VBelo Preseason Report: IVA
I-N-D-E-P-E-N-D-E-N-T, hustlin'
Welcome to the VBelo Preseason Report for the Independent Volleyball Association (IVA)! 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 IVA teams stack up to begin the season.1
In the 4 years that John Cash has been Head Coach for the Lincoln Memorial Railsplitters, he has led them to 4 straight IVA tournament championships.2 It would be incredibly difficult to argue that LMU is not the most successful team outside of the major conferences right now. So yeah, seeing LMU at the top of the IVA by over 100 VBelo points sounds about right.
The rankings for the IVA could essentially be grouped in pairs of teams. LMU and Queens at the top, Limestone and Maryville working to establish some strong consistency, Missouri S&T and Tusculum looking to get some good quality wins, and American International and Alderson Broaddus building good foundations. Because of scheduling limitations with major conferences, these teams end up facing D-III and NAIA teams frequently. While some of these teams are very good, the relative weakness of these schedules often limits how much movement these teams can see in VBelo.3
The IVA looks a little different this year with Daemen, D’Youville, and Fairleigh Dickinson all competing in the NEC this season. In addition to the first year program of Missouri S&T, the IVA also has two teams in their sophomore campaign: Maryville & American International. To make all of the movement more confusing, this is the last season Queens will be an independent competitor as it was announced in the summer that they would be moving to the MIVA starting in the 2024 season.4
As I mentioned with Merrimack (the other new program this year), Missouri S&T is a bit of a wildcard here. It is the only first year program in this conference and because it has not played an official match, VBelo knows next to nothing about it. The model does make some assumptions5 about the strength of new teams but the first few matches will really start to align S&T with their true VBelo rating.
Roster Retention
To help make sense of the Roster Retention scores above, here is a deep dive into how this metric is calculated.
With a handful of young teams in the IVA, the overall roster loss this season is limited. Only 1 team (Limestone) exceeded the national average of 0.38. This means there will be a lot of established chemistry coming into the season and hopefully visible improvements for these teams. There is something to be said for returning all of your players, so well done American International!
Lincoln Memorial does have the second highest roster loss at 0.35, but even that seems manageable for a team that appears to be so dominant. The four Railsplitters named to the IVA All-Tournament team6 will all be returning, which includes the tournament MVP Kohl Kutsch (who is going into his sophomore season).
Watchlist
Here are some interesting story lines and things to watch for this season:
Lincoln Memorial - Just because they are an independent team, doesn’t mean they aren’t eligible for the national tournament. I honestly believe there is a path for the Railsplitters to get an at-large bid, with the right resume.
Missouri S&T - New program alert! I love that this sport is continuing to grow. They have some tough matches scheduled this year so it will be a great launch pad for this young team.
Queens - Regardless of how they do in the IVA, this season we will get a foretaste of the future of the MIVA as the Royals will face half of the current MIVA teams.
IVA Tournament - I know we are months away, but the IVA has a great format and I wish more conferences had more interesting tournament structures.
Conclusion
The fact that there is a place for schools in conferences that don’t sponsor Men’s Volleyball (yet) to come together and compete is a huge win. Not only does this give more players opportunity to see the court, but it shows how much traction this sport is gaining. Even though many new programs are still working to find their footing against large, established programs, that does not mean that this conference is devoid of talent. Even outside of the juggernaut that is LMU, there is skill in every IVA roster. If Lincoln Memorial does defy the odds and get an at-large bid to the national tournament, it will be a great day for every independent team.
I could not find a preseason poll for the Independent teams. If anyone out there has it, please let me know.
There was no IVA tournament in 2020.
The best solution to this is to have a VBelo score for every D-III and NAIA team…which is not going to happen any time soon because of time and resources. Sorry.
To make matters more confusing, Missouri S&T is technically part of the GLVC for other sports. Other schools in this conference include: Lewis, Maryville, McKendree, & Quincy.
This would probably be a good discussion for another post, but essentially their rating is partially based on the winning percentage D-I/II teams have against D-III and NAIA teams. There is more to it than that, but hopefully that whets your math appetite.
Johansen Negron, Attia Soliman, Cole Campisano, and Kohl Kutsch.