10/10/2016 12:00:00 AM | Women's Volleyball
Oct. 10, 2016#UNLVvball hits the road against @unmvolley (TUES) & @USUVolleyball (SAT) this week.
Weekly Notes: https://t.co/aQSSFvUKXb pic.twitter.com/SaoX4eI7pF- UNLV Volleyball (@UNLVvball) October 11, 2016
2016 UNLV Volleyball Weekly Notes - Week Eight
LAS VEGAS (UNLVRebels.com) - The UNLV volleyball team hits the road for a stretch of four straight Mountain West matches in four different states beginning with Tuesday's affair (6:30 pm MT/5:30 pm PT) against the New Mexico Lobos in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The Rebels will conclude this week's action Saturday (7:00 pm MT/6:00 pm PT) against the Utah State Aggies in Logan, Utah. Trips to Colorado Springs, Colorado on October 20 (Air Force) and Boise, Idaho on October 22 (Boise State) will take place before the Scarlet & Gray returns home.
The Rebels enter the week 16-1 on the year and sit in second overall in the Conference standings with a 5-1 mark. This week's opposition ranks eighth (1-5/New Mexico) and seventh (2-4/Utah State).
TUNE IN, WATCH & LISTEN: Live stats for both of UNLV Volleyball's road matches this week versus New Mexico and Utah State can be found online at UNLVRebels.com. Additionally, both of those contested will be streamed live via the Mountain West Network and, they too, will be linked to UNLVRebels.com.
REBELS ARE NO. 18 IN THE RPI: The NCAA released the second installment of its volleyball Ratings Percentage Index (RPI) Monday, and UNLV is listed at No. 18. The Rebels, who were No. 15 one week ago, have achieved such a high ranking due to the fact they sport a 16-2 overall record, and that figure has translates to the sixth-best winning percentage (.889) in the country.
In this week's RPI release, UNLV is one of five non-Power Five programs to make the top 25. Those four other squads are the West Coast Conference's San Diego Toreros (No. 5/15-2) and BYU Cougars (No. 13/16-2), the Big East's Creighton Bluejays (No. 23/12-6) and the Sun Belt's Coastal Carolina Chanticleers (No. 25/13-4). The Big Ten's Wisconsin Badgers (No. 1/14-1), Nebraska Cornhuskers (No. 3/14-1) and Minnesota Golden Gophers (No. 4/13-2) own three of the top four spots while the Big 12's Texas Longhorns (No. 2/13-2) are sprinkled into the mix.
The RPI is a system the NCAA uses to rank team's based upon a team's wins and losses as well as its strength of schedule. UNLV's ranking has been greatly influenced by the last component of the RPI, as it has faced nine teams in the top 100 -- No. 13 BYU, No. 43 Boise State, No. 51 UC Santa Barbara, No. 52 Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, No. 58 Colorado State, No. 66 Hofstra, No. 73 New Mexico State, No. 77 Wyoming and No. 87 Albany - and owns a 7-2 record against them.
IN THE RANKINGS: UNLV received votes in this week's AVCA's Division I Top-25 Poll. The Rebels took in five points in this week's survey to come in No. 35. The Scarlet & Gray was No. 31 in the past two polls (September 26 and October 3), No. 34 (September 19), No. 37 (September 12) and No. 40 (September 5).
STAYING PACKED: Dating back to the third weekend of the regular season, the UNLV volleyball team has played eight of its last 12 matches away from the Cox Pavilion and Las Vegas, and it will play its next four on the road, as well. The Rebels interrupted their road travels with four Mountain West home contests against the likes of Boise State, Air Force, Wyoming and Colorado State.
This stretch began with a trip to South Texas for Texas A&M-Corpus Christi's Islanders Classic (September 9-10) and continued through the co-hosted BYU/UVU Challenge (September 16-17) that took place in Utah. The squad wound up alternating home-away weekends with the start of Conference play: home versus BSU and Air Force, away at Fresno State and San Jose State, and home versus UW and CSU.
WINNING & SITTING NEAR THE TOP: As of October 9, UNLV's 16-2 overall record translates to .889, which is tied for the sixth-best winning percentage in the country. Coincidentally, the Rebels are knotted with BYU, a squad it played earlier this season in Provo, Utah. Dayton sits atop the standing with a 18-1 mark and a .947 showing.
Delving deeper into the numbers, the Scarlet & Gray is only one of 14 teams to have suffered a minimum of two defeats this season; however, its one of five to have done so with 16 or more victories. Those other four squads are Dayton (18-1), South Dakota (17-2), Western Kentucky (17-2) and BYU (16-2).
Besides UNLV, Dayton, South Dakota, Western Kentucky and BYU, the other two teams to win 16 or more times this year are American (17-6), Florida Gulf Coast (17-3), Fairfield (16-5) and Radford (16-3).
