Oregon thought it had done enough.
The women’s volleyball team finished its regular season with a shutout of Washington State on Saturday, improving its overall record to 19-11, and its Pacific-10 Conference mark to 7-11.
But when the NCAA tournament bracket was announced early Sunday afternoon, the Ducks were nowhere to be found. They had been snubbed by the selection committee, which didn’t seem to take into account the strength of the Pac-10 conference.
“I think it’s wrong, I think it’s flat out wrong,” Oregon coach Jim Moore said.
While the exact formula for NCAA tournament selection isn’t known, Moore suspects the committee based their selections largely off a formula called the Ratings Percentage Index, or RPI. While Oregon was ranked No. 24 in the last American Volleyball Coaches Association Poll, the Ducks are ranked 55th in the latest RPI standings.
The disparity between those two rankings can be attributed to geographical bias — or lack thereof. While it’s widely accepted that West Coast volleyball, particularly Pac-10 volleyball, is played at a higher level than in conferences across the country, the RPI treats every conference and region equally.
“I had been saying for a long time that RPI is a poor indicator of volleyball throughout the country because the regions in the country are not equal,” Moore said. “It assumes that everybody’s equal and that’s just an incorrect assumption.”
As a result, only six Pac-10 teams qualified for the NCAA tournament, compared to eight Big Ten teams, and, somewhat curiously, four teams from the Missouri Valley Conference.
“There’s no question that the Pacific area plays a tougher brand of volleyball and because the RPI doesn’t take into account anything other than just wins and losses, it’s wrong,” Moore said.
On the surface, Oregon’s weekend split with Washington (a loss on Friday) and Washington State (a victory Saturday) shouldn’t have done much to impact their resume one way or the other. But according to Moore, the weekend did more harm than good.
“Our RPI only dropped because we played Washington State (Saturday) night,” Moore said. “We were 47 in the RPI, we travel in the snow to go to Washington play on the road and our RPI drops eight points so it puts us out of the tournament after a win.”
On Friday night, against a powerful Washington squad that had only lost twice at home all year, the Ducks were shut out 25-20, 25-20, 25-10 at the No. 13 Huskies. Washington out-hit Oregon .271 to -.020, and out-blocked the Ducks 16.5 to 2.
Oregon’s floor defense started out the game well, holding Washington to .227 and .176 hitting percentages in the first and second sets, respectively, but the Ducks’ offense couldn’t get on track.
“We played OK in the first two games but we hit poorly,” Moore said. “We were playing good defense in the beginning, but hit poorly.”
After the 10-minute intermission between the second and third set, it was a different story. Washington’s offense picked up its play, and Oregon wasn’t competitive in the third set.
“They rolled over us in game three,” Moore said.
After the loss to Washington, the Ducks still thought they were in good shape for an NCAA Tournament berth. They were fairly confident a win against Washington State Saturday night would assure them of a spot in the field of 64, and Oregon played with a sense of urgency to help pull out a 25-21, 25-22, 25-23 shutout victory.
“It was a difficult match,” Moore said. “We had everything, at least we thought we had everything to lose, and Washington State had nothing to lose and we played pretty tentatively but I thought it was great that we came through and pulled it out and made it happen.”
Oregon’s offense played much better than it did against Washington, hitting .308 for the match. In her last match as a Duck, Heather Meyers had a team-high 16 kills and hit .423. Although she struggled early in the match, Meyers put the Ducks on her back in the latter stages of the first and third sets.
“Heather really stepped up,” Moore said. “In the first couple of points she struggled but we were down in game one and Heather just stepped up and came through and won game one. I was incredibly proud of her she did great things she pulled that match out herself last night.”
And, Moore thought, catapulted the Ducks into the NCAA tournament.
“I was sure we were in,” he said.
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No. 24 Ducks denied NCAA berth after split with Huskies, Cougars
Daily Emerald
November 27, 2010
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