Weekly Recap: Week 5
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Welcome to the Evollve weekly newsletter, where every Monday we’ll take a look at some of the most impressive feats of the past week in NCAA volleyball.
Biggest Upset
North Dakota stunned South Dakota on Thursday despite under a 7% chance to win according to our model. North Dakota was able to pull off a 3 sets to 1 win even with fewer total points in the match than South Dakota.
Biggest Comeback
On Friday, College of Charleston came back to defeat Hofstra in five sets after its live win probability fell to just 1.25%, earning the best comeback of the week. Remarkably, the next day they did it again, although that 3-2 win was just the 15th best comeback of the week. In both matches, Hofstra scored more total points than College of Charleston but lost after holding a 2-1 set lead.
Best Clutch Performance
Temple defeated Rice in a barn burner on Friday, winning 3-2 with each of the last three sets being decided by two points and two of them going to extra points. Temple’s Leia Harper came up clutch for the Owls with the putaways in sets 3 and 5 as well as three other kills down the stretch of set 5. Harper also recorded five set 5 kills, including the winner, in Temple’s win over Penn three days prior.
Evollve Top 25
We’ll wrap things up with our model’s top 25 heading into the new week. Texas has officially passed up Pittsburgh, as now unsurprisingly the two remaining unbeatens top the rankings. Auburn is the latest team to crack the top 25.