The things that bother me about getting the 3 seed (and thus not getting one of two first round byes):
The win on Friday made no difference-- we would have had the three seed without the big win on the road against the only team that beat us. We won the MIVA auto bid. We had a win against every team we played-- something no other team in the tournament was able to do. We had the fewest losses of any team in men's volleyball. Statistically, the MIVA is the strongest it has ever been, especially in the RPI. We were #2 in the RPI going into the final week, and we beat #5 Ohio State and #1 Lewis (on the road), so it's conceivable that we may have passed Lewis for #1. Although Lewis had a big head-to-head win over UC Irvine on the road, we had a combined 4-0 record against the two teams besides us that beat Lewis (Ohio State and BYU).
The idea that you could win the MIVA auto bid in a very strong year, have the best won-loss record in volleyball, and (perhaps) rank #1 in RPI and come away with a play-in game just bothers me. You can pinpoint that regular season loss at home to Lewis as the big killer-- that loss cost the regular season conference title, which obviously weighed big. Still, it feels like the selection committee closed the books on their work before the MIVA final.
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