Akiu earns DPOW honor; Wahine RPI drops to 75
Hawaii senior libero Reyn “Tita” Akiu has earned the Big West’s defensive player of the week honor for the second time this season, it was announced by the conference Monday.
Here’s the Star-Advertiser’s breaking story on it.
For the Big West’s complete release click here.
For the latest complete NCAA RPI rankings click here.
Hawaii is down two spots to 75.
Stanford (18-1) and BYU (20-0) stay at 1-2.
The conference teams with higher RPIs than Hawaii are:
No. 12 Cal Poly (19-1, 9-0), which remanded at 18
UC Irvine (12-8, 7-2) which dropped 12 spots to 63
Other opponents ahead of the Wahine are:
Oregon (23), Kansas State (41, jumping 25 places after 2 Big 12 wins), Pepperdine (47) and Portland (50).
Rated behind Hawaii are:
UC Santa Barbara (98, down 9), Long Beach State (113, up 7), UC Davis (123, up 20),Coastal Carolina (127, down 10), Idaho (153, up 11) and Cal State Northridge (166, up 5). Also, San Diego State (205, up 6), UC Riverside (253, down 2) and Cal State Fullerton (300, down 6) out of the 336 teams in the RPI.
ICYMI Sunday Top 25
2) Stanford def. 16) Oregon 16-25, 25-21, 25-17, 25-15
6) Pittsburgh def. Louisville 25-22, 26-24, 26-28, 25-20
9) Wisconsin def. Iowa 25-18, 25-13, 25-21
11) Florida lost to Missouri 23-25, 25-16, 17-25, 25-13, 15-17
15) Kentucky def. Texas A&M 19-25, 25-19, 22-25, 25-20, 15-5
17) Purdue def. Ohio State 25-17, 25-22, 25-13
18) Marquette def. Northern Iowa 20-25, 25-20, 25-16, 26-24
21) Louisville lost to Pittsburgh 22-25, 24-26, 28-26, 20-25
23) Washington State def. 20) UCLA 25-22, 25-20, 25-21
25) Arizona def. Utah 26-24, 25-13, 18-25, 25-20
Doesn’t look like the Wahine can raise their RPI 18 to 20 points in order to be in position to get an at-large, Or beating Cal Poly and Pepperdine can raise their RPI enough to get in as an at-large? Let’s say it isn’t enough, and even if the Wahine should beat Cal Poly and win the rest of the conference matches, do they have to sweep the Mustangs in order to win the tie-breaker for the conference’s automatic bid?
1. yes, discussed the tiebreaker a few threads ago.
who knows, anything can happen. just gotta hope they play and win out the rest of the way. in or not, it’s whatevers to me. the NCAA was never good to Hawaii, not like it would be surprising if they left Hawaii out.
“The winner of the two-match series between the two tied teams will be declared the automatic qualifier.”
This does not specify that if each team wins one match each, then you look at total sets won and lost in those two matches, or if total sets won and lost in the two matches were the same that you look at total points won and lost
That being said, is there precedent in prior years that the above would be true?
If not (or even if so), a better scenario would be that Hawaii be the outright champion by beating Cal Poly and also win the rest of their matches, and Cal Poly loses an additional match (say to UC Irvine) .
From a Big West Conference standpoint, this scenario would probably have two teams invoted to the NCAA tournament.
Three teams is not totally out of the picture, if UC Irvine only loses to Hawaii and splits with Cal Poly and win the rest of their matches. If UC Irvine were to sweep Cal Poly, their chances would be even better but Cal poly’s would be worse. UC Irvine and Cal Poly would probably be bubble teams for an at-large bid where Hawaii only chance is to be an automatic qualifier.
Congrats to Tita. Well deserved.
Re: “Three teams is not totally out of the picture.” Three Big West teams getting into The Big Dance is not beyond the realm of possibility IF the NCAA had an unlimited supply of at-large bids to hand out. Wishful thinking. Only 32 are available, and you can expect the Pac-12 and the Big Ten to garner about half of those bids as usual.
And before the NCAA looks at the Big West for a possible at-large award, it will first look at the WCC (currently with 5 teams in the RPI Top 50 led by #2 BYU as opposed to the Big West with only 1 team).
Go Bows! Defend your house! Play like a Rainbow Wahine Warrior!
Robyn was on Josh Pacheco’s show today and had a good interview.
She said White Out and Free for Youth nite on Friday.
Said wants the team to start out strong and take care of our side of the court.
I don’t understand the RPI. I didn’t appreciate what the NCAA did you the men’s team last year. We swept two teams and won a set 25–3 and dropped 5 points. Wow.
Is their transparency?
Do we know exactly how the RPI works?
I recently read a book called “Weapons of Math Destruction” by Cathy O’Neil.
It’s about the industry of Big Data but O’Neil’s thesis is somewhat applicable to the RPI.
I think you have more shenanigans when it comes to tournament selection in the so-called “minor” sports.
You don’t have post-conference commentary on national television like you do for men’s and women’s basketball.
A couple years back, to the complete utter indifference of my co-workers, heard me complain about how Utah Valley missed the NCAA Baseball Tournament. This was the season Kent State and Stony Brook made the College World Series.
Utah Valley had an epic winning streak to close the season. They deserved a shot. But the selection committee, predictably, cited “low RPI”.
The RPI is an excuse to cheat.
My pointers: 1) Once you give a free ball to mustangs, the probability that it will get killed ~80%. So, better use transition offence whenever possible. Nevertheless, strategic tip-overs, rollover to baseline, medium pace kills needed in addition to thunder kills to mess up their strong blocking/defense. 2) For the same reason, tough serving is required but with minimum service errors. 3) Both Granato and Burns will be fully guarded by Mustangs best blockers. So, evenly distribute settings to all hitters as once all other hitters start contributing to kills that will mess up their defense. 4) Do not soften offense due to series of killing errors, specially, Granato. 5) Wish Granato aims big thunders at side of close defenders. 6) Once you get the second attack opportunity, setter must be smart enough to set at hitter in unsettled defense. 7) Try by all means setting to avoid their best blocker(s), Madilyn Mercer (and Meredith Philips) which will give statistical advantage in long run of game. 8) Minimize hitting/serving at their best digger, Katherine Brouker to get statistical advantage. 9) Remember, at least based on RPI, wahines are heavy underdog. So do not relax even after getting a bigger lead.
4. posted the entire tiebreaker scenarios earlier thread.
7. they dropped two spots basically because UCR and Fullerton are so bad. It’s computer generated.
http://www.hawaiiwarriorworld.com/?p=47248
new thread up for Tuesday