PNW Volleyblog

A Q&A collaboration between three volleyball addicts: Myself, @DawgoneCrazy (primary interest: Washington and the Pac-12) @cheesetrader1 (Wisconsin and the Big Ten) @vballfreak808 (Hawaii and the West Coast in general: Pac-12, WCC, Big West) Toughest pod? Cheese: Orlando is clearly brutal. Pullman isn't easy either, particularly if you're a hitter: Washington State, Tennessee, and Colorado State all have really good blocking. 808: The Stanford subregional is tougher than people may expect, with LMU and Duke each taking down a top 10 opponent this season. Stanford is the top seed but scrappy teams have caused trouble for the Cardinal before. Dawg: Besides Orlando, Lexington really stands out to me. Kentucky has lost just once since opening weekend, and had a really long stretch without dropping a set in SEC play. Purdue hasn't lost a single match to a team outside of the top 20 all year, but that will be put to the test right off the bat with ETSU, who holds

Final 2018 Bracketology By Ed Strong Automatic bids are italicized. Top team in each group is host; bottom team is the 2-seed and wears home jerseys in first round. Palo Alto, CA #1 Stanford (28-1, 20-0 Pac-12) Alabama State (23-17, 16-2 SWAC) Denver (27-2, 15-0 Summit) Pepperdine (21-8, 14-4 WCC) Milwaukee, WI #16 Marquette (26-6, 15-2 Big East) Eastern Michigan (21-13, 9-7 MAC) Yale (19-4, 13-1 Ivy) Purdue (23-8, 12-8 Big Ten) State College, PA #9 Penn State (23-7, 14-6 Big Ten) Navy (23-8, 13-3 Patriot) Syracuse (18-8, 14-4 ACC) Washington (18-12, 10-10 Pac-12) Lexington, KY #8 Kentucky (24-4, 18-0 SEC) Murray State (22-9, 13-3 OVC) East Tennessee State (28-6, 15-1 SoCon) Florida State (19-9, 15-3 ACC) Madison, WI #5 Wisconsin (22-6, 15-5 Big Ten) Green Bay (20-10, 13-3 Horizon) Louisville (21-8, 14-4 ACC) Illinois State 25-7, 16-2 MVC) Los Angeles, CA #12 USC (21-10, 13-7 Pac-12) Northern Arizona (26-8, 15-3 Big Sky) Stephen F. Austin (32-2, 16-0 So

Cal Baptist leads the WAC by a half-game over preseason favorite New Mexico State with six conference matches left. No matter what happens until then, the Lancers' season will end on November 13. Previously a powerhouse in the PacWest conference of NCAA Division II, Cal Baptist is in the beginning of a four-year transition to becoming a full member of Division I. Beginning in the 2022-23 school year, CBU will be fully eligible for postseason events, by the time all current players will be gone, except potentially fifth-year seniors. Why can't they go to the postseason now? Cal Baptist won the DII Learfield Director's Cup in the 2017-18 school year, given to the top overall athletic program in the country (Stanford regularly wins it in DI). The 2017 CBU volleyball team went 29-1 in their final year in the Pacific West, with their only defeat coming in the West Region final, DII's equivalent of the Elite Eight. Despite that, the Lancers (17-5, 8-2 Weste

The idea for this ranking is an extension of VolleyballMag's Mid-Major poll, but digging further. Teams like BYU, Northern Iowa, and Colorado State don't recruit like small-conference teams, so why should they be ranked with them? For the Small Conference 15, teams from the top 11 conferences in the country are ineligible - or in other words, only teams that are on page 2 of my schedule spreadsheet are allowed. That means no teams from any of: Pac-12 Big Ten Big 12 SEC West Coast ACC Big West American Athletic Mountain West Missouri Valley Big East The rankings are initially sorted based on the computer power ratings produced by MasseyRatings . I then a series of small adjustments based on an assortment of other things, including the  unofficial RPI . Games listed under "wins" and "losses" are just the most notable results from that team: wins against teams of approximately equal strength or better, and losses against teams of appro

There were only 28 matches played yesterday, and the only 3 top-20 teams in action all won their matches (#1 BYU, #12 Oregon, and #13 Washington). So why am I calling Thursday, September 20th a wild day? Upset frequency. TEN of the 28 matches resulted in a significant upset. We'll start with a pair in the Big Sky. Remember that team that pulled the massive upset of Florida earlier this year, Northern Arizona? Well, Idaho State (7-7, 1-0 Big Sky) passed the same test that the Gators couldn't, knocking out NAU (8-6, 0-1) on their home floor. Don't let the similar records fool you: NAU had played a mid-level non-conference schedule, even without the massive win over UF, while ISU's wins were mostly empty calories - their best win before yesterday was probably against a 5-8 Winthrop squad. Defending regular-season champ Sacramento State (5-10, 0-1) couldn't finish a 2-0, 18-15 set 3 lead at Montana, a team picked to finish 9th in the 11-team conference. Combined w

Author's note: I haven't posted on here in ages, but I'm planning to make it at least a semi-regular thing moving forward. Bracketology and bubble watch are both tentatively planned. I'm considering doing a weekly ranking for teams in smaller conference -- an even deeper look than VolleyballMag's excellent Mid-Major Poll offers, by eliminating more of the top conferences. Comments? Questions? Suggestions for what I should do next? Want to yell at me because I'm blatantly disrespecting your team? You can easily find me on Twitter: I am the human operating the VBScores fan account which I'm always happy to answer questions from, or you can also find me through my personal account, DawgoneCrazy , if you don't mind seeing lots of tweets about Seattle sports, especially the Huskies and the Mariners. Conference play is upon us -- in fact, the Metro Atlantic started conference play last weekend. 30 of the 31 remaining conferences will start this week,