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Post by bigfan on Aug 30, 2006 18:19:50 GMT -5
Santa Clara, Pepperdine, Nebraska, Wisconsin... these are some of the teams that were better than many of their Pac10 opponents last year. No-name, unseeded Santa Clara even had the delightful responsibility for eliminating TWO of the "best" teams in the country, one on their home court. Nebraska was blown away in the finals. Santa Clara had a fine run.
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Post by Ye Olde Dawg on Aug 30, 2006 20:22:32 GMT -5
Santa Clara, Pepperdine, Nebraska, Wisconsin... these are some of the teams that were better than many of their Pac10 opponents last year. No-name, unseeded Santa Clara even had the delightful responsibility for eliminating TWO of the "best" teams in the country, one on their home court. Nebraska was blown away in the finals. Santa Clara had a fine run. The key is " many of their Pac-10 opponents." Nebraska swept UCLA in the playoffs and Stanford in pre-season. Yes, Washington beat them, but indeed they were better than most of the Pac-10. RichKern.com has a page that will let you see a graph with an automated ranking of all the Div I teams, organized by conference. Yes, six of the Pac-10 teams are in the top 20, but the Big Ten and Big 12 conferences are nearly as top-heavy. [NOTE: I don't know how much faith I put in these Pablo rankings, but they the least subjective ranking I know of.]
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Post by OverAndUnder on Aug 31, 2006 8:00:14 GMT -5
Nebraska was blown away in the finals. Santa Clara had a fine run. Ah... but Nebraska wasn't blown away by "the Pac10". They were blown away by Washington, meanwhile Nebraska had already blown away TWO Pac10 teams, including one which had beaten Washington just a few weeks earlier. And if "fine run" is how you need to describe Santa Clara's path to the Final Four that included knocking off two more Pac10 teams, then our real argument is over the vocabulary, not the concepts.
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Post by The Bofa on the Sofa on Aug 31, 2006 10:39:29 GMT -5
[NOTE: I don't know how much faith I put in these Pablo rankings, but they the least subjective ranking I know of.] must...avoid...long...response.... Hey, if there's anything you want to know about Pablo rankings, you can PM me (no need to air it here, already been done). There's a lot I can say.
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Post by landon on Aug 31, 2006 12:24:15 GMT -5
I'm not saying all pac-10 teams are better then other teams. The conference is tough. i know that ASU has a lot of top 100's from that group. They are studs, but they have probably gotten worse playing at ASU. The coach is an idiot too. And the setter Mittelstaedt is one of the worse setters I have ever seen. She's tall, but I have never seen a setter with more ball handling errors. She gets more in one game then most setters get in a career. Oregon is probably ranked higher because I heard they have all these international kids.
Nebraska, Pepperdine, etc, are better then a lot of pac-10 teams. But when it gets down to it, they don't win the big game and that is because they waste their time playing really bad teams during pre-season. And I have noticed the Pac-10 has gotten weaker, as in the bottom 5 teams. But if anything it is like most other conferences. I think it will be a good year this year. I look forward to seeing some good teams play. I live in AZ so all the UA matches I can go to, I try and make. And ASU too, but the atmosphere sucks their. Not a VB school at all.
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Post by The Bofa on the Sofa on Aug 31, 2006 13:04:32 GMT -5
Nebraska, Pepperdine, etc, are better then a lot of pac-10 teams. But when it gets down to it, they don't win the big game and that is because they waste their time playing really bad teams during pre-season. Here is Nebraska's pre-conference schedule last season. Which of these teams would you consider "really bad"? Penn State 9/11/2005 Home W (3-0) 30-14 30-27 30-23 Pacific 9/10/2005 Home W (3-0) 30-13 30-14 30-17 Pepperdine 9/9/2005 Home W (3-1) 30-24 30-26 28-30 30-19 Minnesota 9/5/2005 Away W (3-2) 30-27 30-25 26-30 25-30 15-12 Michigan 9/3/2005 Neutral W (3-0) 30-22 30-19 30-21 Ohio State 9/2/2005 Away W (3-0) 30-15 30-19 30-17 Stanford 8/27/2005 Neutral W (3-0) 30-23 31-29 33-31 Hawaii 8/26/2005 Neutral W (3-0) 30-23 30-26 30-21 Pacific and Michigan were probably the worst. If that is your version of "very bad" then I'd hate to hear what you think of Stanford opponents Boston College, Maine, Syracuse, and New Hampshire, or Washington's preconference schedule. In fact, next time, before opening your trap and making yourself looking like the biggest fool of all-time, I recommend you do some homework. Washington's pre-conference schedule included powerhouses such as: Gardner-Webb Montana St Davidson Portlan North Dakota St Wisconsin-Green Bay Sam Houston Fortunately for them, they threw in two matches against Hawaii. Of course, Nebraska played Hawaii, too. Just to include Pepperdine, their non-conference schedule included Northern Iowa, Colorado St, CSNorthridge, Penn St, Pacific, USC, Long Beach, Towson, Penn, STFrancis-NY Some cupcakes in there, and certainly not up to Nebraska's standards, but certainly no worse than Stanford. So, would you like to reconsider your claim that Pepperdine and Nebraska can't win close games because they waste their time playing really bad teams in preseason? At the very least, their preseason last year was no easier than those of top Pac 10 teams. More obviously, neither came close to Washington's easy schedule. You are new, so I will give you a second chance to show me what you know. But next time, I recommend you be more careful to not make such a blatently incorrect statement. Folks around here will recognize when you are blowing smoke.
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Post by Ye Olde Dawg on Aug 31, 2006 14:00:22 GMT -5
It isn't the pre-season that makes the Pac-10 so tough; it's the regular season. Nearly every weekend you're playing someone in the top 25. Only the UO/OSU weekends give a team any kind of a breather.
If you're competitive in that conference, you're ready for the tournament.
I'm not sure that the "bottom half" Pac-10 teams are really getting weaker. It may be that other teams around the country are getting better, and that the top Pac-10 teams are doing that too. Whatever it is, I don't think the trend will last; teams that are where Washington was a few years ago do tend to do things that will pull them out of the cellar.
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Post by pedro el leon on Aug 31, 2006 14:32:28 GMT -5
p-dub, would you *really* consider Nebraska's matches with Hawai'i and Stanford to be on a neutral court. I mean, technically it was, but in every other sense it was a home match for Nebraska.
Nebraska had an extremely tough preseason last year, you can't deny that.
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Post by The Bofa on the Sofa on Aug 31, 2006 14:37:21 GMT -5
p-dub, would you *really* consider Nebraska's matches with Hawai'i and Stanford to be on a neutral court. I mean, technically it was, but in every other sense it was a home match for Nebraska. It's not me that considers them to be neutral court matches, it is the NCAA. As such, that is how they are listed at richkern.com, which is where I got the data (cut and paste) That's the way I do it in Pablo, too, although sometimes I wonder what the effect would be if I were to tweak those parameters. Fortunately, it doesn't happen enough to make it a big problem.
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Post by landon on Sept 8, 2006 11:32:48 GMT -5
opps! i meant regular season is not as tough as the pac-10. every weekend the pac-10 is tough. There are no bad teams in the pac like Nebraska plays (Iowa, Texas Tech, etc). But Texas is good.
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Post by landon on Sept 8, 2006 11:34:06 GMT -5
and by the way, Washington is the Pac-10
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Post by OverAndUnder on Sept 8, 2006 12:04:39 GMT -5
opps! i meant regular season is not as tough as the pac-10. every weekend the pac-10 is tough. There are no bad teams in the pac like Nebraska plays (Iowa, Texas Tech, etc). But Texas is good. Except I seem to see that Oregon, Oregon State, Arizona State, Washington State, sometimes Arizona, (and now Stanford this year) - all have had embarassing losses to teams from podunk conferences. But you're right, other than those five (or six including Stanford) teams out of the Pac 10, the Pac10 is like, the bomb, dawg. Book it!
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Post by beachman on Sept 8, 2006 13:59:30 GMT -5
The pac 10 is the best. If you watch the bottom teams in the pac, they aren't good on paper, but they are good matches to watch. Oregon loses almost all of their pac 10 matches, but they lose in nail biters in 4 or 5 games. ASU, Oregon, Oregon State and WSU are by far the joke of the Pac, but they make teams work for their wins. Oregon has a lot of heart and so does OSU. WSU and ASU just lack size and that team stud. WSU best player wasn't even a top 100 in her class. And I saw ASU play this past weekend, their best player is by far their libero, and their best OH is a sophomore outside hitter that is a walk-on. That is hard to step up against the best with that. These teams have heart though. When it gets down to it though. PAC-10 is better towards the end because they had the most consistent competition throughout the season. their are never any walks in the park. So if pac-10 teams lose during pre-season to random teams it's because they have been playing themselves. but once they compete against the best, they are better towards the end. That is why you see so many good pac-10 teams make it far in the tournament. and that is why so many teams from the pac 10 make the big tournament. so kick butt again pac-10. i'm sure Washington, Stanford, UCLA and CAL will all be up there towards the end. After watching Oregon play in the Pyramid two weeks ago I will make a prediction right now....they will surprise more than one team in the Pac-10 this season....look for an upset or two when the major Pac-10 players arrive at Oregon.....Oregon is solid!
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Post by dishdaball on Sept 8, 2006 15:14:09 GMT -5
OverAndUnder, Talk about cherry picking information.......and examples. Since you don't agree that the PAC 10 is the best conference...who is?
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Post by OverAndUnder on Sept 8, 2006 17:08:04 GMT -5
Okay, let's talk about cherry-picking information -- for every elite Pac10 program there is another Pac10 member who wouldn't be guaranteed a top four finish in the Big12 or Big10, and who isn't guaranteed to win against foes from other mid-major conferences, not to mention occasional stumbles against strangers to the top 30.
I'm not saying the Pac10 isn't "the best". That may in fact be the reality. But it's a hollow debate with an untestable hypothesis, because there is no complete top-to-bottom interconference round robin to give us a W-L comparison ratio. So there is nothing left but cherry-picked criteria to define what "best" means. My objection isn't to the skill in the Pac10, but to those VTers who boast a mistaken equivalence between the elite performance of certain Pac10 teams and Pac10 membership itself.
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