Next stage completed

Conference USA

Tulane appears to be losing 2/3 of their starters -- Linder, Radosevic, Rebrovic (their setter) and Wells, as well as Boatwright, Bernards and McGehee. That's what you call significant information.

Ditto for UAB, with Bozic, Dent, Domingos and Stefanov (their setter) moving on, as well as Vujovic. It will be interesting to see the coaches' pick for this conference title.

SunBelt

Florida International only loses Drumeva. Better yet, Rosa is still there.

Middle Tennessee only drops Asberry.

Big West

Cal Poly -- Atherstone, Houston and Waller. Nice class coming in.

LBSU -- Vargas and Verdin, plus Murray. Where are the recruits?

SEC

Kentucky only loses Nzenwa and could be the sleeper in the SEC.

Tennessee lost Clarke and Flynn, plus Loyd transferred. Two setters transferring in?

LSU -- Martinez and Washington, plus Skender

ACC

North Carolina -- Eskola, Jansma (setter) and Prussing

Clemson -- Abbott and Hepburn

Duke -- Carls and Norman, plus Wherry

Miami -- Ellis, plus Bomhack

FSU -- only Moon

Georgia Tech -- Kandell, Kellogg, Miller and Niekamp (setter). And Bond. Ouch.

Missouri Valley

Wichita State drops Broussard, plus Jakubov. Shockers could be looking at another stellar year?

Creighton -- Cvejdlik, Decker and Lebeda (setter)

Northern Iowa -- Sampson and Stelken, and Benson transferred to Wisconsin

Western Athletic

New Mexico State could be in a heap of hurt, with the departures of Gintant (setter), Simpson, Torres and Yon, plus Steinmetz transferred.

Big East

Cincinnati -- Elley, plus Peterson and Torok. Brandl and Nevelle transfers can't help, although recruiting class was ranked.

Louisville -- Kolesnikova, Matiasovska and Liu, and Tomko transferred

St. Johns -- Brooks, Chen, Kovaleva, Leszczynska (setter) and Yee. Another ouch.

Mid-American

Ohio -- Anderson and Dearmond, plus Maiden, Mangan and Mauck

Western Michigan -- only Vogl

Miami -- Schroeder, plus Wolfe


I'm ready to put together a preliminary top 30, and then I'll wait for the coaches' conference picks.

Less progress

Nothing new as to #13 on down, but I have gone through some potential teams, checking on who they lost from 2008. Probably could use a second set of eyes, but all I have is a dead dog. Not much help there.

West Coast

San Diego loses Sutherland (not a starter)
Pepperdine lost Chamberlain and Rubenstein
St Mary's lost Barker, Groess and Parker (but only Groess was a starter?)
Santa Clara lost Lowe and O'Brien, plus reserve Clark, plus transfer Parker
San Francisco is hit hard: Babin, Carroll, Gambos and Webster, all starters, plus Bednarova and transfer Lowe

Big Ten

Purdue drops Lynch and Merlau, plus Miller, and Ullrich and Nichols transfer
Michigan loses Karpiak and Hance
Indiana loses Pierce and Short
Michigan State has Verdun transfer, McDaniel was a non-starter
Wisconsin loses Jeffers, Dykstra and Salow, plus Klingsporn tranfers

Pac Ten

USC brings the entire team back, minus Carico -- which explains the recruiting class (although Fuller is highly-regarded)
Oregon is smacked a bit -- Forristall, Maricic, Swoboda, plus Milosevic move on
Arizona loses Buringrud and Goodenough
Arizona State only drops Giordano (dark horse in Pac Ten?)
Oregon State is minus Evans and Rinderknecht (another dark horse?)

Big 12

Kansas State may be hurting, losing Farr, Jantsch, Korobkova and Liliom
Texas A&M loses Bryant and Donaldson, plus Phillips
Baylor only loses Elliot (dark horse in Big 12?)
Missouri has two transfers, Wilson and Johnson
Oklahoma loses Barnes and two transfers, Machen and Bess

Mountain West

Utah bids adieu to Baird and Haynie
Colorado State says aufwiedersehen to Fornstrom (their stellar setter!) and Strauss
New Mexico has an adios for Fairchild, Tripp and Kwasigroch
BYU waves arrivederci to Dyer and Porter, plus transfer Marquardt (not to mention Kylin Munoz)

Atlantic 10

St. Louis appears to only lose Christman. Kern has her listed as their only middle in 2008, not sure why. I tried checking the Billikens' stats, but their website does not seem to have a link to any. Also odd. So I'm left with no clear idea about how large a part of their squad Christman was. Will 2009 be the Nightmare After Christman?
Dayton drops at least three starters, Akerhielm (B), Bateman and Robbe, plus Norris


Has any of this research helped me? A little. Only 30 or so more teams to look at.

Progress

I think I have my top 12 teams, not necessarily in this order, but not necessarily not in this order either.

#1 Washington (Swarbrick gone)
#2 Penn State (Fawcett, Harmotto, Holehouse)
#3 Texas (Paolini)
#4 California (Beck, Reilly, Solomon)
#5 Florida (Bowers)
#6 Nebraska (Larson, Gates, Schwartz)
#7 Minnesota (Roehrig, Hartmann, Schmidt, Vatterrodt)
#8 Stanford (Barboza, Akinradewo, Waller, Fisher)
#9 Illinois (Bazzetta, Turner)
#10 Hawaii (Hittle, Houston, Keefe, Thomas, Simmons (t))
#11 Iowa State (Bisenius, Malcom, Vos)
#12 UCLA (Spicer, Piggott (t))

Now, it gets difficult, although I believe USC, KSU, Purdue, Michigan probably, are all top 20. But I have work to do elsewhere.

2009 pre-season poll

Holy crapoly! Ron Kern's pre-season poll is due out in a couple of weeks and I am still one of the pollsters. (We call ourselves "pollsters", as you can see. Dweebs may be more accurate, but we're not using that. End of discussion.) It's a lot of work, let me tell you, with very little appreciation in return. Ron appreciates it, of course, since the damned poll has his name on it, but that's about it.

Here's what I've gathered together so far, after a good three hours of unappreciated work:

1) My 2008 end-of-the-year ranking -- as good a place to start as any, if I say so myself.
2) Pablo's 2008 end-of-the-year ratings. Si!
3) Ron's final 2008 RKPI. Required, says Ron.
4) PrepVolleyball.com's 2009 recruit lists -- senior aces and top recruiting classes.

What I still need:

1) A refresher on the 2008 seniors (and 2009 transfers) -- damned if I remember anyone other than Larson, Barboza, Akinradewo, Fawcett and Harmotto. I bet there were more.
2) That AVCA preview deal they do every year, which gets more and more unreliable with each passing year. Half-assed comes to mind, if you pardon my Deutsch. It would not surprise me if they just skip it this year.
3) Pre-season conference rankings. Always nice to have to coaches' input.
4) A shot or ten of whiskey.

Excited to see the results? Me neither, but that's what I'm going to have for you. It'll be good for a blog or ten.

Oh! I remember something else. A list of surprises so far. Stuff I never knew or have forgotten already:

1) USC isn't in the top 30 recruiting classes and they are coming off of a 17-12 year. 2010's class looks fabulous, but what's 2009 going to be like for the Trojanettes? No Carico either.
2) The RKPI has those funky rankings for St. Louis (#8) and Tulane (#19). Shall I ignore them again?
3) Pablo has those funky ratings for UCLA (#8) and Florida (#22). Ditto?
4) The RKPI and Pablo really don't get along -- see Florida (#12 v. #22), Colorado State (#21 v. #49), Oregon (#7 v. #20), Iowa State (#31 v. #11), Michigan (#39 v. #14), New Mexico State (#33 v. #16), St. Louis (#8 v. #27), Arizona (#78 v. #23!), Texas A&M (#57 v. #13!), Ohio (#23 v. #49), Middle Tennessee (#24 v. #66), and Florida International (#25 v. #78!).
5) Top 10 recruiting classes include Purdue (#8), Cal Poly (#9) and Iowa State (#10). Nice to see some rising programs getting even better.

More to come ...