After being named the No. 1 team in the AVCA Coaches Poll, there was no doubt that BYU would remain the top team in this week’s VolleyballMag.com Mid-Major Poll presented by the NIVC.
For that matter, the next three spots held form, No. 2 Creighton, No. 3 Cal Poly and No. 4 Marquette. Northern Iowa moved up one spot to No. 5, trading places with San Diego. The rest of the top 10 shows Wichita State, Cincinnati and Colorado State holding steady at Nos. 7-8-9, with Loyola Marymount moving up three spots to No. 10.
There were some big victories and ups and downs for Mid-Majors, so there was quite a bit of shuffling between spots No. 11 and No. 25, but no one dropped out.
There are only two unbeatens in the top 25, No. 1 BYU at 8-0 and No. 11 Portland, which is 9-0. Eight teams have four losses. Also, here is how Mid-Majors stacked up in the AVCA poll. In addition to BYU, Creighton is No. 10, Cal Poly is 14th, Marquette came in at 21, and San Diego is No. 23.
The 2018 National Invitational Volleyball Championship marks the second year of the revival of a Division I “NIT” event designed to bring another postseason opportunity into the sport’s calendar.
In 2017, Ole Miss defeated Texas Tech to win the NIVC title. The 2018 NIVC field will feature 32-40 teams. They will be selected after the NCAA Tournament makes announces its 64-team field. TNIVC will award berths to other deserving programs based on multiple factors, including RPI, overall record, strength of schedule and more. Much like the WNIT basketball event, matches are held at the participating schools.
The field will be announced late Sunday evening, November 25, 2018. The first round will start Thursday, November 29, with the championship match on Tuesday, December 11.
Selection — November 25
Round 1 & 2 — November 29-30, December 1-2
Round 3 — December 5-7
Semifinals — December 7-9
Championship — Tuesday, December 11, 7 p.m. Eastern
| Rank | School | Total Points Adjusted | First Place Votes Adjusted | Win/Loss Record | Previous Rank |
| 1 | BYU | 625 | 25 | 8-0 | 1 |
| 2 | Creighton | 591 | 0 | 6-3 | 2 |
| 3 | Cal Poly | 573 | 0 | 7-1 | 3 |
| 4 | Marquette | 544 | 0 | 7-2 | 4 |
| 5 | Northern Iowa | 501 | 0 | 5-4 | 6 |
| 6 | San Diego | 494 | 0 | 2-4 | 5 |
| 7 | Wichita State | 443 | 0 | 4-4 | 7 |
| 8 | Cincinnati | 401 | 0 | 7-2 | 8 |
| 9 | Colorado St. | 389 | 0 | 6-3 | 8 |
| 10 | LMU | 372 | 0 | 8-1 | 13 |
| 11 | Portland | 365 | 0 | 9-0 | 13 |
| 11 | Wyoming | 365 | 0 | 8-1 | 12 |
| 13 | Dayton | 349 | 0 | 6-4 | 11 |
| 14 | Denver | 340 | 0 | 8-1 | 9 |
| 15 | College of Charleston | 227 | 0 | 7-4 | 18 |
| 16 | Lipscomb | 211 | 0 | 4-4 | 17 |
| 17 | Kennesaw State | 200 | 0 | 6-3 | 19 |
| 18 | Miami (OH) | 189 | 0 | 6-4 | 15 |
| 19 | Western Kentucky | 173 | 0 | 6-4 | 23 |
| 20 | UCF | 158 | 0 | 6-3 | 22 |
| 21 | Boise State | 134 | 0 | 6-1 | 16 |
| 22 | Hawai’i | 121 | 0 | 4-3 | 20 |
| 23 | Illinois State | 83 | 0 | 7-2 | 24 |
| 24 | Pepperdine | 61 | 0 | 6-3 | 25 |
| 25 | Austin Peay | 53 | 0 | 7-1 | 21 |
Others receiving votes and listed on two or more ballots: James Madison 39; Villanova 38; Rice 13; South Dakota 10; Santa Clara 9; St. Mary’s (Ca.) 2.
There were 18 teams mentioned on only one ballot for a total of 92 combined points.
Dropped Out: No one.
The pollsters: Kristin Belzung, Stony Brook; Keylor Chan, Samford; Dietre Collins-Parker, San Diego State; Courtney Draper, USF; Steve Florio, Fort Wayne; Ray Gooden, NIU; Greg Goral, Campbell; Kris Grunwald, Connecticut; Ashli Hain, UCI Irvine; Tom Hanna, Akron; Venessa Hackett Jacobs, Southern; Justin Ingram, UIC; Mike Jordan, New Mexico State; Shaun Kupferberg, Howard; Frank Lavrisha, San Francisco; Aaron Mansfield, LMU; Don Metil, Towson; Kent Miller, Saint Louis; Anna Moreno Allison, Bucknell; Kaddie Platt, Houston; Mark Pryor, North Dakota; Dave Rehr, Arkansas State; Jim Smoot, Southeastern Louisiana; Kari Thompson, Southern Illinois-Carbondale; Jennifer Weiss, Harvard.
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About Triple Crown Sports: Based in Fort Collins, Colorado, Triple Crown Sports has been producing events in youth athletics and the college ranks for more than 35 years. TCS runs both the preseason and postseason WNIT basketball events and produces the men’s and women’s Cancun Challenge tournaments in November, which have been recognized by Sports Illustrated as a top-5 destination tournament for D-I basketball programs.
Triple Crown produces the revived “WNIT” concept in D-I volleyball (the NIVC), which relaunched in 2017, and has operated a similar event in D-I softball (the National Invitational Softball Championships) in 2017 and 2018. TCS youth fast-pitch tournaments (including the 900-team Sparkler/Fireworks event) draw the nation’s finest club programs, and hundreds of college coaches attend this TCS event and others for recruiting purposes.
