The Hobart Redemption Tour began last week with Andrew Kim and his Statesmen inviting his former team, Vassar, to Geneva for a match which earned them its first UVC win of the year. The tour continues this Friday as former SJF Coach, and present Hobart Coach Steve England, is invited back to his old gym on the Fisher campus to attempt to earn their second. Lots riding on this match as it sets up to be the difference between the Cardinals fighting for a UVC regular season title or facilitating what could turn out to be a logjam for 3rd between Naz, New Paltz, Hobart, & Fisher. A Hobart loss this Friday gives brand new life to either Elmira or MIT, who to date are winless in UVC competition, but still have the Statemen left to compete with the remainder of their UVC schedule. As usual, the UVC is about as unpredictable a conference as it gets, short of NYU being the odds-on favorite to host the tournament in a month, being presently undefeated and the #1 team in the country.
Put Saturday’s contest with Carthage at Aurora on your calendar as the battle of the Midwest’s best two teams fighting for an opportunity to be a regional host. Loras just visited the Thornton Gym this past week and failed to win a set. The Firebirds are certainly hoping for a better showing than that to keep their top 3 ranking in the T100 intact. Carthage has a 66% chance to keep their current win-streak alive if you believe the forecasts based on the T100 ratings seen below in “the Fixings.”
From last week to this week the same 19 teams are forecasted to be dancing in a month. The bubble teams according to the T100 have changed a little bit, but soon we hope to find out what the NPI has to say about these things, for real!
It is very possible the Carthage Regional forecasted below trades out with the Springfield Regional. It looks to me that there won’t be a 5th team from the Midwest at the present, but Carthage should still warrant an overall 3rd seed to set up what might be a Southern Virginia & Carthage semi-final match which would be a treat to anybody who enjoys watching great volleyball! Lots of things to be determined before any of that, though. For instance, the NPI.
If the last 6 weeks is any indication, then there will be just 20 matches below go the other way than expected. Every week the average of these win probabilities is about 84%, and every week somewhere between 83% & 86% of the favorites get it done. Wittenberg is a 23% dog playing at BW on Friday evening and then a 39% dog the next day playing at Mount Union. That is a very influential 20 hours that will begin to give the MCVL prospects more perspective. Of course, should Wittenberg be victorious the night before, the win probability at Mount Union the next day probably moves beyond 39% closer to 50-50 – The risk for putting out win probabilities a week ahead of time. This because they are all conditional on what comes before.
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