New work schedule has my sleep schedule all wacky, so I looked at some volleyball schedules to see who might join us at the Pav September 12-14 for the Diet Coke Classic. Yeah maybe we'll find out soon and this is a waste of time, but I'm bored, so here you go. Speculate or manifest if it pleases you.
Number before conference is 2023 conference RPI rank (out of 32 conferences), and final RPIs for teams are included too. Pour one out for the Pac-12 who had the #1 RPI in their final season.
2. SEC: Tennessee (10) -- but they wouldn't be able to play Auburn. Invite a third team that we don't play but TN and Auburn play?
3. Big 12: Kansas (15), UCF (71)
5. ACC: Florida State (28)
6. Big East: Providence (272)
7. MW: New Mexico (124), Nevada (250)
8. AAC: East Carolina (115), Florida Atlantic (138), Charlotte (223)
10. CUSA: Louisiana Tech (264)
11. WCC: Washington State (11)
17. Big West: UC Davis (198), UC San Diego (196), Cal State Northridge (311)
Source:
docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1gmvHBzlZvSncikzwH10xHTUP9vQjpEqwuWvgH0snJ8I/edit?gid=946094645#gid=946094645That google doc is only a compilation of non-con schedules for the nine conferences above (+ B1G) out of the 31 conferences competing in 2024. Below are some teams that haven't released their non-con schedules yet and had RPI in the top half-ish of 2023 DI teams. A lot of the best teams from these conferences are all booked. I didn't double check any of the following teams to see if they've shown up on any released schedules, so bear with me if any of them aren't actually available. Western Michigan, e.g., seems too good to be true as a possibility, but they've only released their conference schedule.
9. Sun Belt: South Alabama (41), Coastal Carolina (47)
12. Patriot: Bucknell (126), American (145)
13. A10: VCU (133), Fordham (163)
14. ASUN: FGCU (54), Lipscomb (76), Eastern Kentucky (106), Kennesaw State (112)
15. MVC: Drake (52), UIC (81), Southern Illinois has 12 days off including that weekend (131), Valparaiso (168)
16. WAC: SFA (39), Grand Canyon (78), UTRGV (113), UT Arlington (132), Utah Valley (167)
18. SoCon: Wofford (103)
19. MAC: Western Michigan (32)
22. CAA: Delaware (62)
24. Horizon: Wright State (79)
26. OVC: Eastern Illinois (69)
27. Big South: High Point (59)
28. Southland: Southeastern Louisiana (82), A&M-Corpus Christi (157)
29. MEAC: Coppin State (129)
Conference/Final RPI source:
stats.ncaa.org/selection_rankings/nitty_gritties/34729Made it this far? A sidenote: technically the 2023 conference RPIs were ranked 1-33 even though there were only 32 conferences. As the only team not affiliated with a conference, Chicago State's "conference" RPI was 12. I took that figure out and adjusted the rankings to be 1-32.