NCAA | Who will be/should be the #1 volleyball team this week?

The mighty have fallen … although they’ve mostly fallen to other mighties.

So who will coaches (Monday’s AVCA poll) and media (Tuesday’s Volleyball Magazine poll) vote #1?

San Diego celebrates its victory over Southern California
-photo by University of San Diego Athletics

It won’t be easy … consider this: in the past three weeks, Washington beat Illinois, who squeaked past Arizona State, who clobbered Texas, who barely beat San Diego, who defeated Hawai’i in Honolulu, who beat UCLA. You get the picture.

Ten teams are in the conversation, listed by last week’s rankings:

			PLUSES	MINUSES
1	Southern Cal	8-1	Beat #21 Kentucky Beat #22 Purdue	Lost to #9 San Diego in San Diego. Six wins against so-so opponents.
2	Texas	5-2	Beat #3 Penn State in Austin Beat #8 Stanford in Austin Beat #9 San Diego in Honolulu	Lost to #10 Hawai’i in Honolulu Swept by Arizona State
3	Penn State	6-1	Beat #5 Florida Six 3-0 sweeps.	Lost to #2 Texas 2-3 in Austin.
4	Minnesota	8-1	Eight 3-0 sweeps.	Lost to #19 Kentucky 2-3 in Lexington. Eight wins were against middling teams.
5	Florida	8-1	Beat #8 Stanford in Austin	Lost to #3 Penn State Seven wins against so-so opponents
6	Washington	6-0	Undefeated; including convincing win @ #14 Illinois. Looked strong in two wins against Canadian Natl. Team.	Remaining five wins were against mid-level teams; needed 5 sets to beat struggling Gonzaga.
7	Michigan	7-1	Beat #20 Oregon at home	Lost to #16 Florida St Barely beat Texas A&M 3-2 (15-13)
9	San Diego	7-1	Beat #1 USC at home Beat #10 Hawai’i in Honolulu Beat #14 Illinois in Ames. Beat #17 Iowa State in Ames.	Lost to #2 Texas, but just barely.
10	Hawai’i	8-1	Beat #2 Texas at home Beat #11 UCLA at home	Lost at home to #9 San Diego Has not yet played a road match
NR	Arizona State	8-1	Beat #2 Texas in Champaign Eight 3-0 victories	Lost to #14 Illinois in Champaign (on a controversial call)

Notably absent from this conversation: Stanford, Nebraska, Oregon.

Volleyblog Seattle is a voter in the Volleyball Magazine media poll. Here’s how we’ll cast our ballot this week:

1. San Diego
2. Penn State
3. Washington
4. USC
5. Minnesota
6. Arizona State
7. Hawai’i
8. Texas
9. Florida
10. Michigan

How would YOU rank them?