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The Panther Volleyball team was swept earlier in the season by the MVC leading Shox in Cedar Falls. Tonight, UNI was able to return the favor and earn a tie at the top of the conference by sweeping WSU 25-23, 25-21, 25-23. Very impressive showing from a Panther squad that struggled early in the year with all of the youth and inexperience that is currently on the roster.

PantherSigEp wrote:The Panther Volleyball team was swept earlier in the season by the MVC leading Shox in Cedar Falls. Tonight, UNI was able to return the favor and earn a tie at the top of the conference by sweeping WSU 25-23, 25-21, 25-23. Very impressive showing from a Panther squad that struggled early in the year with all of the youth and inexperience that is currently on the roster.

actually, WSU won 3-1 in Cedar Falls. UNI won the first set, but since the Shockers totally whooped the Panthers in the next three sets, it certainly felt like a sweep.
Was great to see them play much better and get the W in Wichita. Renewed hope for the MVC tourney

This really seems like a down year for the conference. I stayed up pretty late last night doing my second mock NCAA Volleyball bracket of the year and really only see the auto bid getting in. Wichita is the only one with at large potential, UNI, MSU, and ISU just don't have the RPI.

Losing Creighton and bringing in Loyola hurt the conference RPI-wise (at least in VB).
UNI started the year with a very young and inexperienced team, which meant more losses than usual in the early (non-conference) part of the season (though I do think that they are starting to come together well).
And none of the conference teams really got any of the "marquee" wins, which there have been a few each of the past few years (often by UNI).

Thus the conference-wide RPI has dropped a bit.
If UNI can win out their remaining 7 conference matches (biggest hurdle: @ ILS), their RPI will probably end up in the bubble range, but likely not quite high enough for an at-large. And I'm not even sure WSU is a lock for an at-large.

I'll crunch the numbers here tonight, but my preliminary analysis after Wichita State's debacle of a loss to SIUC is that there is a less than 10% chance at the moment that the Valley will get an at large volleyball bid this year.