NCAA Women’s Volleyball Update, Nov 16

Published on November 15, 2010 by sprouticus · No Comments

Over the next 7 days 18 teams will earn an automatic bid to the NCAA Division I tournament. The most important days of the season are upon us. In the meantime, here are the current AVCA rankings and how they came about.

All Quite on the Rankings Front

After two weeks of frantic shuffling, the rankings this week are fairly quiet. The top 6 teams remain the same: Florida, Stanford, Hawaii, California, Nebraska and Southern California.

Penn State and Texas flip flopped between the No. 7 and No 8 spots, and there’s nothing terribly exciting going on until we get to No. 13. Here we find Dayton, who jumped up from No. 17 last week. Other than 3 losses in the Ameritas Players Challenge in Nebraska back in September, Dayton hasn’t lost a match all season.

Coming in right behind them is San Diego, who were ranked No. 18 last week but are No. 14 this week after sweeping Santa Clara and the University of San Francisco. They’re taking on Pepperdine this Thursday to try for a sole share of the West Coast Conference Championship.

Minnesota and Michigan both had big shifts in positions. Minnesota moved from No. 22 to No. 19, posting wins over Michigan and Michigan State. Coupled with this loss to Minnesota, a loss to Iowa State pushed Michigan way down. They dropped from No. 16 to No. 20.

What Next?

Winners of the regular season in the following conferences will earn an automatic bid in the NCAA tournament that starts on Dec. 16:

Atlantic Coast
Big 12
Big Ten
Big West
Conference USA
Ivy League
Mountain West
Pacific-10
Southeastern
West Coast

Other conferences require teams to win the end of season tournament to gain a spot, and as I mentioned in the NCAA recap post last week the remaining tournament spots will be filled by at-large bids. For total coverage of the selection process you can check out the Women’s Volleyball NCAA Championship selection show on Sunday, November 18 at 3 p.m. on ESPNEWS.