VBelo Scouting Report: January 24, 2023

And we're back

Jan 24, 2023

Yesterday, the latest AVCA Coaches’ Poll was released and…(drum roll)…not much has changed. All 15 teams remained the same…again. Nine teams remained in the same exact ranking and essentially only 2 teams moved (Ball State and UCSB). The most exciting part of the poll is that UCLA regained the 1 first place vote from 2 weeks ago. Not only is this boring, this poll basically just feels like a terrible popularity contest (and of course the cool kids get picked first). There are only 2 teams in the Received Votes category. I feel very confident that there are more than these 17 teams that deserve to be considered in the top 15 teams in the country at this point. All but one team (in the top 15) comes from either the Big West, MPSF, or MIVA. I really hope some of the voters can see the great things happening in the EIVA, NEC, IVA, ConfCarolinas, and SIAC. VBelo is not perfect, but at least it doesn’t care about institutional reputation. Okay, getting off my soapbox now.

Since there were no matches yesterday and the coaches’ poll is boring, let’s look at something exciting…or at least more interesting than the poll. At this point in the season, there is one team who has scored the same amount of points as it has given up.1 With 347 points scored and 347 points allowed, Fairleigh Dickinson is at the Point Differential Equilibrium Point (PDEP)2. In terms of SDEP (Set Differential Equilibrium Point) there are 6 teams who have the same number of sets as they have lost: NJIT, Long Island, Lincoln Memorial, Lewis, D’Youville, & Ball State. While we are at it, there are 9 teams at the MDEP (Match Differential Equilibrium Point). This is just a complicated way of saying 9 teams have a .500 record right now. Interestingly, there is only 1 team at the SDEP that is not also at the MDEP: Lewis.

That is more than enough of…whatever that was.3 Now onto today’s matches. We have two matches on deck. Emmanuel will host Fort Valley in the first match of their home-and-home series. These teams met once last year and Emmanuel came away the victors 3-1. This will be a home match for Emmanuel and this season they are undefeated at home (1-0). Also, home teams are winning 77% of the time this season. The other match will see a scrappy Tusculum team who was so close to upsetting ranked Ball State this weekend face a King team that is much better than their 1-7 record would suggest. VBelo is giving the edge to King but Tusculum has a very real chance at winning this match. Coming into the match, King has won all 4 matches against Tusculum all-time.