A few final (sorry for the rambling) notes from me-
1st, various final rankings for the Buffs at the end of THEIR season (although I assume they will continue to change a little up or down til the end of the tournament)-
RPI- 64
11/30
Coaches Poll- 29th most votes
(Both the above from
http://www.ncaa.com/rankings/volleyball-women/d1 . The (much more) detailed RPI report is also available at
https://rpiarchive.ncaa.org/Stats Library/VB Nitty Gritty Thru Sat Nov 28 2015.pdf .)
Pablo Rating (Per volleytalk forum-
http://volleytalk.proboards.com/thread/61149/11-30-pablo)- 34
Massey Rating (
http://www.masseyratings.com/rate.php?lg=cvol&sub=NCAA I)- 24
Also, someone in Volleytalk found and posted a link to a video interview with the selection committee chair. (7+ minutes long-
http://destinationvolleyball.com/2015/11/30/jean-berger-division-i-volleyball-committee-chair/).
Evidently, the Buffs weren't even one of the "1st 4 teams left out" by the committee. Per the Chair- those 4 (and their RPI) were Pitt (47), Baylor (42), Boise State (43) and Wyoming (44).
(They evidently do LOVE their RPI; I think they should probably just marry it and get it over with. Although, they did this year select their highest RPI team in the last 6 years, as #54 RPI Michigan State did get in, so maybe as time goes on RPI will grow less important. (As I mentioned earlier- up to this year, #51 was the highest RPI # selected (twice) in the last 5 prior years.))
Just a few ramblings re successful and future scheduling -
1) For those who don't know, due to the west currently having a higher % of good teams, there's a definite eastern bias to RPI in volleyball. Therefore, if the travel budget allows it, it wouldn't be a bad deal for the Buffs (IF they can't get enough good RPI eastern teams to come to Boulder) to travel east for a tourney that does include potentially high RPI teams that aren't that good so they both get a win
and an RPI benefit at the same time.
2) Another general good policy for scheduling to get wins without having to take RPI hits is to find the best RPI teams from last year that have the worst relative Pablo ratings. (Of course, year to year teams go up and down, and you'd want to scout team's rosters to see who lost a lot of starters to graduation or transfer to get the right pre-season mix. But, I'd guess that if you pick 12-13 non-conference teams based on their results from the prior year that meet your team's objectives of getting wins while maximizing your RPI, you'd hope that
on average you'd have a non-conference schedule that will help and not hurt your RPI.)
3) It will be interesting to see if the Buffs continue to be part of the Big 10/ Pac 12 challenge, as playing Illinois and Penn State is probably a great way to see where the team is at early in the year. (Too bad the injuries, youth and various strategic flux (6-2 vs. 5-1, etc.) kept the Buffs from being competitive against those teams this past year.) It would also be very cool, if the Buffs DO continue being part of the event, if they get to host in the next year or two. If they do, it would be a chance (with Stanford being the other Pac rep) to see a tournament with probably the highest quality of volleyball in the history of CU volleyball/ Boulder. (The Buffs replaced UCLA as the 2nd Pac team this year, and I don't know if the Buffs are now always going to be part of the "Challenge" every year, or if it was a one time thing.)
4) I also have occasionally contemplated the pluses and minuses of whether Buff volleyball would benefit from trying to help establish something like soccer has with the "Colorado Cup", and I still can't decide whether it would be good or not. What do others think?
The main plus I see for soccer is that the soccer players do seem to relish having a "trophy" goal early in the year, and I assume that would/ could carry over in volleyball. In volleyball, an added plus would be that it would be great to have an insured match against CSU each year, as volleyball is probably the only sport where CSU is definitely "the" Colorado team nationally based on their relative and consistent (mid-major level) success, and it would be an exciting challenge for the Buffs to meet the Rams every year for the foreseeable future. This year, DU would have also have been a great team to play, as they had a very good record (27-7) and decent RPI (87). Of course, going against the positives would be that I don't know if the Buffs would want to commit to have 3-4 matches against set teams every year, as that could hurt the RPI BAD if enough of the other Colorado teams have tough years at the same time. (This year, Northern Colorado only ended up at #151 RPI and Air Force (who the Buffs played anyways) at #205.)
