Results are in: Boneyard preseason top 25

[Lorcan]

So, I fully admit that I might be stealing Volleytalk's thunder on this one. While I shouldn't mention Jordan Thompson's thunderous 50 kills against the Huskies, I'm going to anyway as I drop this document that contains the results of the Boneyard Top 25. If anyone has any suggestions for improvement, please don't hesitate to ask. I can't guarantee that I'll have this up to date every day, but I shall endeavor to do so. @Plebe , let me know if you are alright with this as it's really meant as an addendum to your phenomenal rankings.


Boneyard Top 25 Results

 

[triaddukefan]

guess i'll be dropping ND, Texas, and Duke out of my next poll.....not sure who to move in though. VPI ?

 

[Plebe]

So, I fully admit that I might be stealing Volleytalk's thunder on this one. While I shouldn't mention Jordan Thompson's thunderous 50 kills against the Huskies, I'm going to anyway as I drop this document that contains the results of the Boneyard Top 25. If anyone has any suggestions for improvement, please don't hesitate to ask. I can't guarantee that I'll have this up to date every day, but I shall endeavor to do so. @Plebe , let me know if you are alright with this as it's really meant as an addendum to your phenomenal rankings.


Boneyard Top 25 Results

This is a great contribution, thank you! I was thinking about doing that but you have saved me the work.

I recommend all our pollsters check out Lorcan's spreadsheet showing our top 25 teams and their recent results.

 

[triaddukefan]

when is the next poll due ?... I got some teams to drop

 

[Plebe]

when is the next poll due ?... I got some teams to drop

As noted in OP, due Monday morning at 9:00 Eastern time.

Polls should reflect all games played through Sunday (11/17).

 

[Lorcan]

Just a heads up that it’s going to be tricky for me to keep the results sheet up to date through Monday as I’m battling a sinus infection combined with some commitments this weekend that I hope to be healthy for.

 

[azfan]

Astutely observed by @eebmg , and indeed I was planning to make a follow-up post about that.

The release of the espnW poll did seem influential. I say this not because of the final results per se, but because of some noticeable differences in voting patterns before and after the Monday morning release of the espnW poll.

For example, Arizona was selected on only 2 of the 12 ballots submitted prior to release of the espnW poll, which has them listed at #19. That had them fairly deep on the "also receiving votes" category at the time. But they were then listed on each of the 9 ballots submitted from that point on, which propelled them up to #18 in our poll.

The opposite occurred with Arizona State, which was selected on 7 of the 12 pre-espnW ballots but on only 1 of the 9 post-espnW ballots. Sure enough, Arizona State was not in the espnW top 25.

It's only human nature to be influenced by the prominent polls, and this was why I wanted to collect ballots before the AP poll was released. Of course, I had no idea about the espnW preseason poll.

Regardless of the reasoning I completely agree with ranking Arizona above ASU. Arizona is poised for breakout season and on my Pac-12 ballot is the fifth place team above ASU. Last year in December ASU went down to Tucson and got clocked by the Wildcats and were held to 39 points. While we'll find out about the quality of Arizona's defense when they play Texas in Austin top-to-bottom I find that baring injuries Arizona is a better team this year than ASU. Both Robbi Ryan and Jamie Ruden are battling injuries. The Devils lack of size require SC transfer Tapley perform at a high level every game and not get into foul trouble. Even then given Coach Turner Thorne'd platoon strategy she's not going to make enough minutes in the course of the season for the Devils to have a chance against teams with any height. On my scorecard the Wildcats will sweep ASU this year, get an upset against one of the top four teams in the conference and finish fifth. The other comment I have is that I don't see Stanford being ranked ahead of Connecticut in the top four. I have the benefit of seeing Connecticut play twice since this poll was released and certainly expect Connecticut to drop five or six places in the next boneyard poll.