Hawaii up to 23 in poll, 4 Wahine earn 1st team BWC honors
First team honors to Kalei Adolpho, Olivia Magill, Tai Manu-Olevao and Nikki Taylor.
Greeley on the all-Freshman team.
It was the first time since 1994 that a Rainbow Wahine had not been selected the Player of the Year, either winning it outright or sharing it.
As for the rest
The 2014 Big West Conference champion, Long Beach State, continued its dominance in the conference’s annual awards, sweeping the top three honors. Janelle Hundson was tabbed Big West Player of the Year and teammate Ashley Murray earning Big West Freshman of the Year
honors. Rounding out the 49er trio was Brian Gimmillaro, who picked up the Big West Coach of the Year award
complete list at
http://www.bigwest.org//story.asp?story_id=18122
COMMENTS
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congrats to the hawaii players honored — adolpho, magill, olevao, taylor, and greeley … and to all players.
lbsu swept the major awards, but in reality, they were undefeated in league play and earned it. if hawaii had managed to share in the title, i think magill would have been tabbed as POY. but really though, both teams (lbsu and hawaii) were quite balanced this year, without a hartong-like terminator.
Hawaii at No.23 in the AVCA Poll
No teams dropped out, just rearranged. Duke remains at No.21 and Washington up to No.3
Hudson POY really??
I guess a positive going into the subregional this year is less pressure on the team. Last season they were seeded and hosted and the clear favorites out of the four teams. This year they are unseeded and even actually are considered an underdog to Duke if you look at rankings. So really there is not much pressure on this year’s team so they can hopefully go into the match which a go for broke type mentality and try to pull of some upsets.
#4 completely agree… they just have to come out loose, confident and believe they can win out …
2. thanks. totally forgot to mention the poll in today’s madness.
GREELEY deserved FOY imo and Magill POY. MAGILL ha a serious AA potential, but Hudson does not.
Totally agree with you Brandon.
. I felt that the POY could have gone to several deserving candidates, FOY of the year should have been Greeley that was the easiest one. Some thought Connors should have been COY but with LBSU going unbeaten I can see why they pick whats his face.
Hoping Duke comes out tight. They have shown they can beat top-10 teams…
They are scary… especially Jeme Obeime at OH. Go Bows!
They have only beaten over rated top ten teams.
We have favoritism as Wahine fans, but yes, Greeley’s play thru the BW season has more FOY positives than Murray. Her play in several matches that led to a win had more impact than all of the freshman candidates. The selection committee almost always lean toward the conference champs.
11. And UH can’t even beat teams now rated 15, 16, 17, or 22. If UH doesn’t respect Duke, then we won’t have to worry about the Huskies.
Greeley had 3 FOW, Murray had 2 and 1 DPoW. How runaway it is for Murray that Greeley didn’t even made it to the honorable mentions? Nikki Taylor and Ali Spindt was both on the first team last year. FOY went to Spindt but Taylor made it to the Honorable mention all-region team Spindt did not.
I think Maria Taylor was right on the money when she called Florida a sleeper…I really think the Gators can beat Stanford…
11. agree with Mav (13). I don’t see how Florida States wins over Nebraska and Florida (who just beat Texas in Austin) as over-rated. I’m not sure we’re drinking from the same fountain.
@16 He was talking about Duke not FSU. Duke has a win over FSU but they’ve also lost to Pitt, Santa Clara, Va. Tech, and Michigan. (They have other losses to Stanford and North Carolina twice.)
Hawaii can certainly compete with and beat Duke if they can get their passing and setting together.
13. True, but it’s not like they got blown away. If they played now, I wouldn’t be surprised if UH beat them all.
UH and Duke looks pretty even, and whoever wins the pass/receive will have the upper hand to winning.
17. You are confusing things. #11 stated that Duke only beat top ten teams that are overrated. #16 was rebutting that claim by describing how one of Duke’s so-called overrated top ten opponents (FSU, who Duke beat) is not overrated given its wins over Nebraska and Florida.
18. ASU killed UH 3-0 earlier in the season. The point I am making is that, regardless of how close UH came to beating LBSU and the Pac-12 teams, it still lost all those matches. Duke was at least able to beat FSU, a top 10 team. So one shouldn’t assume Duke isn’t a quality opponent, which is where you and I agree.
Btw, if the UH team that beat Davis played those teams now, then I agree that they would win several of those matches. If the team that showed up for the Riverside match played, I am not sure the results would be any different. UH has yet to play at a consistently high level.
20. I should say ASU outplayed UH, not killed them, but the scores are not reflective of how well ASU played. UH lost to UCLA in three close sets. CSUN loss was a bad UH performance, regardless of the travel issues. The other losses were five setters.
Morgan Martin, Did she commit to UH sand? She partnered w/ Kathryn Plummer to win gold in the FIVB U17 this past summer. hmm…?!?
20. ASU did not kill UH. All three sets were pretty even and 2 of 3 sets could have gone either way. One other thing, UH was without Nikki Taylor, who is arguably UH’s best pin hitter, through the first 8 matches of the season which included all three of the Pac-12 matches that you mentioned….
23. See 21 where I corrected myself. With Nikki Taylor in the lineup, UH still lost to LBSU twice and was swept at CSUN.
23. Taylor was a combined 34-17-102 (.167) in the three UH losses that she played in. Even the best pin hitter has off days, and it is not clear that UH would have won any of its pre-conference losses with her on the lineup.
All of us bloggers have our own expert opinions of what would have happened if certain circumstances were to be, but in the end I think I’ll stand behind Shoji’s last statement in Scott Robb’s postgame interview.
#22. Matin’s commitment a rumor?
Several NCAA D1 “bubble” schools which had their bubble popped by the Selection Committee have posted their “official” reactions on their websites, and most were generous in defeat with the sugar-coated “would have, could have, should have.”
None came close to this lambasting:
“I’ve been an athletic director for over 30 years, had over 350 teams earn NCAA Championship bids, spent six years on the Board of Directors for USA Volleyball and had 17 teams advance to the NCAA Championships,” said Athletic Director Dr. Ted Leland.
“That our second place West Coast Conference and 24-7 women’s volleyball team was not selected for this year’s NCAA Tournament is a travesty.. . . People shouldn’t be surprised to see us playing with a chip on our shoulder next season. I’ve been on enough NCAA committees to know that committees make stupid decisions, and this is a stupid decision.”
Pacific finished the regular season winning its final 5 matches and won 10 of its last 12 contests with 8 coming on the road. Pacific University has not been invited to the Big Dance since 2004 — a decade! Next year, Pacific will remember.
[As far as I know, I was the only one who predicted on VT and on Volleyshots that the WCC would have more than 2 squads in the Tournament, which would directly affect the BWC’s number of bids.
I kept repeating that the NCAA will reward the WCC for having its 2 under-the-radar squads advance to the Regionals last year, and reward the WCC it did. But I also assumed the league’s runner-up would get an at-large bid over the league’s tied-for-3rd-place and 5th-place finishers. Wrong!]
It maybe that Nikki’s elbow is not quite there yet. She only tried 2 or so line shots against Davis, ditto Riverside. Last year against Texas she hit both line and cross.
Greeley may be the higher percentage hitter at this point in time, which would warrant a look at ROH.
#29. May be? Nikki’s kill percentage is .234. Kali’s is .222. Do you have a break down of their percentages hitting left vs. right?
27. Nothing concrete. Saw something a twitter with a person congratulating someone named Morgan Martin on her commitment to the University of Hawaii (does not mention a sport). From some googling, this person is on the surf team for Capistrano Valley High. The tweet mentions they are neighbors. One would assume if they’re neighbors they would attend the same high school. Looking at Capistrano Valley high school’s volleyball team (maxpreps) one would find Morgan Martin, the same Martin who partnered with Plummer in the FIVB U17 Championships. Of course what I’ve pointed out is totally circumstantial. I could be way off base which is why I asked the question.
25. Really? You’re going to take NT’s hitting stats from three losses to form that opinion? That makes no sense. What makes better sense is to see what NT’s replacement(s) hit during the time NT was out. Dave shuffled the lineup but basically you can say that NT has replaced Ginger Long in the lineup since she’s been back. In the three Pac-12 losses that you pointed out Ginger Long hit -.154 against ASU, by committee against Oregon: Long hit .000, Passi hit -.400, and Huff hit -.167. Against UCLA Long hit -.333. If NT hit .167 for those three matches UH would have won all three of those matches…
32. I have no idea how anyone can make an affirmative statement about NT hitting .167 and UH winning those early matches–you make too many assumptions with your comments. You don’t know how inserting her would have impacted the match–nothing happens in a vacuum–although you seem to assume it does (add in NT at .167, and everyone else plays the same for UH, the opponents will not be ass effective, and then UH wins). It’s a self-serving comment. I suggested that it was not clear that inserting her would have made any difference given she has had off days. You also fail to address the fact that NT was in the lineup during the LBSU and CSUN losses (teams that are no better than the Pac12 teams UH faced), so your argument falls on its face.
32. In any case, this is getting off topic from my original post, that if UH underestimates Duke, we won’t worry about having to play Washington.
28. good for Leland. I questioned UOP not getting in as well, particularly since three teams below them did. this is the problem with the RPI.
Have more of a problem with SC getting in. 15-15. 8-12 in the conference. Yes, the play in the best conference but at some point winning (or lack of thereof) should count for something.
And Lipscomb?
I wonder if Scott Wong is considering applying for the HC position at pepperdine
Lipscomb’s RPI took a bump up to 31 with a loss in their final match against powerful Jacksonville……a joke like the RPI system.
35.
I agree. Even if it is the Pac-12, having a .500 record overall and a losing record in conference doesn’t exactly scream tournament worthy. Sure they have quality wins but they don’t exactly have many wins overall to begin with.
Can hardly wait for the AVCA All-Region Awards. I assume Hawai’i is still in the Pacific North Region. Last year Taylor made All-Region Honorable Mention. As usual, I would love to see all the Women of Manoa nominees get in, but that won’t happen. At least one. Two at most. Three? Lol. But what matters most is that this team appears to have found its heart — O Mr. Grinch! — just in the Nicky of time!
cindy — usc and lipscomb getting is a reflection of the selection committee being directed to rely heavily on RPI.
usc had an RPI of 22. for their part, they had the toughest schedule in the country. besides playing in the pac-12, they scheduled extremely tough in the non-conference part of their schedule.
lipscomb had an RPI of 33, with 2 wins against the RPI top 50, including #11 kansas. (incidentally, hawaii had an RPI of 39, and also had 2 wins against the RPI top 50, but none against the RPI top 25.)
pacific got snubbed, i agree. but a lot of teams at the cut-off point had similar resumes. pacific needed to schedule just a little bit tougher. their final RPI of 49 burst their bubble. pacific beat lmu twice during the regular season. i would have put them in based on that! but the difference being that lmu finished a higher RPI of 40, and just had better signature wins (beating ucla, long beach st, and san diego).
39.
Sorry but I really can’t fathom how USC is given an at large berth. Sure USC has a very tough schedule, but it’s like they getting rewarded only for that and the fact that they had a mediocre W-L season is being overlooked. It’s like the bowl situation with football. They reward postseason play to teams that have .500 records, thus it sort of diminishes the value of the bowl games as a whole. They really should be for teams that have had successful seasons. Although the whole idea with the amount of bowls is more along the lines of making $$$ for the sponsors, tv, etc.
Hi Cindy. If the VB Committee seeded the same way like the men’s and women’s basketball committee, does that mean Hawaii’s seed is around 30th? It appears given the RPI and ranking, the committee appears to downgraded the Wahine.
andrew — i agree. it just looks odd to see a 15-15 team make the playoffs. (recall that illinois made the tournament last year with a 16-14 record, and not only that, they were seeded!)
the criteria given to the selection committee is that the “primary” factors for selecting at-large teams should be based on (1) RPI, (2) head-to-head competition, (3) results versus common opponents, and (4) significant wins and losses. despite a 15-15 record, usc boasted an RPI of 22. i won’t name every team usc won and lost to here, but they did win 8 matches against the RPI top 50, including 2 wins against the RPI top 25. That better than most of the teams that received at-large bids. so the committee at least could look at “who” usc played (and beat), rather than just looking at the RPI rating. although, we can’t say for certain which of these criteria the committee looked at, and which factors they gave more weight to.
and i also agree that a selection like this exposes some of the weaknesses of relying so heavily on the RPI. the use of the RPI is compounded here, because they’re looking at the rating itself, and also measuring the value of the teams you won or lost against using the RPI as a metric.
tommy — the selection committee doesn’t seed the volleyball tournament the same as the basketball tournaments. in volleyball, the committee is only permitted to seed the top 16 teams. in basketball, the entire tournament field is seeded.
after the seeded teams, the other teams can be place in the bracket using “travel distance” as a factor, to the extent it’s practical. that’s why in the volleyball tournament, some seeded teams have much tougher sub-regionals than other seeded teams. washington, as the 3 seed, got a tougher sub-regional than penn st, as the 5 seed. the directive given to the committee is to minimize travel, if and when possible … NOT to create a balanced tournament bracket.
39. i know that’s the directive but at some point common sense should be involved. as Andrew wrote, just because you play a lot of great teams, you still need to win games otherwise losing to a great team seems to count more than beating a mediocre team.
As one coach told me regarding USC, They are a good team. They just haven’t beaten anyone good.’ Had to laugh at that.
But on that note, Hawaii does not have a win against any team that is in the NCAA tournament.
my point has long been that someone has to assign the starting value and input that info into the system. It seems that whoever does that has had a bias against the non-BCS/Power Five conferences.
Now that that AVCA poll is being considered, the way coaches are voting has changed. More biased towards their conferences. IMHO.
Anyway, I have got to pack. leave for Seattle tonight
45.
amen. The Nebraska coach is a good example of that. Though a lot of coaches do the same
#45 & 47. A conflict of interest it seems. But, it’s only sports, right?
Rate you conference mates higher, and it help you, even if you lose to some of them.
cindy — there is no “starting value” for the RPI. i know we’ve had this conversation before. it’s just win/loss records that get inputted into a formula. there are a couple bonuses, which the NCAA does not reveal. but for the most part, it’s all about how many wins and losses you have.
the bias is not from the “person” inputting the numbers into the computer. the bias inherent to the RPI is regional-based, more than anything else. i know you don’t like to go on VT much, but there are reliable posters on there who have done this analysis. the trick to gaming the RPI is to play teams with good win/loss records. that is far easier to do from the mid-west on, because that’s where the majority of the volleyball programs are. it’s easier to find a mediocre team with a good record when you go east, than it is to find one on the west coast, where there tends to be stronger programs, but with poorer records because they all play and beat up on each other. this is why teams from the SEC and ACC have such strong RPIs.
the pac-12 has found a way to rise above the regional bias of the RPI. its teams are just damn good, and especially this year, beat everyone in the early non-conference part of the season. before the conference season started, every pac-12 team had a positive win/loss record, even the teams that ended up at the bottom of the pac-12 standings. cal had gone 8-2 in the early non-conference, and washington st went 9-3. that helped their overall conference RPI rating, and allowed its teams to finish with strong RPIs to earn 10 bids to the conference.
the big-10 saw it’s allotment of teams this year reduced from 8 last year, to 6 this year. its conference RPI got dragged down by adding maryland and rutgers, who had terrible win/loss records. some teams in the big-10 had to play them twice. (it would be like if hawaii had to play riverside 4 times in a season! and we all saw how hawaii dropped like a lead balloon from 30 to 39, after it played riverside — with it’s 2-26 record — in the final weekend. there were other factors that caused the drop, but that impacted hawaii’s RPI formula, no doubt.) … once the big-10 figure out how to balance out the conference scheduling, they will be right back at sending more teams to the tournament, i’m sure.
49. I’m glad someone understands RPI and how to game it. RPI is not an accurate reflection of how good a team is. Aside from scheduling and beating high winning pct. non-conference opponents, the best thing UH can hope for, from an RPI perspective, is to have its Big West opponents schedule cupcakes and beat them, to improve their records and thus increase the potion of RPI related to UH’s opponents’ winning percentage.
45. Cindy, you’ve claimed directly and defensively to me in the past that you know how RPI works, but your post clearly indicates otherwise. I find it very disappointing that you continue to have the same misconceptions of RPI when multiple posters over the past two years have explained ad infinitum how RPI works. Instead of making the same complaints over and over again, you should direct your frustrations against the NCAA for placing an emphasis on such a flawed calculation.
#50. I don’t think the NCAA would listen to Cindy’s “frustrations” even if she tried. Having the Big West schedule “cupcakes” would only have a marginal effect on RPI & probably be detrimental. If Riverside wins all of it out of conference matches against “cupcakes” (against these teams have RPIs below 150), that won’t help.
With the conference teams having good recruiting results since Hawaii rejoined the conference, the conference would be better served by having teams schedule a bit tougher. But, they need to win these games.
I think Hawaii, LBS, Northridge, Cal Poly and UCSB can do this, and perhaps Irvine & UC Davis.
51. Not true because UH’s opponents’ winning pct is 50% of the RPI calc. My suggestion may depress the third component of UH’s RPI, but that component has half the weighting (25%) and is spread over ~27 times the number of win-loss records (assume all teams play 27 matches a year, to simplify). The value of Riverside winning a match over a cupcake far outweighs the impact of playing a cupcake with a poor W-L record. It is the mathematics of RPI and the best way of gaming the system.
I agree that ideally you want Big West opponents to schedule tough and win, but teams like Riverside are too weak to garner such wins. I’m only suggesting a near term approach, not a long-term solution for improving UH’s RPI. Better teams won’t do as I hope because they have an incentive to improve RPIs as much as possible, and for them, beating cupcakes is less valuable than beating great teams.
And I agree NCAA won’t listen to complaints, but focusing on a flawed calculation is even less productive.
yup, i agree the NCAA won’t listen to complaints about the RPI. it’s their formula! they will refuse to be told that it’s not a reliable tool to field a championship tournament. lol
at the very least though, i hope i can add to the discussion on here about it. i don’t like the RPI. i’ve been very outspoken against it, like many fans and posters on here and on VT. but at the same time, i hope we don’t continue to perpetuate the myths surrounding it.
AdmrVT — to echo what maverick said above … if riverside scheduled and won against a bunch of cupcakes and had a decent win/loss record before conference play starts, it will absolutely help hawaii’s RPI.
for instance, if riverside was 10-0 before conference play, and ended up with a 10-20 record at the end of the regular season … that is better than riverside starting out 0-10 against their non-conference opponents, and finishing with a 0-30 record by the end. (riverside’s actual line wasn’t that far off this season. they were 2-10 against their non-conference opponents, and finished the season winless in league play with a 2-26 overall record. and since hawaii played riverside twice, this got factored into hawaii’s RPI formula twice! brutal!)
take also the example i discussed above about the pac-12. even the bottom dwellers in the pac-12 (like cal and washington st) had great win/loss records before conference play started. cal and washington st were 8-2 and 9-3 respectively, against mostly weak teams, before pac-12 play began. they ended up being at the bottom of the pac-12 standings, but since they had accumulated some wins early on, it lessened the blow of their conference opponents having to play them, some twice in a season.
53. I know how the RPI works.
And, as I have continued to say, I don’t think it’s right the way it’s done.
It’s a flawed system.
If you want to argue that, fine.
53. If you did, you wouldn’t have made comment 46. Starting values are all zero. The formula is the formula, no human who is inputting values is biased. You are being defensive and argumentative, it’s very unbecoming. But that’s your choice.
56. Btw, I am on record on this blog for saying that RPI is a flawed calculation for determining team quality/strength/etc. etc., and that using it to populate the tournament is equally flawed. What I take issue with are posts that misconstrue how RPI works or describe some conspiracy against non-power conference teams–big money football can have a huge impact on non-revenue sports like volleyball, leading to better recruiting/teams/won-loss records and potentially higher RPIs. That being said Cindy, I do appreciate your maintaining this blog for the fans–it can be difficult at times but that does not mean I do not recognize your efforts.
57. i do get defensive. and i thank you for all the information you have provided.
one question then: who came up with the formula?
I am not the only one who perceives a bias towards Power 5 conferences. have had discussions with many coaches and others involved in the sport who worked to get the coaches poll as now part of the formula.
You saw the BCS mentality creep in over a decade ago. Otherwise you wouldn’t have had the designation among committee members as “mid-major” representative. And you wouldn’t have seen the SEC suddenly be considered
a power volleyball conference. The Pac-8/10/12 has always been good. My issue is with a 10th place team that barely got to .500 and is 8-12 in conference with a ‘really bad’ loss to a Cal getting in.
cindy — the NCAA came up with the formula for the RPI. they’ve been using it for the basketball tournament since the ’80s. and have slowly applied it to other sports (like volleyball, softball, soccer, etc), whether appropriate or not.
since then, other metrics have emerged that from a statistics standpoint is proven to be a better measure of the “strength” of a team (for lack of a better term). but the NCAA has no incentive to use a metric that is not their own. unfortunately, it’s to the detriment of the sport.
~~ Final Word On The Boring Subject of RPI ~~
Even though the NCAA Selection Committee says that the RPI is just one of many many tools used to seed teams — and thus the predictive system for the NCAA Championship Tournament results — the RPI is the MAIN seeding criterion. Period.
The NCAA has its own reasons for continuing to use a ratings system that does not account for home/away/neutral matches OR sets won/lost OR margin of victory. One of those stated reasons, however, should not and cannot be its predicted accuracy.
The net is overloaded with abstracts on the topic of RPIs — no doubt a lot of students have gotten their Masters writing their thesis on the controversial subject. For students who are thinking of doing a final exam paper on the subject, the following link is a good place to start (involves soccer but same smell):
https://sites.google.com/site/rpifordivisioniwomenssoccer/rpi-strength-of-schedule-problem
‘Nuff said.