VBelo Preseason Report: EIVA
East Coast, Beast Coast
Welcome to the VBelo Preseason Report for the Eastern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association (EIVA)! In this 8-part series, we will look at the state of Men’s Volleyball as we begin the 2023 NCAA season. Each conference profile will give a quick overview of how those teams look as they head into their 2023 campaign.
If you want to see the other conference profiles, I will update links as they are released:
Preseason Ranking
Disclaimer
VBelo only knows the information that is fed into it. Since there have been zero matches in 2023 so far, it doesn’t have a complete picture of teams yet. The best it can do is see where a team finished last season and adjust for players lost in the offseason. The model will learn more about these teams the same way we all will: seeing who wins matches. While these preseasons rankings don’t foretell where the teams will end the season (it can’t predict the future), it shows us where VBelo thinks they are starting from relative to the rest of the nation.
So let’s get to it! Here is how the EIVA teams stack up to begin the season.
Penn State is good. Need I say more? When we look at the preseason coaches’ poll, we see some interesting differences with VBelo.
There are two basic areas where VBelo and the coaches agree: Penn State is good and the conference is basically divided in half. The rest of this newsletter will talk about Penn State so let’s talk about this division right down the middle. In the top half, we have an all around juggernaut and two really good teams that appear to be pretty evenly matched. Princeton and NJIT met in the EIVA tournament finals last season in an exciting 4-set match where Princeton (the #4 seed) came out on top. As was proven last year, conference tournaments can have unexcepted results and really any of these three teams could make it out of the EIVA this season.
In the bottom half of the conference, the coaches’ poll shows that there is not a clear picture of how these teams stack up. VBelo, on the other hand, sees George Mason and Harvard as having the edge over a rebuilding Charleston squad. It is surprising to see GMU so low in the coaches poll as they are returning a bulk of their roster from last season and had a better record than Charleston. To add onto the motivation for this season, George Mason will be hosting the national tournament on May 2nd-6th at EagleBank Arena. Add all that together and I find it unlikely that the Patriots will finish last in the EIVA this season.
Lastly, I want to mention that the EIVA is a little smaller this year. With the NEC now sponsoring Men’s Volleyball, three teams left the EIVA for their “real” conference: Saint Francis, St. Francis Brooklyn, and Sacred Heart. One question that this creates is how many teams will make the conference tournament. Previously it was 6 of the 9 teams, and it looks like this season it will stay at 6 teams. So every team in the EIVA is only a few wins away from a spot in the national tournament this year.
Roster Retention
To help make sense of the Roster Retention scores above, here is a deep dive into how this metric is calculated.
Most EIVA teams have a reasonable amount of turn over for this season. These are not new programs so their recruiting cadences have been finely tuned and this is just one way to show that fact. The hardest hit team looks to be Charleston, which is unfortunate as they find themselves at the bottom of the ranking to start the season. In reality, all of the non-Penn State teams will be looking for standout players as the Nittany Lions were the only program to have All-Americans last year (1 first team, 2 second team, & 2 honorable mentions).
Penn State had four players (Bogner, Ezeonu, Wildman, & Bantle) who appeared in every set of every match last season. Three of them (not Will Bantle) will be returning for the 2023 season. For every team facing Penn State this year, this should be terrifying. Their conference championship odds are only bolstered by Penn State having the lowest roster loss in their conference. This will be a huge year for this team.
Watchlist
Here are some interesting story lines and things to watch for this season:
Penn State - This team is must-watch entertainment. They were the last team out of making the national tournament in 2022 (which was understandable but still brutal) so expect fire in this team all year long.
Princeton - There is a lot to like here, especially having the momentum of defeating Penn State and making it to the Big Dance. The key will be consistency throughout the season and playing well against non-conference foes, like UCLA and Ohio State.
Rising Stars - It would be great to see more than just Penn State dominate the All-American awards at the end of season. The opportunity is there for some new faces to step up and make a name for themselves and their programs this year.
Conclusion
Do I think Penn State is going to come into this season with a gigantic chip on its shoulder and make sure the selection committee has no reasons to leave them out this year? Yes, yes I do. In spite of that, I still think the EIVA will produce some super competitive matches and give us some tight battles for rankings inside of the conference. There is a lot to love here and I am excited for George Mason to host the national tournament again (even if it will be brutal for me in terms of time zones.)