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Post by mikegarrison on Dec 27, 2011 13:14:55 GMT -5
Just to clarify, I'm not bashing the Pac-12. It is unquestionably one of the top-two conferences and historically the best. I'm bashing the AVCA for the mentality that none of the teams can do wrong. As (R)uffda pointed out throughout the season, it was frustrating to non Pac-12 fans to see their inflated rankings in the AVCA poll. Especially since those ratings are the ones that are most cited by media. OTOH, it's also clear that the RPI under-rated the top of the conference. How do you judge "inflated ratings"? You state it as though it were a proven fact that PAC-12 teams had "inflated ratings."
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Post by baywatcher on Dec 27, 2011 16:29:10 GMT -5
I'm a Pac 12 guy but the Pac 12 teams, as a group. were way too high in the AVCA pool. No matter how you shuffle them around, any conference with 4-6 teams in the top 10 should not have only two teams left in the round of 16.
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Post by mikegarrison on Dec 27, 2011 17:23:06 GMT -5
I'm a Pac 12 guy but the Pac 12 teams, as a group. were way too high in the AVCA pool. No matter how you shuffle them around, any conference with 4-6 teams in the top 10 should not have only two teams left in the round of 16. This whole idea makes no sense to me. Opinion polls are just that: opinions. If Ruffda's opinion (or anyone else's opinion) is different from the aggregate opinion of the coaches, does that invalidate the coaches' opinions? As for tournament results, was Nebraska overrated because they tied for 17th? Was Hawaii overrated because they tied for 9th? Was FSU better than PSU because they lost to UCLA two rounds later than PSU lost to UCLA? UCLA won it all but wasn't ranked #1, so does that mean they were underrated? But how could you have justified ranking them over USC prior to the tournament? Maybe it just means UCLA outplayed the six teams they faced in the tournament, and ended up National Champions because of it.
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Post by Barefoot In Kailua on Dec 27, 2011 19:27:31 GMT -5
Agree with baywatcher; Cal, Stanford, and Washington were definitely overanked by the AVCA all year.
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Post by c4ndlelight on Dec 27, 2011 20:27:57 GMT -5
Agree with baywatcher; Cal, Stanford, and Washington were definitely overanked by the AVCA all year. Stanford won the Nike Big 4 and took down some other supposed-to-be-good names in the preseason - where else were you suppose to put them?
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Post by stillcrazy on Dec 27, 2011 20:42:12 GMT -5
Was the Pac overrated? Maybe, but what else were the voters to do? Pac teams that qualified for the tournament were 4-2 against B1G teams, that qualified, in the preseason. B1G clearly lasted a round longer in the post season. I think it all reinforces the argument for parity. I think the results in the tournament were the result of advantageous match-ups. If the match-ups had been different, maybe B1G goes out in the second round and the Pac goes out in the 3rd. If UCLA had been sent to Hawaii, maybe Hawaii comes out of that region, and USC or Texas comes out of the Lexington Regional. Parity.
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Post by ay2013 on Dec 27, 2011 21:15:01 GMT -5
Agree with baywatcher; Cal, Stanford, and Washington were definitely overanked by the AVCA all year. "All Year"?.....Stanford won the Nike classic, hard to say that that the first half ranking for Stanford was "definitely" over-ranked. If you are discounting Stanford's impressive weekend in the preseason then you have to discount Hawaii's lone signature weekend against Pepperdine (....don't think you'd be so keen on that one). When it was all said and done Stanford has wins against 4 programs ranked in the top 20....Hawaii has 1! I think Cal and Washington at times in the season were overranked, but Stanford was pretty solid....one bad match against Michigan doesn't change the season. *similar for Nebraska
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Post by pogoball on Dec 28, 2011 0:36:37 GMT -5
Just to clarify, I'm not bashing the Pac-12. It is unquestionably one of the top-two conferences and historically the best. I'm bashing the AVCA for the mentality that none of the teams can do wrong. As (R)uffda pointed out throughout the season, it was frustrating to non Pac-12 fans to see their inflated rankings in the AVCA poll. Especially since those ratings are the ones that are most cited by media. OTOH, it's also clear that the RPI under-rated the top of the conference. How do you judge "inflated ratings"? You state it as though it were a proven fact that PAC-12 teams had "inflated ratings." By comparing the AVCA rankings of the teams to (a) their NCAA tourney performance and (b) their power rankings (pablo, RPI & Massey).
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Post by mikegarrison on Dec 28, 2011 7:30:30 GMT -5
How do you judge "inflated ratings"? You state it as though it were a proven fact that PAC-12 teams had "inflated ratings." By comparing the AVCA rankings of the teams to (a) their NCAA tourney performance and (b) their power rankings (pablo, RPI & Massey). You think RPI is a better ranking of teams than the AVCA poll? Well OK, maybe you do think that. But so what? Why is your opinion more correct than then that of the AVCA voters? As for tournament finish, let me repeat myself: FSU lost to the very same team PSU did. But it was two rounds later in the tournament, so that means FSU was much better than PSU? Does anybody think that if FSU had met UCLA in the first round that FSU would have advanced? For the most part, which round you go out in the tournament means jack all about how good your team was overall. Good teams can and do lose in the early rounds. I do think it means something to advance to the later rounds, but it doesn't prove that a team was better than all the other teams who lost in earlier rounds. It only proves that the team who does advance was good enough to win 3,4,5 etc. matches in a row against the tournament field. That's impressive, but not definitive. Besides, if tournament results are what matters, then the PAC-12 obviously dominated the tournament. They won it, and they had half the teams in the FF. Washington, Oregon, Arizona, and USC can all say they beat UCLA this year. (So can Pepperdine.) So how overrated can the PAC-12 really be when the #7 team in the conference was dominant over the final National Champion?
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Post by baywatcher on Dec 28, 2011 10:31:22 GMT -5
On this board the Pac 12 was not overrated v. final results. The early consensus, if such a thing is possible on VT, was that there were some good teams, then the bottom half that was not so good. For the foreseeable future that's how the conference should be perceived. If some theoretically or arguably good clubs, like Cal and, to a certain extent, Washington this year, do not schedule even halfway decent teams (Washington did play LBSU this year) then they should not be ranked high in the AVCA until they play somebody in conference. UCLA losing twice to Arizona was not as indicative of conference depth as it was of UCLA inconsistencies that tournament opponents were vainly looking for, and Cal & Stanford, too, for that matter.
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Post by bigfan on Dec 28, 2011 12:11:46 GMT -5
The Pac-12 is neither under-rated or over-rated.
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alexsi
Sophomore
I don't always play volleyball but when I .... oh, wait... I always play volleyball!
Posts: 117
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Post by alexsi on Dec 28, 2011 13:37:20 GMT -5
@pogoball - well said. The AVCA seems to over value the PAC-12 where the RPI (which is the one that really matters when it comes to who gets the preferrable seeds and the best shot at the championship) under value the conference.
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Post by redbeard2008 on Dec 28, 2011 15:59:36 GMT -5
Agree with baywatcher; Cal, Stanford, and Washington were definitely overanked by the AVCA all year. "All Year"?.....Stanford won the Nike classic, hard to say that that the first half ranking for Stanford was "definitely" over-ranked. If you are discounting Stanford's impressive weekend in the preseason then you have to discount Hawaii's lone signature weekend against Pepperdine (....don't think you'd be so keen on that one). When it was all said and done Stanford has wins against 4 programs ranked in the top 20....Hawaii has 1! I think Cal and Washington at times in the season were overranked, but Stanford was pretty solid....one bad match against Michigan doesn't change the season. *similar for Nebraska The top Pac-1(2) teams were largely ranked as a group through the first half of the conference season. It was only in the second half that a pecking order began to emerge. The basic logic is that it largely, but never entirely, gets sorted out over time, with a high degree of uncertainty and speculation early on, to be filtered against actual results as the season proceeds. The notion that rankings are ever "accurate" is a fantasy - there is always a great deal of mystification involved. For all we know, if the final eight had played a round-robin, the results could have been entirely different. Was UCLA the best team in the land, or even in the Pac-1(2)? About the best that might be said is they were better than the teams they played in the tournament on the days they played them.
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Post by austintatious on Dec 28, 2011 17:12:16 GMT -5
UCLA beat everyone they were asked to beat, they are the best for 2011. Last man standing rules.
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Post by GoUCLA on Dec 28, 2011 19:34:01 GMT -5
UCLA beat everyone they were asked to beat, they are the best for 2011. Last man standing rules. +1
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