For those avid sports fans who follow the progress of their favorite Biola teams each week, checking out the weekly polls is a good way to stay updated. Weekly ratings for a given team are available on the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) website, www.naia.org. These figures reflect a team’s rank for the week on a conference level, as a well as a national level. When it comes down to which teams get to go to nationals, this ranking system is key.
Ranking the teams is an involved process that begins with a rater: one coach selected by his/her conference. For example, the rater of GSAC (Golden State Athletic Conference) women’s basketball is the women’s basketball coach from Vanguard University, Marissa Booker. The rater’s job is to rank every team in his/her conference from best to worst. This is a weekly duty involving research and objectivity on the part of the rater. Once the rater has completed the job, the conference’s Oversight Committee reviews his/her decision.
The next step in the process is national ranking–– how a given team did, not only in its conference but in the entire association. After many conference calls, the national raters make a list from one to 30 of the top teams out of all the conferences. Each national rater gives the team he/she believes did the best 30 points, the second 29 and so on. The national raters then send in their votes, and the points awarded to each team are compiled by the National Committee. The committee ranks the teams (one to 25) according to the number of points they received.
Only 25 teams out of the entire NAIA will go to nationals. However, it is not enough for a team to be in the top 25. Teams that win their conference will automatically go to nationals. When this is taken into account, a team that is not first in its conference must be ranked nationally to have a good chance of making nationals.
What does this mean for a team at Biola? Although the NAIA encourages objectivity, it is impossible to completely escape at least some bias. As a result, a team must stand out and get noticed by raters. Ken Crawford, Biola women’s basketball coach, said the way to do this is to compete against ranked teams and to win. This way, the team will get noticed by national raters. Once the team has gained a good reputation, it will be easier for them to get ranked, and, once they are in, it is difficult for them to get knocked out.
