MVC volleyball analysis

[JayJ79]

Conference play starts next weekend for MVC volleyball teams, which means that the majority of non-conference matches have been completed.
I did some number crunching using a particular ranking system (not RPI-related), which I'll refrain from naming as it may be somewhat proprietary (though I'm sure many of you know what I'm referring to).

The data I looked at consists of:

• the Ranking of each of the conference teams (with 1 being the best, and 334 being the worst)
• WinAvg - the average of the rankings of all the teams that this team has beaten
• BestWin - the highest ranked team that this team has beaten
• LossAvg - the average of the rankings of all the teams that this team has lost to
• WorstLoss - the lowest ranked team that this team has lost to
• SoS - the team's Strength of Schedule computed by averaging the rankings of all teams this team has played

[U]Rank	Team    	Record	WinAvg	BestWin	LossAvg	WrstL	SoS[/U]

67	Illinois St	6-5	154	40	55	110    	109
50	Wichita St	6-4	88	43	58	103    	76
97	Missouri St	6-5	151	60	38	76     	100
186	Loyola  	4-5	210	68	77	153    	136
74	UNI     	5-5	139	77	51	108    	95
126	SIU     	4-6	128	88	61	204    	88
241	Evansville	4-7	181	106	203	242    	195
207	Indiana St	7-2	255	106	134	143    	228
252	Drake   	8-3	250	172	143	215    	221
233	Bradley  	0-10	n/a	n/a	175	257    	175

[JayJ79]

Overall, the MVC is 50-52 on the season.
And while the conference does have a couple of top 50 wins, it just doesn't have any marquee wins, though I suppose the rankings could change somewhat as the season progresses. Still, it would seem that there is a high probability of the MVC being a one-bid league again this season.

[flyingMoose]

a particular ranking system (not RPI-related)

Is the system updated for the weekend matches yet? RPI is not normally updated by the NCAA until Monday or Tuesday, but I do not recall about the non-RPI which is not done by the NCAA.

[JayJ79]

Is the system updated for the weekend matches yet? RPI is not normally updated by the NCAA until Monday or Tuesday, but I do not recall about the non-RPI which is not done by the NCAA.

it wasn't at the time I pulled the data. I can't remember when it tended to get updated, but I'm sure it wasn't until at least Monday

And at this point in the season, those rankings are still influenced to a certain degree by last season's results.

[JayJ79]

Kind of weird looking at the "standings" on the MVC volleyball website and seeing Indiana State and Drake at the top.

without any conference play, they just sort it on overall record, so it isn't really standings at all, but stll.
Of course InSU and Drake have the two weakest non-conference schedules in the whole MVC.
But I suppose that is smart scheduling on their part. WSU, UNI, and a few others always schedule tough non-con matches to challenge their teams and to help build tournament resumes in good years, but if these teams scheduled like that, it would just be beatdown after beatdown and it wouldn't help anyone.