2015 MVC Volleyball Tournament

[flyingMoose]

Here is Championship Central from the Valley site and an article from Sully that will be in tomorrow's paper.

Here is the Scholar-Athlete release from the Valley. Emily, Abbie, Katie and Mikaela are all First Team, and Dani is Honorable Mention. There is no Second Team.

[flyingMoose]

Okay, I will throw attendance in here.

Northern Iowa had the highest average attendance of 2277 with the Shockers having an average of 2261. They were thirteenth and fourteenth among the NCAA teams. Nobody else in the Valley had an average attendance above 1000.

[ShockerFever]

Okay, I will throw attendance in here.

Northern Iowa had the highest average attendance of 2277 with the Shockers having an average of 2261. They were thirteenth and fourteenth among the NCAA teams. Nobody else in the Valley had an average attendance above 1000.

Didn't UNI have a promotion one year that if you got men's basketball season tickets you got volleyball season tickets for free? I wonder what the average price per ticket paid was for each UNI game.

[flyingMoose]

Didn't UNI have a promotion one year that if you got men's basketball season tickets you got volleyball season tickets for free? I wonder what the average price per ticket paid was for each UNI game.

@JayJ79: can probably answer that question.

[flyingMoose]

From a VT post, the Pablo-based chances of winning the Valley Tournament:

Missouri Valley (at Missouri St)	Quarterfinal	Semifinal	Championship
#1 Wichita State	100.00%	65.56%	40.41%
#5 Illinois State	54.97%	20.07%	9.67%
#4 Northern Iowa	45.03%	14.37%	6.22%
#2 Southern Illinois	100.00%	54.06%	24.20%
#3 Missouri State	68.26%	35.36%	16.45%
#6 Loyola IL	31.74%	10.59%	3.07%

[flyingMoose]

The All-Conference Teams have been announced.

Emily, Abbie, Dani and Katie are First Team. Mikaela is Second Team, and Shimen is on the All-Freshman Team. Dani is the Librero of the Year. Congratulations ladies!!

Lily Johnson of Missouri State is the Player of the Year (the Bears also have the Setter of the Year), and Illinois State has the Freshman of the Year. Justin Ingram of Southern Illinois is the Coach of the Year.

[flyingMoose]

Match One

Northern Iowa 3-1 Illinois State
(25), 23, 16, 19

In Set One, the Redbirds trailed 17-21 before winning and the Panthers trailed 18-22 before winning Set Two. In Set Three, Northern Iowa took control early and was rarely challenged. With Set Four at 14-15, the Panthers took the lead and pulled away to win the set and the match.

Northern Iowa plays the Shockers at 5pm tomorrow.

[WuDrWu]

Missouri State is routing Loyola. This is going to be over FAST unless the Ramblers can make some changes soon.

[flyingMoose]

Match Two

Missouri State 3-0 Loyola
13, 20, 16

The Bears last trailed at 3-4 in Set One and Set Three and won those handily, but they had to score last four points to win Set Two.

Missouri State play Southern Illinois in the late match tomorrow.

[JayJ79]

Good news for the RPI's of the at-large hopefuls in the conference, as now the lowest RPI of the remaining teams in the tourney is UNI at #52
(or at least that was what they were at at the start of the week)

[Shocker-maniac]

Okay, I will throw attendance in here.

Northern Iowa had the highest average attendance of 2277 with the Shockers having an average of 2261. They were thirteenth and fourteenth among the NCAA teams. Nobody else in the Valley had an average attendance above 1000.

I'm kind of surprised that the MSU attendance number is below 1000. I thought they had decent fan support for their volleyball program, but maybe I'm wrong about that? I wonder how much, if any, the attendance numbers have been impacted by the ESPN3 live streaming of games?

[flyingMoose]

I'm kind of surprised that the MSU attendance number is below 1000. I thought they had decent fan support for their volleyball program, but maybe I'm wrong about that? I wonder how much, if any, the attendance numbers have been impacted by the ESPN3 live streaming of games?

For this year, Illinois State is next in attendance at 973 followed by Missouri State at 613.

ESPN3 may have had some effect. Of the four schools who draw the best, their 2014 figure followed by that of 2015 is given below.

3118 - 2277 Northern Iowa
3078 - 2261 Shockers
1064 - 973 Illinois State
600 - 613 Missouri State

It is hard to believe ESPN3 would cause such a dramatic drop for the Panthers and us (>25%), but perhaps so.

[flyingMoose]

Sully's Tournament article

[JayJ79]

The fact is that volleyball attendance is an afterthought for just about every school, taking a backseat to MBB and (for most schools) FB.
It will be interesting to see how the ESPN3 contract affects attendance at those events.

Just be glad that the MVC hasn't had to totally screw up the schedule of its volleyball matches to fit network programming slots like the PAC12 (or whatever number they are at now) has done.

As for UNI's attendance, the ESPN3 factor may be part of it, but I think a bigger part may be that UNI is having their worst season (W-L wise) since 1984 (part of which is due to the very challenging OOC schedule and the increased parity of the MVC this year, but the casual fanbase doesn't always see past the winning percentage).

[WuDrWu]

We look terrible early. Dead legged and not ready to play at all. 7-11