trouble in a four-set win over host Ohio St.  Fours are wild for the Bears; they reach the second weekend for the fourth year in a row and reach 20 wins for the fourth year in a row.  Four-seed Stanford is also alive, but they had one hell of a match with St. Mary’s.  They were down two sets to one before grinding out a 26-24 victory in the fourth set and a 15-13 clincher in the final set.  Like Cal, the Cardinal is also making its fourth straight trip to the Sweet Sixteen.  Call this the Game Of The Night.

One other national seed went down: 15-seed LSU, which squandered a 2-1 lead and lost on their home floor to the Big 12′s Texas A&M.  The Aggies reach the Sweet Sixteen for the first time since ’03.  The sign that this was a great match: The middle three sets were all decided by the minimum two points.  Now that I think about it, you can call this the co-Game Of The Night.  The unseeded Aggies join national seeds Baylor, Texas, Iowa St. and Nebraska, all 3-0 winners (the latter two over the only two Missouri Valley Conference teams), in the regional semifinals — all but Baylor in the same region.

The Big 10 isn’t slouching either; out of the six tournament entrants, four are still alive.  Michigan, national seed #10, is, but just barely.  They needed to come back all the way from a 2-0 set hole (on their home court) to beat pesky Ohio.  (Alright, I have three Games Of The Night.)  This is their third straight year the Wolverines surviving to the second weekend.  As expected, Penn St. had no trouble with Penn (make this 98 wins in a row).  Unexpectedly, Minnesota avoided the fate region-mate Washington suffered and beat host Tennessee emphatically, 15-16-18.  They join Illinois, who advanced Friday, in the Sweet Sixteen.

One more:

Second Round Matchup:

• 2 CST: Jacksonville St. at Florida St. (3) (Tallahassee, Fla.) — track.

Tournament — Day 2 Review; Day 3 Preview

I kind of saw it coming, but I kind of didn’t.  I repeat — upsets don’t happen in women’s volleyball.  But it did last night, and it was a big one.

National six seed Washington goes down to Colorado St. Friday night.  This marks the second straight year the #6 was eliminated in the second round; Minnesota was similarly dispatched by Iowa St. in last season’s tourney.  The Rams advance to the Sweet 16 for the first time since 2003.

On a personal note, because I live in Minnesota: This is a very bad omen for the Gophers.  Like the Huskies, Minnesota dropped a set in its first-round victory over Louisville and now play a second-round opponent on its home floor: Tennessee, which defeated Duke in four Friday night and is ranked 19th in the RPI (Minnesota is 13th).  I’ve said this before, and now I’ll restate it in more direct terms: If you are a national seed and you drop a set in an early round, you yourself will lose early.  Also, the Lady Vols should have a record crowd on hand; the 1,059 that saw them beat the Blue Devils Friday was 55% more than the previous high for attendance for a Tennessee postseason volleyball match.  And it’s not like Minnesota is firing on all cylinders right now.  The possibility that the Gophers could be disposed of in the Surviving 32 is just as strong now, maybe even stronger.

In other results:

• The Game Of The Night Not Involving The Ouster Of A Seeded Team: St. Mary’s (CA), coming back from a 2-0 abyss, defeats UC-Santa Barbara.  The Gaels are now 4-0 in games going the distance.
• One other five-set affair: In the only first-round matchup between teams in the RPI Top 25, Ohio comes back from a 2-1 deficit to bump off Notre Dame.  The Fighting Irish thus end their season on a three-game losing skid (at Louisville in the Big East Tournament Final, at Florida in an after-conference, non-conference game, and now to the Bobcats in Ann Arbor) after winning 15 in a row.
• None of the national seeds kicking off the tournament Friday dropped a set.  This is boring to look at and a pain to type, but here are the story recaps from the websites of all the teams that went 3-0 and advanced to the second round: Penn St., Stanford (where Libero Gabi Ailes became the school’s all-time leader in digs), Iowa St. (they have now wiped out their last six foes), UCLA (which avenged a sweep at the hands of Long Beach St. Sep. 19), Cal, Nebraska, Hawai’i, Michigan (who thought so little of Niagara that they used their entire bench, all 14 players, no joke), Oregon (over Clemson, which I believe was the last at-large team to make it in, aka Team 64), LSU, Baylor (the Bears’ first NCAA Tournament win in a decade, and only the school’s second win in history), USC, Kentucky (over Michigan St., the ease of which is somewhat surprising), and Northern Iowa (also an easier-than-expected win, over Washington St. — bad night for Evergreen State volleyball).
• Of the six matches that were decided in four sets, the one that stands out to me is Wichita St.’s 3-1 victory over Saint Louis, which was ranked 22nd in this week’s AVCA Top 25 poll.  The Missouri Valley, with the Shockers and Northern Iowa, joins the SEC as the only multi-bid conferences to remain unbeaten so far; the SEC’s four teams are currently at 5-0.  The other three programs that won 3-1: Ohio St., Texas A&M, and Penn (congratulations to the Quakers on getting their first postseason victory in program history).
• OK, so my three potential upsets didn’t go that far.  Lipscomb and Long Island got waxed (by Cal and Stanford, respectively).  I picked Florida International over Miami, but you could argue that the Panthers were the favorite.  It’s all somewhat moot now that they were crushed by Florida in three.  The Gators ruled the net, outblocking FIU 12-1.
• There were two other entrants into the second weekend: Texas, which swept TCU away in the Horned Frogs’ first-ever appearance in the NCAAs; and Illinois, which lost the first set in extra points but came back to knock off Dayton in four.

Here are the matchups, times and vehicles to tune into the day’s action, including the final pod yet to begin:

First Round Matchups:

• 1 CST: Jacksonville St. vs. Florida A&M (Tallahassee, Fla.) — track.
• 4: Alabama A&M at Florida St. (3) (Tallahassee, Fla.) — track.

Second Round Matchups:

• 4 CST: Penn at Penn St. (1) (University Park, Pa.) — track.
• 5: Northern Iowa at Nebraska (10) (Lincoln, Neb.) — track.
• 6: Cal (9) at Ohio St. (Columbus, Ohio) — listen through the link on this page (I think).
• 6: Minnesota (11) at Tennessee (Knoxville, Tenn.) — watch.
• 6: Oregon (14) at Kentucky (Lexington, Ky.) — track.
• 6:30: St. Mary’s at Stanford (4) (Stanford, Calif.) — track.
• 6:30: Wichita St. at Iowa St. (7) (Ames, Iowa) — again, listen through Wichita St.’s online radio.
• 6:30: Ohio at Michigan (13) (Ann Arbor, Mich.) — track.
• 7:30: Texas A&M at LSU (15) (Baton Rouge, La.) — listen.
• 8: Hawai’i (12) at USC (Los Angeles) — go to the island’s ESPN affiliate’s website, then click on “click here to LISTEN LIVE”
• 9: Baylor at UCLA (8) (Los Angeles) — listen.

Tournament — Day 1 Review; Day 2 Preview

First day.  As expected, no surprises, except for maybe one.  And the four seeded teams advanced, dropping only set combined.

• Game Of The Night: Have go to with Florida International’s five-set quasi-upset over Miami.  The Golden Panthers were facing a team from the BCS Six, but when one looks at the RPI, the Hurricanes have a much lower rank (47) than FIU (15).  Regardless, they battled back and forth, trading the lead 21 times and tying each other 32 times.  Down two sets to one, Florida Int’l saved one match point to win the pivotal fourth set, then took the final set, 15-11, to advance in the tourney for only the second time in school history.
• There were two other five-set matches on the first day, both of them completely back-and-forth results (where the winning team won the first, third and final sets).  Dayton defeated UW-Milwaukee, which may have had the greatest comeback of any squad in the Tournament.  The Panthers were 5-14 on Oct. 11, but won their next 11 matches to win the Horizon League Tournament and make the autobid.  Unfortunately, they ran into a Flyers team that is now 8-2 in games going into the final set (hat tip for this fact to Bo Rottenborn of the NCAA women’s volleyblog).  And host Colorado St. survived an underrated Middle Tennessee St. squad to make it to the next round.
• If you’re interested in which team chronologically was the first team to be eliminated in the tournament, it was Rice.  The Owls, which swept SEC champions LSU in its last game, were swept themselves by TCU, 24-13-25.  The Horned Frogs were making their virgin appearance in the NCAAs, and now they get to extend their stay another night.
• All four of the 16 national seeds will also play again tonight.  Number-two seed Texas, #5 Illinois, and #16 Florida all swept their way into the second round over, respectively, Texas St. (16-14-14), IPFW (16-15-12), and the College of Charleston (21-17-18).
• Sixth-seeded Washington, however, was nipped in the first set by Big Sky champion and tourney virgin Northern Colorado before taking the next three sets.  My pet theory about projecting how teams fare against each other in the bracket is that teams that regularly sweep through are not just going to defeat teams that may drop a set to each of their opponents, but will likely crush them while they’re at it.  Now, the Huskies dropped that set 27-25, but they do face a Colorado St. team that is ranked in the AVCA Top 25.  Also, Wazzu had the lead in the Pac-10 for much of the season before losing the title to Stanford.  Upsets don’t happen in women’s volleyball, but we’ll see.

Eleven of the sixteen “pods” commence the first round tonight, and the four that began Thursday finish tonight.

First Round Matchups:

• 4 CST: Oregon (National Seed: 14) vs. Clemson (in Lexington, Ky.) — watch.
• 4: Penn vs. Army (University Park, Pa.) — listen (I think?).
• 4: Minnesota (11) vs. Louisville (Knoxville, Tenn.) — watch.
• 4:30: Northern Iowa vs. Washington St. (Lincoln, Neb.) — listen.
• 4:30: Notre Dame vs. Ohio (Ann Arbor, Mich.) — track.
• 5: Wichita St. vs. Saint Louis (Ames, Iowa) — listen (special thanks to Wichita St. and KEYN-FM for providing online radio service).
• 5: Arizona vs. Texas A&M (Baton Rouge, La.) — track.
• 5: Cal (9) vs. Lipscomb (Columbus, Ohio) — track.
• 6: Oklahoma at USC (Los Angeles) — watch.
• 6: Duke at Tennessee (Knoxville, Tenn.) — watch.
• 6: Michigan St. at Kentucky (Lexington, Ky.) — listen.
• 6:30: Binghamton at Penn St. (1) (University Park, Pa.) — watch.
• 6:30: Niagara at Michigan (13) (Ann Arbor, Mich.) — listen.
• 7: St. Mary’s (CA) vs. UC-Sana Barbara (Stanford, Calif.) — watch.
• 7: Cincinnati at Ohio St. (Columbus, Ohio) — track.
• 7: Coastal Carolina at Nebraksa (10) (Lincoln, Neb.) — track.
• 7:30: George Mason at Iowa St. (7) (Ames, Iowa) — watch.
• 7:30: Tulane at LSU (15) (Baton Rouge, La.) — watch.
• 7:30: Baylor vs. Georgia Tech (Los Angeles) — watch.
• 9: Hawai’i (3) vs. New Mexico (Los Angeles) — watch.
• 9: Long Island at Stanford (4) (Stanford, Calif.) — watch.
• 10: Long Beach St. at UCLA (8) (Los Angeles) — watch.

Second Round Matchups:

• 6 CST: Florida International at Florida (16) (Gainesville, Fla.) — track.
• 6:30: TCU at Texas (2) (Austin, Texas) — watch.
• 7: Dayton at Illinois (5) (Champaign, Ill.) — watch.
• 8: Washington (6) at Colorado St. (Fort Collins, Colo.) — and wow, this might be awesome; watch the game, definitely without any play-by-play, from an end-court camera, through the “Free Video Streaming” link on the CSU schedule page.  And I guess it’s on the whole afternoon, because I’m writing this at 3:30 CST and I’m seeing the Rams going through practice right now.

Week 13 Review; Thoughts On December Delirium; First Day’s First-Round Matches

The Bracket.  I think 64-team brackets are works of art.  Why did the NCAA have to ruin men’s college basketball by adding that stupid play-in game?

First off, the last regular season games, which decided some titles and autobids but did very little for the tournament:

• After a long but hard-fought race for the Pac-10 title, the winner is … Stanford, which finally chased down and overtook Washington with a stirring final day of regular season play.  The Cardinal came back from a 2-0 set deficit to beat Cal in the back half of their Big Spike rivalry Friday.  Outside Hitter Alix Klineman recorded a career-high 33 kills.  The crowd of 5,125 was the largest Stanford crowd this year.
• Meanwhile, Washington, which needed to win to claim the conference crown and the automatic bid into the NCAA Tournament (I think), squandered a 2-0 set lead at Oregon and fell to the Ducks in five sets.  The win snapped a 17-game, nine-year losing streak to the Huskies.  Outside Hitter Sonja Newcombe killed 36 times, a career high for her.
• Arizona got into the tournament despite looking fairly bad in their last two games, road losses to UCLA (in a 13-13-17 sweep) Friday and to USC (in four) Saturday.  In the latter game, the sixth win in a row for the suddenly streaking Women Of Troy, OH Jessica Gysin notched a career high of 23 kills.  The Wildcats are one of eight teams from the Pac-10 to get into the tourney, more than any other.  Being in the toughest women’s volleyball conference has its privileges.
• The top four teams in the Big 10 squared off.  The beatdowns go on for Penn St.; they made it 96 in a row with sweeps at home over the Michigan teams.  That gives them their third straight conference title — and their third straight table run.  They closed out the season with a 21-13-23 immolation of the Wolverines Saturday night.  Naturally, they are the queens of the hill, the number one overall seed, going into this year’s tournament.
• Meanwhile, Minnesota upset Illinois at home in a 23-23-22 sweep for their Senior Night.  The four ranked teams from the Big 10 made it, as well as Michigan St. and Ohio St., tying them for second-most among the conferences (alongside the Big 12).
• Speaking of the Big 12, my analysis of the bubble teams there was an indication of how poorly I misread the chances of all the bubble teams.  I spotlit three of them: Oklahoma, Kansas and Missouri.  They all got their asses beat on the road.  Yet OU, probably because their RPI was in the 40′s, was the only one of the three above teams to make it into the tourney.  They join Texas, Iowa St., Nebraska, Baylor, and Texas A&M, which swept Mizzou.  I’m not sure if beating the Aggies would’ve been enough for the Tigers to get in.  That’s what I’m talking about when I say I misread chances of the bubble teams.
• The Game Of The Weekend, the one that had the greatest direct bearing on tournament hopes for the teams involved, may have been the semifinal match between Missouri St. and Wichita St. in the Missouri Valley Conference Tournament.  I could have pumped up the loser’s chances of making it in, but from what I can tell, neither team wanted to take any chances of leaving it up to the fates Friday night.  Led by Emily Stockman and Kim Wadsworth, who both nothced career highs in kills, and Mary Elizabeth Hooper, dishing out a personal best 66 assists, third-seeded Wichita St. upset second-seeded Missouri St. in a completely back-and-forth five sets.  When the bracket came out Sunday afternoon, the Shockers were in, and the Bears were out.  Coincidence?
• Finally, did you know that some teams actually play games after their conference tournaments are over?  I find that hard to believe.  I mean, of course they can, but I always assumed that things are, you know, over after the conference tourney.  But because of scheduling or one last chance to impress the tournament committee, some teams played non-conference games after Thanksgiving.  In fact, one of them actually featured two ranked teams; on Saturday, Florida defeated Notre Dame in four sets.  And on Friday, SEC champion LSU was swept at Rice, 30-20-20.  All four teams made the tournament.

So how about the tournament?  Here again is the bracket.  For analysis and a little spit-balling, I’m just going to take the article I wrote for this blog I work for, SportsAlert, and paste it here:

• There are 64 teams and exactly 64 teams, which already makes the women’s volleyball tournament better than the men’s basketball tournament because it doesn’t have that dumbass “opening round” game that everybody rightly ignores because it screws up everything.
• The men’s (and women’s) basketball tourneys seed all teams within each of the four regions 1-16.  Because volleyball doesn’t have a huge TV contract, it tries to keep as many teams possible from travelling too far, which means bunching the four-team “pods” of the first and second rounds roughly by geographic proximity.  It also means that bracketing the teams for “balance” is not a priority, at least for the first two rounds, so in women’s volleyball they only seed and place the top 16 teams, and they do it tournament-wide.
• Do you remember that for a few years they renamed the regionals after the cities they were played in instead of East/Midwest/South/West?  They changed it back after fans found it weird and unnatural.  Well, they do it here.  The top four seeds for each of the city-named regionals:
  • Gainesville Regional

1. Penn St. (Tournament Seed: 1)
2. UCLA (8)
3. Cal (9)
4. Florida (16)

• Stanford Regional

1. Stanford (4)
2. Illinois (5)
3. Hawai’i (12)
4. Michigan (13)

• Minneapolis Regional

1. Florida St. (3)
2. Washington (6)
3. Minnesota (11)
4. Oregon (14)

• Omaha Regional

1. Texas (2)
2. Iowa St. (7)
3. Nebraska (10)
4. LSU (15)

• Just like basketball and football, teams of the BCS Six dominate women’s v-ball, although the Big East lags far behind and the SEC and ACC aren’t that much better.  The Big Ten and Big 12 have historically been strong, but they all take a back seat to the Pac-10, where volleyball first became popular.  They lead all conferences with eight teams in the field.
• Mid-majors conferences in the sport are, logically, also in the west: the Big West and West Coast Conferences.  But while the Big West got UC-Santa Barbara and Long Beach St. in, the WCC is only represented by its regular season champion, St. Mary’s.  San Diego, which finished second in the conference and was once ranked as high as 15^th in the weekly polls, may be the biggest snub of the tournament.  UC-Irvine, tied for second in the Big West and a 20-game winner, also was a surprise omission.
• The biggest surprise?  Maybe Clemson, the at-large team with the worst RPI (57).  Their 13-7 record was good enough only for fourth in the ACC, a conference whose best team, Florida St., was the only team in the conference that was ever ranked in the weekly polls.
• Speaking of the Seminoles, it’s surprising that they’re the top seed in a regional when they never reached the top 10 in the weekly polls, although the NCAA is quick to emphasize that that has nothing to do with their seedings.  On the flip side is a team you might think would naturally have a good program, Hawai’i.  The Rainbow Wahine have been parked behind undefeated Penn St. and Texas virtually all year, yet they’ve been judged to be only the third-best team in the Stanford Regional.  They have been far and away the class of the Western Athletic Conference for years now, but we’ll see if that means anything against national competition.
• Again, there rarely are Cinderellas in women’s volleyball, so if you somehow have a pool in your office, going chalk isn’t the dumbest thing to do.  If you want to identify a sleeper, however, go with Iowa St.  They made a miracle run to the Elite Eight as an unseeded team last year.  They are the only team to defeat Texas so far this year.  They currently are ranked fifth in the weekly poll, a school best.  And in October, the Cyclones defeated national power and Big 12 nemesis Nebraska for the first time ever, a string of 76 games and 33 years.  A squad that has racked up so many firsts won’t be fazed trying to get to the Final Four for the first time ever, especially since they get to meet the Huskers and Longhorns again in the Omaha Regional.
• A seeded team going down early?  Hate to say it, but I’ll single out Minnesota, the 11^th-overall seed.  They were bounced in the second round of last year’s tournament at home … by Iowa St.  They haven’t been playing their best the last eight weeks or so.  And the Gophers’ best hitter, Brook Dieter, a second-team All-America last season, quit six weeks ago.  They host the third and fourth rounds, and Washington and Florida St. are both vulnerable, so they could make it to the final weekend in Tampa.  But they could also lose in the second round to Tennessee, which hosts the subregional this weekend.  They’re inconsistent enough that they could lose to Big East tournament champion Louisville in the first round.
• Potential first-round upsets: Lipscomb, riding a 25-game winning streak, over Cal, which has to travel to Columbus, Ohio; Florida International, 31-3 and playing in-state against another mediocre ACC squad, Miami; and, going out on a long limb, Long Island, undefeated in the Northeast Conference but 3-13 out of it, over Stanford.
• Player with the most unique or the most unfortunate name in the field, depending on whether you’re a fan: Destinee Hooker, Outside Hitter for Texas.  She may also be one of the top half-dozen players in the country.  Hooker made every single first team last year, was named Big 12 Player of the Year this year, and runs track, too.
• Hooker and her Longhorns have seemingly been on a collision course with Penn St. since the season began, but even they might not be able to stop the Lady Lions.  The two-time defending champions have won their last 96 matches, the second-longest winning streak in top-flight college sports; only the 137 matches by the Miami men’s tennis program from 1990 to 1994 is longer.  Their best player – and it was hard to choose – is Middle Hitter Arielle Wilson, who leads the nation in hitting percentage and is second in blocks per set.  The whole team is first in hitting percentage and second in blocks per set, and is also sixth in blocks and kills per set.
• Finally, a prediction: Penn St. will maraud its way through its regional and will have no problem disposing of Stanford, the only other program who has been in every single NCAA volleyball tournament (29 in all) and the last team to beat the Lady Lions (in September 2007).  On the other side of the bracket, Washington will survive to Tampa only to be routed by Texas.  And in a clash for the women’s college volleyball ages, Penn St. will make it 102 matches and three championships in a row by defeating the Longhorns in four sets.

Four sites kick off the tournament today, with the first match being played a half-hour from when I type this:

• 4 CDT: Florida International vs. Miami (in Gainesville, Fla.) — track.
• 4:30: Rice vs. TCU (Austin, Texas) — watch.
• 4:30: Dayton vs. UW-Milwaukee (Champaign, Ill.) — watch.
• 6: Texas St. at Texas (2) (Austin, Texas) — watch.
• 6: Washington (6) vs. Northern Colorado (Fort Collins, Colo.) — track.
• 6:30: College Of Charleston at Florida (16) (Gainesville, Fla.) — track.
• 7: IPFW at Illinois (5) (Champaign, Ill.)  – watch.
• 8:30: Middle Tennessee St. at Colorado St. (Fort Collins, Colo.) — listen.

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.)