UCF up to No. 5 in VolleyballMag.com Mid-Major Poll, Texas State, Austin Peay, ETSU get in

UCF of the American Athletic Conference, which cracked the AVCA Division I Coaches Poll this week for the first time, jumped three spots to No. 5 in the VolleyballMag.com Mid-Major Poll presented by the NIVC.

The top four teams in the VBM poll — BYU of the West Coast, Creighton of the Big East, Cal Poly of the Big West and Marquette of the Big East — stayed the same.

The rest of the top 10 shows Missouri Valley Conference leader Northern Iowa at No. 6, followed by Summit leader Denver, Cincinnati of the AAC, Dayton of the Atlantic 10 and San Diego of the WCC.

Among the teams making jumps were Illinois State of the Missouri Valley up three spots to No. 16, and Conference USA leader Rice up three spots to No. 18.

There are three new teams into the top 25, Texas State of the Sun Belt Conference at No. 22, Austin Peay of the Ohio Valley at No. 24, and ETSU (East Tennessee State) of the Southern Conference at No. 25.

There are five teams in the VBM poll also ranked in the AVCA. Unbeaten BYU, of course, is No. 1 in both. Creighton is 10th in the AVCA, Cal Poly is up a notch to 11th, Marquette stayed at No. 18, and UCF (Central Florida) is No. 25, ranked for the first time in program history.

Click here for the complete AVCA Poll in which the top four teams stayed the same, while unbeaten Pittsburgh moved up a spot to No. 5, Illinois is up a spot to No. 6 and Wisconsin is up two notches to No. 7. Texas stayed at 8, while Nebraska dropped four places to ninth.

Also new to the AVCA poll is Missouri at No. 24. The biggest jump was by Washington State, moving four spots to No. 19.

Also, the NCAA RPI computer rankings show a top 10 of Stanford at No.1, followed by BYU, Illinois, Texas, Pittsburgh, USC, Minnesota, Wisconsin, UCF and Kentucky.

Click here for the NCAA RPI, which ranks all 336 NCAA Division I women’s volleyball teams.

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. The NIVC 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

Others receiving votes and listed on two or more ballots: College of Charleston, 33; Western Kentucky, 33; Wichita State, 29; Fresno State, 25; James Madison, 11; Tulsa, 7. Nine teams were mentioned on only one ballot for a total of 50 combined points.
Dropped Out: College of Charleston, 25; Western Kentucky, 20; Wichita State,17.

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.

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