Champions Win in January. Period.
How well do future champions perform in January? The short answer: they win. A lot.
Champions may not be made in January, but just how important is the first month of competition? With the end of January just around the river bend, let’s take a look at how champions have fared at the beginning of their trophy-winning seasons.
Looking back at recent history, championship teams do well in January. Okay, they do more than well, they have been dominating. Since 2010, here are the winning percentages for championship teams in January.
The average winning percentage is .836%, which is crazy impressive! Over this time period, championship teams don’t lose. The most losses any of these teams had in January was 3, while the average was just 1.2 losses! The last 9 champions haven’t had more than 2 losses! It would seem we are in an era of outstanding champions.
What About 2025?
We have no idea if this pattern will hold, but let’s take a look at teams who might be in line for a championship. We will start with teams with 2 or fewer losses since that seems to be the recent trend. Then we will also rule out teams that will not play at least 6 games in January. That leaves us with 18 teams. Admittedly, this is still a lot of teams, but the chances of the 2025 champion being in this list is extremely high.
The Undefeated
This is a pretty elite bunch with all but one of these teams ranked in the top 7 nationally. The bottom two teams will play their sixth match of the season this weekend so they can still make the cut, don’t worry.
Hawai'i (6-0)
Long Beach (6-0)
Loyola Chicago (6-0)
Southern California (6-0)
Lincoln Memorial (5-0)
UC Irvine (5-0)
One Loss Wonders
All of these teams made the cut, but there is more variability here. The season is still young and it may be too early to know just how well all of these teams will do.
UC San Diego (7-1)
Lewis (6-1)
UC Santa Barbara (6-1)
Grand Canyon (5-1)
Long Island (4-1)
UCLA (4-1)
Two Loss Bubble
Right on the border, here are the six teams that are trying to keep their hopes alive this weekend. Pay attention to this bunch!
BYU (6-2)
CSU Northridge (5-2)
Erskine (3-2)
NJIT (3-2)
Purdue Fort Wayne (3-2)
Quincy (3-2)
What do you think? Which list is the future champion in? How many losses do you think the champion will have in January this year?
A Great Story from D-III
The VBelo Report only covers D-I/II men’s volleyball. In a perfect world, I would love to cover all volleyball. Thankfully, women’s volleyball is getting amazing coverage right now (and I love it!) The men’s side is definitely in the developing phase, compared to the women’s game, so that is where this newsletter lands.
While it would be amazing to run all divisions of men’s volleyball through the VBelo model, there just isn’t the time or energy for it on my end. Thankfully for all of us, there is a great group that covers D-III incredibly well: Frog Jump Volleyball. If you want to expand your volleyball world into D-III, they are well worth your time.
Their lead numbers guy, Eric Ingerick, wrote a great piece about a statistically improbably day. I’m not just plugging this because Eric talked to me about some of the numbers on the D-I/II side or because he called me “one of the good guys” (but also, right back at you, Eric!) This is a great look at what “improbable” actually looks like and how wild of a day January 25, 2024 really was.
Eric is great at a deep dive into stats and this article is no different. Enjoy!
Latest Polls
Coaches’ Poll
There was so little movement in this poll, I’m not even going to comment on it. I am only putting it here because these are the official rankings that teams use.1
Media Poll
There isn’t a lot of movement right now in the media poll either. The fact that these two polls align is mildly interesting. The consensus right now is that the strongest programs in the country are on the West Coast. The Big West and MPSF make up 80% of the top 10. The other two spots belong to the MIVA. The EIVA seems to be heavily underrated right now, so I will be interested to see how that changes or the next few weeks.
VBelo Rankings
…coming next week
In’s & Out’s
A section for all of the random things that don’t fit anywhere but belong somewhere.
Looking for more volleyball in your life? Might I suggest this fantastic podcast by the incomparable Rob Espero. Here is the latest episode.
AVCA Player of the Week: Deklan Wingo (Outside Hitter, Tusculum)
Triple-Double Watch 2025: 😔
I guess this is my version of “I’m just here so I won’t get fined.”