3/1 Oracle/ITA Men's Rankings Release

The second computer rankings of the year are out and as expected there was a lot of movement throughout the top 75. As I mentioned in the past it usually takes at least 3 weeks of computer rankings before things start to level out some but they really will come into better focus later in March when the number of countable wins climbs past five.

The top two stayed the same with North Carolina at #1 and Virginia at #2 while TCU jumped up to #3 off the strength of its ranked road wins over Illinois and Wisconsin. Oklahoma State came up from #9 to #5 due to its strong win over South Florida and Northwestern enters the top 10 at #9 due to it having five wins over ranked opponents.

The next two rankings will also use each team's five best wins so I expect my predictions to become more accurate with each passing week.

In the past the rankings cut-off was Sunday so any matches that were played on Monday would go into the next set of rankings however this year they've changed the cut-off date to Monday. I wasn't aware of that change so that's why I had Oklahoma lower because I didn't take into account its Monday win over #17 Memphis.

There were a couple of keying errors in the ITA's results portal that threw my projections off as well. Baylor logged its home win over #17 Memphis as a road win so it got the extra road bonus. San Diego picked up a nice win on Saturday over then #65 San Diego State but the win got keyed into the system with a date of 3/26 instead of 2/27 and thus it wasn't picked up for this set of rankings. Utah beat New Mexico State but keyed it in as a 7-0 loss and would have been #62 instead of #68 (whoops).

The following teams made double-digit increases versus the last rankings - movement in ( ):
#49 Alabama (27+)
#28 Old Dominion (27)
#51 UNC Wilmington (25+)
#52 St. John's (24+)
#27 Arkansas (24)
#34 Georgia Tech (23)
#14 Baylor (20)
#60 William & Mary (16+)
#38 Princeton (14)
#44 BYU (14)
#56 Pacific (14)
#63 East Tennessee State (13+)
#15 Texas (11)
#30 Florida (11)
#33 Iowa (10)
#70 New Mexico, #72 Arizona, and #75 Cal Poly all increased but who knows how far down they were the previous week.


These 8 teams entered the rankings after being unranked and here is why they are now ranked

#49 Alabama - beat then #52 Princeton on Saturday plus past wins over Georgia State and North Florida increased in value with both moving into the rankings last week.
#51 UNC Wilmington - beat then #25 NC State on the road
#52 St. John's - beat then #32 Harvard on the road
#60 William & Mary - win over Penn increased in value when it went from unranked to #59 plus the loss to Penn State was lessened when it went from #44 to #21
#63 East Tennessee State - wins over Penn and Portland increased in value when both entered the rankings last week plus loss to Washington was lessened due to them jumping from #48 to #31.
#70 New Mexico - beat then #53 Utah on Friday plus past win over UC Irvine increased in value when it went from unranked to #62
#72 Arizona - past losses to UCSB and Denver were lessened when each jumped up last week
#75 Cal Poly - past win over Portland increased in value when it went from unranked to #72.


The following teams made double-digit decreases versus the last rankings (still ranked):
#46 UC Santa Barbara (19)
#66 Auburn (18)
#40 NC State (15)
#68 Utah (15)
#45 Washington (14)
#47 Florida State (12)
#61 Middle Tennessee State (11)

These 8 teams dropped out of the rankings with last week's rankings in ( ):
UC Davis (49)
SMU (60)
San Diego State (65)
Wichita State (71)
Portland (T72)
Santa Clara (T72)
South Alabama (74)
North Florida (75)

Rank	Avg	School	Previous Rank
1	93.84	North Carolina	1
2	72.04	University of Virginia	2
3	66.76	TCU	8
4	65.69	Ohio State University	3
5	65.1	Oklahoma State University	9
6	64.1	UCLA	4
7	60.12	Wake Forest University	5
8	58.55	Texas A&M University	7
9	54.34	Northwestern University	15
10	53.98	Texas Tech University	6
11	52.2	University of Illinois	11
12	47.23	University of Southern California	13
13	45.06	University of Oklahoma	10
14	41.1	Baylor University	34
15	40.04	University of Texas	26
16	39.63	University of Georgia	16
17	39.17	University of South Florida	14
18	38.16	California	12
19	31.45	University of Michigan	28
20	31.32	University of Tulsa	22
21	30.88	University of Oregon	20
22	30.46	University of Kentucky	18
23	30.42	University of Memphis	17
24	27.88	Penn State University	21
25	25.86	Columbia University	23
26	25.79	University of Mississippi	19
27	25.51	University of Arkansas	51
28	23.54	Old Dominion University	55
29	22.93	Rice University	30
30	21.54	University of Florida	41
31	21.17	University of San Diego	24
32	20	LSU	37
33	18.84	University of Iowa	43
34	17.8	Georgia Tech	57
35	17.79	Tulane University	33
36	17.71	Drake University	44
37	17	Stanford University	29
38	16.85	Princeton University	52
39	16.61	Harvard University	32
40	16.45	North Carolina State	25
41	16.23	University of Notre Dame	47
42	15.94	Purdue University	39
43	15.77	Dartmouth College	38
44	15.35	Brigham Young University	58
45	15.13	University of Washington	31
46	14.46	UC Santa Barbara	27
47	13.97	Florida State University	35
48	13.63	University of Denver	40
49	12.67	University of Alabama	NR
50	11.86	Mississippi State University	42
51	11.59	UNC Wilmington	NR
52	11.53	St. John's University	NR
53	11.47	Virginia Tech	46
54	11.3	Vanderbilt University	45
55	10.65	University of Wisconsin	36
56	10.62	University of the Pacific (California)	70
57	9.1	Duke University	54
58	8.82	Indiana University-Bloomington	64
59	8.47	University of Pennsylvania	59
60	8.43	College of William and Mary	NR
61	8.19	Middle Tennessee State University	50
62	7.9	Western Michigan University	69
63	7.88	East Tennessee State	NR
64	7.43	University of Tennessee	56
65	7.42	Cornell University	68
66	7.33	Auburn University	48
67	6.86	Georgia State University	63
68	6.8	University of Utah	53
69	6.57	UC Irvine	62
70	6.54	University of New Mexico	NR
71	6.49	Boise State University	67
72	6.19	University of Arizona	NR
73	6.12	University of South Carolina	61
74	5.93	Abilene Christian University	66
75	5.83	Cal Poly	NR