Creighton, which picked up in 2017 where it left off last season, is the No. 1 team in the first VolleyballMag.com Mid-Major Poll presented by the National Invitational Volleyball Championship (NIVC).
Coach Kirsten Bernthal Booth’s Bluejays went 3-0 in a tournament at Washington, beating Saint Mary’s, Pitt and Washington and got 24 of the 25 first-place votes cast.
The second spot went to BYU, also 3-0 after beat Saint Louis, Texas-Rio Grande and Ohio State. San Diego is No. 3, followed by Western Kentucky and Wichita State. All of the top five teams were at or near the top of the VBM poll much of 2016.
A newcomer is Cal Poly. The Mustangs opened with victories over Dayton (No. 9 this week), High Point and host Northern Illinois.
| Rank | School | Points | W/L | Previous | |
| 1 | Creighton | 624 (24) | 3-0 | ||
| 2 | BYU | 596 (1) | 3-0 | ||
| 3 | San Diego | 554 | 2-1 | ||
| 4 | Western Kentucky | 507 | 3-0 | ||
| 5 | Wichita State | 491 | 3-0 | ||
| 6 | Cal Poly | 445 | 3-0 | ||
| 7 | Northern Iowa | 433 | 3-0 | ||
| 8 | Lipscomb | 396 | 2-1 | ||
| 9 | Dayton | 349 | 2-1 | ||
| 10 | Marquette | 318 | 1-2 | ||
| 11 | Hawai’i | 292 | 0-3 | ||
| 12 | Missouri State | 264 | 2-1 | ||
| 13 | Colorado State | 257 | 1-1 | ||
| 14 | Boise State | 248 | 2-1 | ||
| T-15 | North Dakota | 195 | 4-1 | ||
| T-15 | Xavier | 195 | 3-0 | ||
| 17 | Austin Peay | 181 | 3-1 | ||
| T-18 | Miami, Ohio | 131 | 2-1 | ||
| T-18 | Villanova | 131 | 3-0 | ||
| 20 | UC Irvine | 124 | 3-0 | ||
| 21 | Coastal Carolina | 123 | 1-1 | ||
| 22 | Denver | 114 | 3-0 | ||
| 23 | Arkansas St | 104 | 1-2 | ||
| 24 | Florida Gulf Coast | 94 | 3-0 | ||
| T-25 | Portland | 73 | 3-0 | ||
| T-25 | Rice | 73 | 2-2 | ||
| T-25 | Seton Hall | 73 | 2-1 | ||
| T-25 | UC Davis | 73 | 3-0 |
Others receiving votes and listed on two or more ballots: SMU 58; Ohio 52; Loyola Marymount 51; Long Beach State 42; UNLV 39; New Mexico State 36; Pepperdine 33; Butler 30; UCF 24; San Jose State 23; Santa Clara 23; Illinois State 21; New Mexico 21; UW-Green Bay 21; North Texas 20; Cleveland State 17; James Madison 17; Towson 16; Southern Miss 14; Cincinnati 12; Belmont 10; Providence 6; Texas A&M Corpus Christi 6; Central Michigan 5; High Point 5; UT Arlington 5. There were 20 teams mentioned on only one ballot for a total of 112 combined points.
The VolleyballMag.com Mid-Major Poll includes all teams not in the “power-five” conferences (ACC, SEC, Big Ten, Big 12 and Pac-12).
The pollsters: Kristin Belzung, Stony Brook; Keylor Chan, Samford; Dietre Collins-Parker, San Diego State; Dan Conners, UC Davis; Steve Florio, Fort Wayne; Matt Ginipro, Appalachian State; Greg Goral, Campbell; Kris Grunwald, Connecticut; Tom Hanna, Akron; Tommy Harold, Nicholls State; Venessa Hackett Jacobs, Southern; Justin Ingram, UIC; Mike Jordan, New Mexico State; Frank Lavrisha, San Francisco; Steve Loeswick, North Florida; Don Metil, Towson; Kent Miller, Saint Louis; Anna Moreno Allison, Bucknell; Jennifer Petrie, San Diego; Kadie Platt, Houston; Mark Pryor, North Dakota; Dave Rehr, Arkansas State; Kari Thompson, Southern Illinois-Carbondale; Jennifer Weiss, Harvard; Arlisa Williams, Georgetown; Sam Wolinski, Eastern Illinois.
The National Invitational Volleyball Championship (Nov. 26-Dec. 12, 2017) will be an annual tournament involving 64 of the nation’s top women’s Division I Volleyball teams. All games, including the semifinals and championship, are hosted by participating schools. Every round is single elimination. The event offers 32 automatic berths, one to each established conference, and 32 at-large berths. The NIVC field and bracket is announced late on the evening of the NCAA Tournament selections. The NIVC is committed to offering deserved opportunities to women’s volleyball programs; the event offers teams an opportunity to get more practices in, to experience playoff-atmosphere games, to play in front of passionate fans and to use their NIVC success and experience as a springboard to the next season.
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 30 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 is also rolling out a new “WNIT” concept in D-I volleyball (the NIVC), beginning in 2017, and launched a similar event in D-I softball (the National Invitational Softball Championships) in spring 2017. 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.
Triple Crown also operates one of the top club volleyball events in the country, the TC Volleyball NIT, which hosts more than 400 of the top teams in the country and is played at the Salt Palace Convention Center in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Nova is 3-0, not 2-1. Just sayin’
Good catch. Fixed it. Thanks.
[…] Toreros, currently ranked No. 17 in the AVCA poll and No. 3 in the VolleyballMag.com Mid-Major Poll presented by the NIVC, began the season with a loss to No. 11 UCLA but responded with three-set sweeps of then-No. 20 […]
This is a dumb poll. Creighton is not a mid major.