Volleyball: Men's

Penn State is reaching the midpoint of its season with a nation-best 13-1 record.

Although the Nittany Lions play in the nation's weakest major conference, they have asserted their prowess by utterly dominating the EIVA. Penn State has jumped out to a 6-0 record in its conference, having not lost a set once in these matches.

However, the East Coast/ West Coast bias still remains, hindering the Lions from approaching a top-three ranking where many in the east may argue they belong.

Last week, Penn State swept two of the higher-level EIVA teams in back-to-back days. Furthermore, the Lions, then slotted at fifth in the country, saw two teams above them (No. 1 Stanford and No. 4 BYU) suffer losses. 

Yet, Penn State not only didn't rise in last week's rankings — they fell to No. 6. A little harsh for a team in the midst of a 10-game win streak, the longest in the country, wouldn't you say?

So here, Penn State found itself with a chance to prove all the haters wrong: a treacherous three-game stretch, all against top 10 teams.

The Lions started this stretch off on the right foot this past Saturday when they outlasted No. 9 Ohio State in a five-match slugfest, winning 3-2.

(To be read sarcastically): So now Penn State will at least be ranked in the top five this week, right?

Wrong.....

Even with Stanford losing again, Penn State still remains 13 points behind No. 5 BYU in this week's AVCA Coaches poll.

I theorized that Penn State should be ranked several spots higher than their current No. 6 slot. 

With this anomaly in mind, I decided to put these rankings to the test by creating my own Men's Volleyball RPI-style top ten rankings.

To do so, I combined five different ranking devices: the Coaches Poll, Volleyball Magazine Poll, overall record, record vs. top 10 teams, and Off the Block Relative Strength Factor Rankings.

The latter is a ranking created by Vinnie Lopes' national volleyball blog, offtheblockblog.com, and according to the site, is "a mathematical equation created by Off the Block to give an accurate representation of the best Division I-II men’s volleyball teams in the nation."

Below are each of these five rankings, followed by my personal RPI rankings for NCAA men's volleyball, which I created by averaging the spots of teams in each of the first five rankings.

OVERALL RECORD

1. Penn State — .929

2. UCLA — .895

3. Harvard — .846

4. Lewis — .824

5. UC Irvine — .824

6. Stanford — .765

7. BYU — .765

8. USC — .714

9. Quincy — .706

10. Ohio State — .684

RECORD VS. TOP 10

1. UC Irvine — .800

2. Penn State — .750

3. UCLA — .750

4. BYU — .667

5. Stanford — .600

6. Lewis — .600

7. IPFW — .500

8. USC — .423

9. Long Beach State — .250

10. Pepperdine — .222

COACHES POLL RANKINGS

1. UCLA — 268 points

2. UC Irvine —249 points

3. Stanford — 225 points

4. USC — 209 points

5. BYU — 202 points

6. Penn State — 189 points

7. Lewis — 167 points

8. Long Beach State — 130 points

9. Ohio State — 129 points

10. Pepperdine — 116 points

VOLLEYBALL MAGAZINE POLL

1. UCLA — 99 (9) points


2. UC Irvine — 91 (1) points


3. Penn State — 72 points


4. Stanford — 70 points


5. USC — 66 points


6. BYU — 48 points


7. Lewis — 44 points


8. Ohio State — 31 points


9. Pepperdine — 18 points


10. Long Beach State — 11 points

Off the Block Relative Strength Factor rankings


1. UC Irvine — 2.629


2. Stanford — 2.558


3. Lewis — 2.504


4. UCLA — 2.231


5. Penn State — 2.079


6. USC — 2.078


7. BYU — 2.004


8. Ohio State — 1.848


9. Loyola — 1.654


10. Long Beach State — 1.563

OFFICIAL RPI RANKINGS

T1. UCLA — 2.2

T1. UC Irvine — 2.2

3. Penn State — 3.4

4. Stanford — 4.0

5. Lewis — 5.4

6. BYU — 5.8

7. USC — 6.0

8. Ohio State — 10.0

9. Long Beach State — 10.4

10. Pepperdine — 11.8

After averaging the five rankings, I found that Penn State should be ranked higher in the Coaches Poll — third place to be exact.