Penn State up to #2 in winter Director's Cup standings
- Thread starter Judge Smails
- Start date
Don't get too excited... we'll come back down to earth after spring sports are done. We always do. Mens lacrosse hopefully helps this year, although depending on what they do, may just offset points we normally get from men's volleyball, who have been sucking this year, and are in danger of missing the NCAA tourney, despite their recent win over #1 OSU.
barbour should spend money to get us to the top in baseball, softball, and the like. She should also have Penn State invest in a top-flight water polo program, complete with state-of-the-art facilities for the sport.
So you're saying we shouldn't be excited about the overall success of athletics program?? There's always a self loathing buzzkill in the crowd. Nobody is claiming we're going to finish at #2 but there's nothing wrong with recognizing success.
I'm no expert, so correct me if I am wrong, but despite the on-going, never-ending obsession that pitt athletic supporters have with being better than Penn State, #77 is worse than #2. Now please give me some leeway here, but I would even venture to say that #77 is considerably worse than #2, maybe even in the category of most worstest relative to #2. That is to say that pitt is more unsuccessful than Penn State, and possibly considerably more unsuccessful.
From my most elementary analysis, I am inclined to conclude that pitt's athletic program is not very successful. I draw this conclusion from the observation that winning and therefore high rankings in polls are desired.
In closing, I feel that winning more would be in pitt's best interest. pitt should strive to win more, or at least, lose less.
Huh?
A) We play in the second weakest conference in the country
B) We're still in 1st place in said second weakest conference
C) If we win the conference tournament we're in automatically
D) If we didn't win the conference tournament in any year we still wouldn't get an at-large bid.
In other words ... not sure where the line of being in danger of missing the NCAA tournament comes from lol
Last edited:
Some Directors Cup observations....
- Four of the current top five are from the Big Ten.
- The lowest Big Ten school is Rutgers at #86. Another 1.5 points and they would have tied Vermont for 85th.
- Of the 15 ACC schools/ND, Pitt is 14th at #77. They edged out New Hampshire by one point.
- The lowest ranked P5 school is Georgia Tech at #185. Maybe they have some spring sports which can save them.
I like that we are ranked #2, but this award is not what I think some believe it is when they just see the standings and don't understand the reasoning and structure behind it. This award reminds me of "participation trophies" and "winning isn't everything" attitudes. The point spread from finishing 1st to finishing elsewhere is not very wide. Every sport has equal weighting, so bowling is equal to basketball, riflery is equal to football. This cup celebrates student-athletes from all sports, regardless of popularity. I am glad this award exists and understand why Stanford always wins given its context.
An award that I think would be of more interest and celebrated would weigh sports based on factors like number of athletes/schools participating in a sport, event attendance, media coverage, etc. It would also place more emphasis on winning a championship, because hardly anyone remembers who finished second and lower.
An award that I think would be of more interest and celebrated would weigh sports based on factors like number of athletes/schools participating in a sport, event attendance, media coverage, etc. It would also place more emphasis on winning a championship, because hardly anyone remembers who finished second and lower.
No, I was being half serious, half facetious. But this happens every year. We get a high ranking in the winter, only to drop back and lose ground on the spring. We should be excited, but at the same time it's like getting excited mid-season before all the games are played.
Exactly right. This is not our first time at the Rodeo. We do well in fall and winter and then we get baseball, men's and women's tennis, women's softball, men's and women's golf, etc....and we drop.
We've lost to almost ever team with a pulse on the schedule, and sit at 17-10 overall. We're in first place in a bad conference where we're the only team with a pulse. We've lost 3 conference games, one to Saint Francis, and TWICE to powerhouse Sacred Heart (by 3-1 and 3-0). We have to win two games in the conference tourney to get an automatic bid, and odds are we play one of both of those teams. Last year we lost to St. Francis in the conference semi finals to finish the season 19-10. Prior to that, we had won the conference something like 18 years in a row, rarely dropping a match, and frequently winning 3-0 and 3-1 over these same opponents. This year could easily be a repeat of last year.
Your school's top 10 men's sports and top 10 women's sports contribute points towards the total. So even if PSU has a crappy spring, their fall/winter sports can still carry them. Just, with poor spring sports, plenty of other teams can get more points for their top 10s and make up ground
That's the problem, schools below us now frequently leapfrog us at the end of the year.
I'm a Penn State Basketball fan. It pretty much requires you to be optimistic.
I prefer to think of myself as a realist, however.
==========================================================================================================
I am not sure if D above is a statement or a question. I think you meant it as a question and meant to infer that we would get an at large bid even if we did not win championship.
Here is a little background.
For many years, there were only 4 teams that made the NCAA men's Vball tourney. They were the winners if the EIVA, MIVA and the western winner. There was then a 4th team selected, generally a western team.
About three years ago, there was a southern conference approved in the Carolinas. The weakest of the original four played the championship of this conference as a 'play in' match to become the 4th team in the tourney. Penn State was considered the weakest of the original four the first two years of this, but beat the new conference champs both times and advanced to the 'final four'. BTW, this was about the 16th consecutive year that they reached the final four, which would have to be a record and would be a great bar bet.
Penn State never got that far last year, as 'the impossible' happened and they lost in the EIVA semi final and their season was done and their streak of reaching the final four ended.
It does not matter who wins the EIVA regular season, only the tourney as the tourney winner is the automatic qualifier.
The NCAA still takes only 4 teams as opposed to 64 or 16 for other sports. Maybe 5 if you count the loser of the play in match.
As a caveat, I seem to recall that there may be another new conference and there may be two 'play in games'. That would have started last year and I lost interest after we were upset in the EIVA tourney.
However, THERE ARE NO AT LARGE BIDS as we know them from other sports.
Turning back to the OP, PSU can score some points in men's Vball, providing they win the EIVA tourney, both men's and women's lacrosse, barring collapse from eithe., outdoor track and field and maybe a few points in either golf or tennis.
If prior years are a good example, we will probably fall to something like 9-11.
In my opinion, the biggest bragging right is being the top team in the BIG.
Actually, he's implying (not inferring) the exact opposite. What he's stating is that, pretty much every year, the only way that we qualify for the NCAA volleyball tournament is via the conference championship and, since we are still the top team in that conference, we still stand a pretty good chance of making the NCAAs.
Also, there most definitely are, and always have been, at-large bids. There have been six teams in the NCAA championships since 2014, four conference champions and two at-larges. But even back when only four teams qualified, it was three conference champs and one at-large (which you even acknowledged in an earlier statement, so I have no idea what compelled you to emphasize that "THERE ARE NO AT LARGE BIDS as we know them from other sports").
EDIT: After rereading your statement, I think I understand where you are coming from. Apparently, you are trying to draw a distinction between the teams that participate in the play-in games and teams that get at-large bids in other sports. That's a distinction that doesn't work. There's no difference between the teams that get the volleyball at-large bids and teams that get at-large bids in other sports. Whether you participate in a play-in game or not is a result of your seeding, which takes place AFTER the at-large selections are made (it's possible to get an at-large bid and not participate in a play in game). All six teams, and only those six teams, will receive MVB points in the Director's Cup standings.
Follow-up to prove my point.
Last year, the conference volleyball champions were:
Mountain Pacific Sports Federation: BYU
Midwestern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association: Ohio State
Eastern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association: George Mason
Conference Carolinas: Erskine College
The winners of the play-in games were:
#4 Long Beach St (at-large) over #5 Erskine College
#3 Ohio State over #6 George Mason
So, how did #2 seed UCLA get in if they didn't win their conference (MPSF) championship nor did they win a play-in game?
Ans: They got an at-large bid, which was handed out just like in pretty much every other sport.
Plus, if you go to the Director's Cup Final Standings, you will see that George Mason (page five, ranked #260) got 25 points for a fifth place finish in the NCAA men's VB tournament, proving that from a Director's Cup standpoint, all six teams are treated as tournament participants.
Last edited:
barbour should spend money to get us to the top in baseball, softball, and the like. She should also have Penn State invest in a top-flight water polo program, complete with state-of-the-art facilities for the sport.
With a new Natatorium, you could probably field a varsity water polo program.
Wait, aren't you forgetting about Basketball? She needs to take some action there first, M and W!barbour should spend money to get us to the top in baseball, softball, and the like. She should also have Penn State invest in a top-flight water polo program, complete with state-of-the-art facilities for the sport.
