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CUBuffs.com: Buffs Hope Bubble Doesn’t Burst On Sunday, An In-Depth Look (Volleyball)

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An in-depth look at the Buffs chances to make the NCAA Volleyball Tournament.
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BOULDER – This is always the toughest time of the year for a team on the bubble. The time between your final regular season match and the NCAA selection show, not knowing if you’ll have the opportunity to suit up at least more time. For many, not knowing if the last match was your last match, either of the season or of your career, can be overwhelming.

“I’m trying not to think about it,” senior Nicole Edelman said shortly after playing her final match at the Coors Events Center Friday afternoon. “I would drive myself crazy. But I think we’ve done everything we can do. We controlled what we can control, now it’s just a waiting game.”

What did the Buffs do? What could they have done better? What are their chances? They will find out Sunday night with the selection show slated for 7 p.m. MT and aired live on ESPNU.
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Official NCAA tournament homepage- http://www.ncaa.com/championships/volleyball-women/d1

Interactive Bracket (of course won't show any teams until Sunday evening I assume after or during the ESPNU selection show) - http://www.ncaa.com/interactive-bracket/volleyball-women/d1
 
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Good luck to the volleyball team tomorrow evening.

In any case, assume they'll have a watch party, and hope at minimum it gives the team one more chance to celebrate playing some VERY good volleyball this season, and equaling their best Pac finish ever with a 2nd straight 11-9 record, and featuring (at minimum) two more wins against Top 20 (as of now) teams. (Ideally, of course, hope the busiest one tomorrow night is the Director of Operations after she learns where the Buffs are going in the tournament and has to scramble to make travel arrangements ahead of a Thursday or Friday 1st round match.)

Go Buffs!
 
I haven't been able to watch much live this season, but I will be watching tonight.
 
Before show, they release top 4 overall seeds. (Washington fans upset. Edit- could also be a bad sign for the Buffs in that the committee once again seems to value RPI (which only has Washington #9) as opposed to other resources, in Washington's case being the #2 ranked team in the country in the Coaches' Poll. Also, the 4 teams that DID get the top seeds just "happen" to also be the Top 4 in RPI.)

 
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Going into the show (which has just started), a few ratings for the Buffs-

Per http://ncaastats.figstats.net/volleyball-rpi.cgi (the "Unmodified RPI with Experimental Bonuses" tab lists the actual RPI (can't guarantee its accuracy), the Buffs have ended up at #64. (Per a thread in Volleytalk, the highest RPI #'d team that has been selected to the tourney in the last 5 years is RPI #51.)
In the "Pablo" ratings that are much more respected in the volleyball community, the Buffs were at #35 before this week's matches (both wins).
In the Massey ratings ( http://www.masseyratings.com/rate.php?lg=cvol&sub=NCAA I ), another rating more respected than RPI, the Buffs are rated #23. (It does have the Buffs actual ending record (19-13), so looks current.)
 
Colorado State and New Mexico state in the San Diego regional in the same bracket pod as Stanford and LMU.

In Lexington regional Denver plays Washington in the first round. Worried those may have been our shots if done along geographical lines.
 
CSU going to Stanford and will play the Cardinal if both win their 1st round matches.
 
Arizona, who the Buffs beat twice relatively easily (I believe 6-1 in sets), did make the tournament.
 
17-11 Kansas State is in as a Big 12 at-large. I don't know the particulars of their resume, but anyone care to enlighten? With tourney participants A&M, Mizzou, and Nebraska all gone from that conference their VB profile can't be as strong, so what's up?
 
I think all the teams have been announced and we didn't make it. Teams that finished lower in the conference did.
 
That's the end of the bracket reveal. 7 Pac teams in (USC, UCLA, Washington, Oregon, Arizona, Arizona State, Stanford). Buffs shut out.
 
That's disappointing

It sure is. One win fewer than last year and some very quality wins in the conference. Hope Kritza's recruiting continues stocking the roster with some good talent and it is encouraging to see how hard we are competing against the highest quality of women's volleyball opponents.

Thanks to you and Aztec in particular for your coverage this year.
 
Bummer, especially since the Buffs finished ahead of three teams from the Pac 12 that made it with at-large bids. Low RPI hurt and if we want to think about one particular game, it would be the conference opener when they lost to Utah.
 
Bummer, especially since the Buffs finished ahead of three teams from the Pac 12 that made it with at-large bids. Low RPI hurt and if we want to think about one particular game, it would be the conference opener when they lost to Utah.
Or the 5 setter that they lost here in Boulder against Oregon. I think one more win would have been enough to get them in. The Utah match in Salt Lake was played while they were still trying to find a third pin hitter while Hayes was out with injury. But for the Oregon match in Boulder the Buffs were at full strength. That's the one I think they shoulda/coulda won.
 
As a Pac-12 team, CU should never play in a tournament with Montana St (RPI 303), Weber St (274), George Mason (227) and Air Force (202) **RPI listed for 11/22. If I were a junior on this years team, I would be telling Coach Kritza I don't want to see a team like these on the schedule for my senior season.
 
Or the 5 setter that they lost here in Boulder against Oregon. I think one more win would have been enough to get them in. The Utah match in Salt Lake was played while they were still trying to find a third pin hitter while Hayes was out with injury. But for the Oregon match in Boulder the Buffs were at full strength. That's the one I think they shoulda/coulda won.

I can fully support that prediction. If that one Oregon match goes differently then CU equals their 2014 win total and Oregon's final record is 15-14. Much easier to argue CU in as an at-large over them.

I wish Balch or Carlson could be configured to hold NCAA volleyball matches. It would be far from the volleyball offices and practice facility at Coors but in a much more intimate setting that place would be rocking versus the sterile atmosphere of a large multipurpose arena. Need to create a home court advantage by getting the fans packed in closer to the action and trapping the crowd noise.
 
Oh well- kind of expected due to the selection committee’s past reliance on RPI, but still disappointed for the young women, and feel the team is probably MUCH better than some of the at-large teams that were selected. In any case, shouldn’t take away from the pride the team should still feel for a season that starts showing the team is a good PROGRAM and not an up and down team that relies on one or two transcendent players, as they were able to replace a player like their 1st 1st Team All-American ever in Taylor Simpson to graduation, and STILL were able to have a similar if not better season this year.

As to lessons learned, I’m sure the coaches and staff are as diligent as possible with scheduling, and part of the RPI going down was due to the Pac 12 not being as strong this year overall. However, it also seems the Buffs fell behind even before conference started, as the 1st RPI release (usually released after the 1st week or two of conference play) this year had them only at #72 (as of October 2nd) with a 10-6 record, while last year the 1st RPI had them at #34 with the same 10-6 record, and 2013 had them at #35 with an 11-3 record. (Note- I seem to remember that 2013 non-conference schedule was VERY weak, so explains that record being as high as it was.)

After the Buffs started the season with a GREAT and challenging 5 match stretch against quality teams, It looks like they maybe didn’t pick the right “easier” matches for their final 7 non-conference matches, as 6 of those 7 opponents had HEAVY losing records this year, which I’m sure hurt their RPI a lot. If, for example, the Buffs could have played the conference champion contenders of those teams’ conferences rather than who they did play (and the Buffs still would probably been heavy favorites against most of those conference contenders), it would have helped RPI a lot.***

Those 7 opponents and their records as of today, as well as their 2014 records. (Among other things, shows that in general how hard the RPI calculation “game” can be, as at least the 1st 2 opponents listed below had MUCH better records in 2014.):

Sam Houston State- 14-18 (2014- 18-12)
Louisiana- Lafayette- 6-23 (20-13)
Rice- 21-10 (23-10)
Montana State- 3-21 (7-21)
Weber State- 6-22 (7-21)
George Mason- 10-19 (6-21)
Air Force- 12-21 (13-19)

(***For those who don’t know, RPI is calculated using following formula (from Wikipedia)-

“RPI = (WP * 0.25) + (OWP * 0.50) + (OOWP * 0.25)

where WP is Winning Percentage, OWP is Opponents' Winning Percentage and OOWP is Opponents' Opponents' Winning Percentage.”

So, all your opponents combined winning percentages is THE most singularly large factor in a teams RPI. The opponents' RPI's don't really (directly) matter at all.)
 
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Buffs finish 5th in the Pac-12, but don't get in.

NCAA takes teams in 6th, 7th and 8th place.

SCREWED!
 
So, all your opponents combined winning percentages is THE most singularly large factor in a teams RPI. The opponents' RPI's don't really (directly) matter at all.)
The opponents' RPI is an indicator of why your RPI is low, just look at the formula. A team with a low RPI will have a low win % and will probably have a low opponent win %, both which factor into your RPI.
 
The opponents' RPI is an indicator of why your RPI is low, just look at the formula. A team with a low RPI will have a low win % and will probably have a low opponent win %, both which factor into your RPI.

I'm an admitted math dunce, so probably just not getting it, but I think I see cases where it does looks like playing an opponent with a better RPI does not ALWAYS equal a better opponent for CU’s RPI. For example:
a) one of the losing teams I mentioned in my post the Buffs defeated this year was Air Force, who is at #205 in RPI, have a 12-21 record, and their opponents have a .5089 winning %.
b) A little below them in RPI is #207 Siena, who have a 16-15 record and an opponent winning % of .4536,
c) and even farther down is #221 Bryant, who went 19-14 and has an opponent winning % of .4292.
Again, I can’t say I totally understand the RPI formula, but it looks to me that, just eye-balling it, the big advantage of Sienna’s and Bryant’s individual winning %'s (which makes up 50% of the Buff's RPI) over Air Force more than makes up for their slightly lower opponent’s winning % (which only makes up 25%).
Wouldn’t that have made Siena and Bryant a higher value RPI win for CU this year over beating Air Force, even though Air Force had a better RPI? Or, am I not understanding the RPI formula correctly?
 
RPI is really wonky in WVB this year.

You know who was 6 spots ahead of CU? 10-15 Oklahoma who the Buffs beat.

Kritza must have scheduled some absolute sisters of the poor in the OOC when they weren't playing good teams. Still, though, I just don't know how they could have ended up at #66 with all those matches against the Top 50 and so many quality wins.
 
I'm an admitted math dunce, so probably just not getting it, but I think I see cases where it does looks like playing an opponent with a better RPI does not ALWAYS equal a better opponent for CU’s RPI. For example:
a) one of the losing teams I mentioned in my post the Buffs defeated this year was Air Force, who is at #205 in RPI, have a 12-21 record, and their opponents have a .5089 winning %.
b) A little below them in RPI is #207 Siena, who have a 16-15 record and an opponent winning % of .4536,
c) and even farther down is #221 Bryant, who went 19-14 and has an opponent winning % of .4292.
Again, I can’t say I totally understand the RPI formula, but it looks to me that, just eye-balling it, the big advantage of Sienna’s and Bryant’s individual winning %'s (which makes up 50% of the Buff's RPI) over Air Force more than makes up for their slightly lower opponent’s winning % (which only makes up 25%).
Wouldn’t that have made Siena and Bryant a higher value RPI win for CU this year over beating Air Force, even though Air Force had a better RPI? Or, am I not understanding the RPI formula correctly?
I haven't been able to find the exact formula adjustments for volleyball, but basketball has adjustments for home, road, neutral site wins/losses and the NCAA also doesn't count wins against D-II opponents. Not sure who some of those schools played but if any of their wins were against D-II schools, that would lower their win %. In reality what hurt the worst were probably the home loss to Oregon and the loss to Utah.
 
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