Congrats to the team!
Wanted to note, from a couple things I've seen, looks like the Buffs may be in much better shape RPI-wise this year than last (although they still of course have to 'take care of business" in Pac 12 play)-
1)
Right now, the Buffs are unofficially #40 in RPI. (Per
http://ncaastats.figstats.net/volleyball-rpi.cgi ; the "Unmodified RPI with Experimental Bonuses" tab is the one I believe attempts to equal official volleyball RPI.) Last year, in the 1st official RPI calc. released (I believe after 2 weeks of Pac 12 play), the Buffs were down at #72. With the Pac 12 teams the Buffs are playing the next 2 weeks all being pretty solid (unofficially RPI #'s 24, 41, 27 and 16 right now per the above link), I assume the Buffs will be higher than #40 by the time the 1st official RPI is released in early October IF they take care of business these 1st 2 weeks of home matches.
2) A Volleytalk forum Poster by the name of bluepenguin (BP) does a weekly analysis where he/ she takes current RPI (I assume maybe based from the above link?), then extrapolates out and estimates all DI team's records at the end of the season using something called the Pablo ratings (which historically are significantly better match predictors than RPI itself). Based on his/ her analysis,
BP's calculation has the Buffs finishing at 19-11, which would mean they finished 11-9 in Pac 12 play. Although I'm sure the team (and many fans) has higher expectations than that for Pac play,
even that 19-11 result would place the Buffs around #25 in RPI, which would make them a sure thing NCAA tournament team.
(See
http://volleytalk.proboards.com/thread/65570/rpi-futures-week-18-16 for BP's actual post this week. With quite a bit of the season to go, of course, that #25 number could vary quite a bit depending on what CU, all their past and future opponents, and their opponents' opponents do the rest of the season. For example, I assume the Buffs were favored in all matches (hugely in 2 cases) they won this past weekend, and last week's calc. still had them quite a bit lower (still a safe #31 RPI) than they are this week.)
