Selection committee members
By Cindy Luis
Not inspiring much confidence with this list. one comment from a coach who will remain nameless: it’s a bunch of SWAs (Senior Woman Administrator) who are trying to pad their resume so it leads to being on a better committee, like basketball.
The way you can look at it is there are very few reps or regions west of the mississippi, which would lead to the bias given Big Ten and Big 12. And no one who would really be paying attention at their school to the national picture IMHO.
Terry Gawlik, Wisconsin-Madison chair Mideast
Beatrice Crane-Banford, Marshall Mideast
Cynthia Gannon, WE Missouri State Midwest
Jennifer Gilbert Miami (Ohio) Midwest
Keith Gill American Northeast
Colleen Lim, WCC Pacific
Sarah Reesman, Missouri Central
Nona Richardson UC Davis West
Diane Turnham, Middle Tennessee State South
Barbara Walker, Wake Forest East
Volleyshots
Nice to see the Pac-12, WAC, and MWC well represented in this (cough).
NCAA vball needs to start seeding all 64 teams like men’s bball, and not just 16. That way top teams like USC, Nebraska, etc.. Would never meet early. I love vball, but tournament is a joke every year due to comittee. MVC conference, please!
Or at least seed 32 teams.
seeding 32 would require more effort. They don’t put any in now.
Haha. Good comeback
Especially if they did it on Friday. I can see doing a draft and then making last minute adjustments. Its not like they don’t have most of Sunday to finalize it.
Nebraska loses badly to Northwestern Saturday and still retains no. 2 seed. the RPI they were supposed to use dropped the huskers to 4. Arizona’s loss to ASU didn’t keep Wildcats out of at-large. Rubio told Shoji before the selection show he thought that the loss would keep them out.
i’m gonna disagree on this one. Nebraska was always gonna get a top 4 seed. in fact, i think they were headed for an overall #1 seed, before the loss to Northwestern. I think the loss dropped them from #1 to #2.
If Neb hadn’t lost, then we might have seen Texas in the Hawaii regional instead. If that happened, then I think the brackets would have looked just a touch more balanced (not completely, just a touch). I think Texas is slightly overrated this year, with a lot of the Big 12 teams getting an RPI boost.
Ironically, I think the Big 12 got a boost from Nebraska leaving the conference. One less team to play (leaving only 16 conference matches), results in one more weekend free for the Big 12 teams to schedule more non-conference matches to help boost their RPI.
Hawaii’s RPI this year was the highest it’s been in years. With Boise St departing the WAC this season, that meant only 14 regular season matches, instead of 16 last year. It freed up Shoji to schedule another team to help build Hawaii’s RPI.
Compare that with the PAC-12 who gained 2 RPI poor teams in Utah and Colorado. They have a 22-match round robin regular season, leaving the PAC-12 teams with even fewer opportunities to play non-conference matches. And we saw this season that the overall RPI of the conference drop.
Just goes to show, the RPI can be gamed, but you need room/flexibility on your team’s schedule to do it.
I thought the point of espn having vball on espn2 all season was to gain national exposure, but why then throw in a crap tournament which is biased and not balanced year in and year out
not espn’s fault the NCAA doesn’t care about volleyball
I didn’t even watch the tournament last year when the committee paved the way for psu to get to the final four so easily. Think only “ranked” team psu faced before final four was duke. I love the acc for men’s bball, but for vball, it’s a joke
True Cindy, just frustrated with NCAA committee past few years
When I saw Nebraska No. 2, I agree with Dave that the pairings was done before Nebraska lost.
As long as there’s the four hundred mile travel rule they will not seed the sixty-four teams. It would be impossible to assign teams to each region with that constraint. Interestin that the AVCA has remained silent all these years.
Just spent 15 min on the ticket site checking to see how many sections still had available seats are looks like the entire lower bowl might be gone also many of the upper sections along the side court are coming back no seats available..
the student tickets Shoji bought were in the lower bowl, he said yesterday
This is the kind of chant volleyball needs.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARpzavb7PQk
that was a good one. great student section. UCLA’s been doing that cheer for years but I do like USU’s version. Hard to believe Stew is still coaching.
Didn’t understand what they were saying?
This is their I believe we will win chant.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44YUnOoye58&feature=related
That’s crazy how coordinated USU is. Looks like a lot of fun. Must have taken at least a season to build that up though. I think our “Let’s go ‘bows!” chant is pretty effective, just sucks when random students don’t understand that it’s not a speed kind of cheer.
The cheerleaders are pretty good with getting students to participate and do coordinated cheers/motions after each Hawaii point. It doesn’t work well when there aren’t a lot of them there though.
I meant the off-duty cheerleaders sitting in the student section.
And I forgot to say, I guess “do the best you can at any job you have” doesn’t mean a thing to the committee.
I wish I had a Selection Committee to help me pick the top Cyber Monday sites. But I can see that Committee pushing Lowes.com over HomeDepot.com (after all, who sponsored the Volleyball CLASS Award? hint: it wasn’t Home Despot) or pushing Walmart.com because they gave the most money to a certain political party.
Oh well, to mix metaphors, you have to play the hand and you were dealt, not the cards you wish you had. Wishful thinking gets you nowhere. Except I wish the HOUSE wins, in this case OUR HOUSE. Go Bows!
been a lurker here for a long time but I thought I’d share this article from ESPN about the (terrible) seeding:
http://espn.go.com/college-sports/story/_/id/7292358/ncaa-women-volleyball-five-burning-questions-2011-tournament
thanks for sharing that excellent article; i hope it opened some eyes but my cynical side fears that it was just a blip on the radar and that nothing will change… Like others have noted, like it or not, we have to deal with the cards we’ve been dealt….. Go Bows!!!
Looking at the UNC roster, most of their starting OH/MB are 6-2, a few at 6-1. The only common opponent we’ve had was Wichita St. and UNC beat them 3-1 as well.
If the Wahine can play smart with all the height coming in to the SSC, I’ve got a positive feeling towards this. Hopefully everyone turns out to support the ‘bows, they’ll need it.
Thanks to MK for sharing a make sense article about volleyball. The writer should be on the selection committee.
IT occurred to me last night while i was fuming ’bout the seedings (it’s amazing but should be no surprise how they mess it up every year). Re-seed the Cloud looking for a Silver Lining: and Coach Shoji noted it on the BC Show this morning:
Whoever makes it out of the third and fourth rounds in Hawai’i, with potentially this past week’s AVCA Nos. 1, 2, 3 & 10 here is a good shot to win it all @ San Antonio Final Four — The REAL Final Four seems to be in Hawai’i … IF i had to choose to face USC & Nebraska — You got to Beat ‘Em All Any Way to Win National Championship — Better here than anywhere else …
Ticket Sales Update for Rounds 1 & 2
A morning check using the online site we were unable to obtain a single seat in any section in the lower bowl.
In the upper sections the following came back as no seats available”. Sections A,B, C, D, E, F, PP, MM, NN .
In sections QQ AA and LL seats up to rows 17 were gone.Not sure how many rows in each section but I’m thinking it’s 20.
Method used – Not as good as getting actual numbers out of the ticket office but it has been a good predictor in the past.
I’m thinking around 8,000 tickets issued.
kind of sad when the head coach springs for 100 tickets for the students and there are still some available.
I don’t think the students read much volleyshots or volleytalk lol
I don’t think the 100 ticket thing was publicized enough, good for me though, the line was short when I got there that morning. It also might be that the people running the ticket booths don’t know, one guy tried to charge my friend $7 for one night before I stepped in about the free tickets. We were the 2nd and 3rd students in line too
NT, the 100 free tickets … we had in the paper and blog, Ka Leo had it on their web site and FB. If anything, TV dropped the ball.
and there were problems with the free tickets. first guy in line told it hadn’t been approved. I went down and spoke with a UH administrator who called up. seemed like it got taken care of fairly quickly.
as for ‘still being available’ 9 a.m. on Monday a tough time for students who are in class. one guy said he cut so he could get one.
What ever happened to the Coconut Telegraph ?
Think it was upgraded to Coconut wireless.
and now it’s the “i Coconut”
So any thoughts on which seeded team could suffer an upset in the first round ?
I’m thinking possibility Duke over Tennessee.
I hope Northern Iowa and Iowa State, are upset in the first round to prove how overseeded they are.
Haley said something about Florida going to UNI. He thinks Florida could lose and “then what happens to the crowd at Gainesville?”
I like your pick of Duke. Saw Tennessee play Kentucky. Wasn’t impressed by either, expect for the defense.
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This coach from Colorado State is an egotistical smuck so be prepared.
What makes you say that, past experience?
Any worse than that Portland coach last year?
Or the Purdue coach a few years ago at CSU.
Quote from the CSU coach, “I think they threw them (UH) a bone because they want them to make it into their own regional.”
As someone said, spoken by someone who got to host when unseeded. Can honestly say in all my years of traveling with volleyball, CSU was probably the poorest host site I’ve been to in terms of treating the media.
That coming from someone who’s team has unfairly hosted subregionals a few times when they weren’t even seeded!!!!
CAN’T WAIT FOR THE WAHINE TO TAKE ALL… LETS GO GURLS…
Any news yet for tv/streaming video coverage?
OC12
Where did you see info that it’s on OC12?
One of my colleagues works the volleyball matches doing graphics for Oceanic.
OC-12, free
free or PPV?
OC 12 is free…
The political power of the Big Ten(Ohio State) and the Big 12(Texas) is immense. Selection committee members seek to please the prevailing NCAA administrators to gain favors and perks in the future. Are the Pac-12 and MWC criminally ignored? No, but they are slighted.
As for the seedings and regions, it is designed to avoid too much Far West representation in the Final Four. Of course, outside Penn State, Nebraska, and Texas, everybody knows where the greatest volleyball teams play.
As for the Rainbows, they’ve been the number one team in my Top 40 power ranking blog for several weeks (found at http://thewwwesterlies.blogspot.com).
@MK – thanks for sharing that article.
Did the latest AVCA poll ever get released?
11/30/
Just noticed that Northern Colorado’s home town rag the Greeley Tribune went behind a pay wall today. Sorry fellas you won’t be getting anything from me.
So what is with this hostile crowd stuff that the Colorado teams are putting out.? Old people sleeping or eating garlic fries is hostile ?
Oregon is all business I’m being told keeping a low profile,practiced at Farrington HS yesterday.
The N.Colorado coach wins the Best Looking Award for the 1st and 2nd round.
If Tennant turns your stomach on ESPN you should read her twits this gal is in love with herself.
If you were a rental car agency in Honolulu would you rent Lauren Cook a car ?
Who said this about pay walls for newspapers ?
Thank God now our children won’t accidentally read crappy articles written by clueless sports writers.
cindy, have you confirmed OC12 will be covering thursday & friday’s matches?
Listening to net live his morning.Several head coaches responding to seeding.Elliott names coaches who have made this sport great and advanced the sport but no mention of Shoji.
interesting LC. Can tell you that it is doubtful Texas will be invited back to a tournament at the SSC as long as Shoji is the coach. (not from this comment). It was said after Texas was here a few years ago.
Why’s that?
Best way to put it. “a little too needy.”
That’s too bad for Palmer next 2 and Brooks next 4 seasons, they’ll never get to play at SSC, unless come NCAA or how about a transfer.