Hawaii to No. 7 in latest poll
Hawaii’s steadiness during a week full of upsets in women’s volleyball was rewarded with a jump in the AVCA Division I Coaches Top 25 poll released today.
The Rainbow Wahine (8-1) moved from No. 10 up to No. 7.
Penn State, with 45 of the 60 first-place votes, jumped to two spots to No. 2. San Diego (7-1), the only team team to beat Hawaii this season, received 13 votes in shooting up seven spots to No. 2.
Washington (6-0), with the remaining two votes, went from No. 6 to No. 3 while Florida (6-1), despite losing to Penn State Sunday, was up a spot to No. 4.
Former No. 1 USC, with a loss to San Diego, meant a drop to No. 5. Preseason No. 1 Texas (5-2), defeated by the Rainbow Wahine in the season opener, slid four spots to No. 6.
Rounding out the Top 10 were Stanford (5-2), Minnesota (6-1) and Michigan (7-1).
Hawaii makes its first road trip of season, traveling to Wichita, Kansas, for the Shocker Classic. The Wahine open with South Dakota Thursday, followed by No. 23 Creighton Friday and host Wichita State Saturday.
A well deserved ranking for the rainbow wahine. How would you think the wahine will do in the whicita state tournament??
first road trip but a veteran road team. different playing style by midwest teams. I think they’ll go 3-0.
South Dakota should be a good warmup to get used to the arena. Creighton (7-2) ranked No. 23 but don’t think they’ve seen anyone with Hawaii’s quickness
they opened with a win over BYU (overrated), then Bowling Green, Northern Colorado, South Florida. Swept by Cal (so so team), beat Kansas, CSUN (may be the second-best of the Big West), beat denver, lost to UCLA 3-1. jury still out on the Bruins IMHO.
They have the talent, size and skill to beat good teams on the road; with this yearʻs steady passing and improved setting, they should be in the game with even larger/taller teams…iʻm sure coach is working to develop consistency and a more business-like focus into each game and especially crunch time, no matter who the opponent is — i think theyʻll get it, get there, get more consistent in closing out games @ 21, 23, 24…
This Road Trip would be a good elevating point…
At least, as they were advertised, USD seems for real…
4. Shoji had said before the Texas mach that he was worried about USD. He knew they were legit. I told the USC coach that as well before he played the Toreros. He already had his concerns.
Hawaii coulda totally won in 4 possibly 3 against USD, so we were totally there. If we did win which think we can against them next time, where would our ranking be? #2?
Cindy, will they be streaming the games on-line ?? Would love to watch this tourney… thanks!
Interesting voter results: first, Ray Gooden put UH back on his ballot after last week’s oversight. Mick Haley kept USD and UH 1 and 2, which I think is less of a “political” vote than his vote last week, at least with respect to USD.
There may be two schools of thought on how good UH is:
(a) legit high ranking team (17 top five votes)
(b) good but not top echelon that has yet to play away from home (21 votes for #7 through #11 (yes, Travis Hudson of Western Kentucky voted UH #11 and behind UCLA)).
There were 10 #6 votes for UH.
I haven’t performed a geographic or BCS/non-BCS analysis of the voting to determine if any bias there, but Jerritt Elliot, Brian Gimmillaro, Mick Haley, Russ Rose, Mike Sealy, and Mary Wise all had UH top 5 (those who played UH, will play UH or are the more experienced coaches in NCAA).
5. My view would be no because USD won all its games before last weekend on the road. There is a lot to be said for that. But I think UH would be top 5 if they had beaten USD and USD won the rest of its matches to date.
Uiato is Big West player of the week!! Congrats!
http://www.bigwest.org//story.asp?story_id=17214
6. don’t know. you can check at goshockers.com
1420-AM will be going. you can catch their broadcast online at espn1420am.com
I do find it interesting that UH is behind UCLA by a number of voters
didn’t Sealy rank the Bruins ahead of UH last week?
Sealy ranked UH ahead of UCLA last week and this week.
5. I do think that, had UH beat USD, which was totally do-able, that they had a legit shot being No. 1, given what has happened around the country. with wins over Texas and UCLA … and given USD’s win over USC.
9. thank you. will post in a minute
12. thank you. I had been told otherwise about last week’s vote.
The RKPI on the Rich Kern site estimates that Hawaii’s RPI is a surprising #2. Of course, it’s way, way early in the season. And the RKPI is usually a close approximation, but doesn’t always align with the RPI (which will be released by the NCAA in a month).
Hawaii’s opponents in the RKPI top 100:
1 – Texas
2 – San Diego
10 – UCLA
11 – Creighton
29 – Santa Clara
33 – Arizona
61 – Wichita St
70 – South Dakota
87 – Portland St
98 – Northwestern
Big West Opponents RKPI:
14 – Cal State Northridge
74 – UC Irvine
101 – Cal Poly
111 – Long Beach St
126 – UCSB
142 – UC Davis
145 – Cal State Fullerton
311 – UC Riverside
The Big West teams’ non-conference win/loss record to date (not including Hawaii) is: 40-36. Not the best. You’d like to see more of a win cushion as we head into conference play, to help Hawaii’s RPI. But at least the it’s above .500. And 5 of the other 8 Big West teams at least have winning records right now.
As I will always say, the only poll that metters is the last one before they seed NCAA brackets, but if past history is any indication of validity given to poll, it isn’t a real tool to see how you’re doind, just a crutch for seeding committee to ‘point’ at when asked how they seeded. Seeing as coaches are voting, they would be more likely to consider concerns over venue (ie. home vs neutral or away) strength/quality of opponents and league/conference affiliation. but as USD is proving this year, you can’t shake a stick at beating the high seeds, too obvious. Wahine on the other hand, will drop like a stone in the Ala Wai if they even lose one conference match or away tourney because of the preceived “Home Court” advantage they have here. One misstep will be ‘punished’ and at end of season come seeding time, record rpi and many other factors will be discounted. You got to win it on the court, no easy strolls to the Final Four or National Championship. Go Wahine!
14. Maybe Maverick doesn’t have Excel viewer on his computer and read that on VT.
I’m sitting here looking at the ballots and in week 1 Sealy had UCLA 10th and Hawai`i 11th.
In week 2 he reversed that.Hawai`i 10th, UCLA 11th
In week 3 he has Hawai`i 5th and UCLA 12th.
So since losing to UH he has twice ranked them ahead of his own team.
BTW you have to be careful when you read their Excel sheet because they have the coaches names in the #1 spot.
17. Nope. Read the votes on excel like you did. Are comments are the same.
sorry, Our comments are the same…
Where can i see the coach’s voting?
Are both UH and USD tied for #2 in RKPI? I don’t subscribe to RK.
Post # 15 says UH is rank 2 in the RKPI but USD also listed as #2. If true and while that is great, I find it hard to believe that UH would be tied with USD given that they had a tougher pre-conference schedule.
@ kalei, it is on the AVCA website
Rich Kern site, Pablo rankings: 1-Penn St 2-Hawaii 3-Texas 4-Stanford 5-San Diego
apologies Maverick i miss read it.
20.kaleiboy go to this link and look for “voter ballots” in left column.
http://www.avca.org/divisions/division-one-women/polls/
Pac-12 has 6 in Top 25 and 1 receiving votes:
#3 Washington, #5 USC, #8 Stanford, #11 UCLA, #18 ASU, #20 Oregon, votes: Cal
Big-10 has 8 in Top 25 and 1 receiving votes:
#1 Penn State, #9 Minnesota, #10 Michigan, #12 Nebraska, #13 Ohio State, #14 Michigan State, #16 Illinois, #21 Purdue, votes Wisconsin
vbfan4life — my bad, San Diego is #3 in the RKPI this week. it was a typo on my part. thanks for catching that.
thanks all for taking the time to put up the RK & Pablo.
don’t think it’s that much of a surprise that Hawaii is 2. having played 1 and 3. but we’ll see what happens after this road trip.
the key for UH to stay up there is for everyone they played to keep winning.
well, i do think it’s a surprise that hawaii is #2 in the “rpi” … even if it’s still really early. it’s surprising because this is the highest that i can recall hawaii’s “rpi” being, even this early in the season. i think we could safely predict that texas would have a high “rpi.” but traditionally, san diego’s “rpi” has not approached this.
agreed that hawaii’s rpi will depend on the win/loss records of its opponents, particularly if the teams on the nonconference portion of the schedule rack up the wins.
Maverick, thank you for the poll recap!