4/26 Oracle/ITA Ranking Projections - NEW Women's #1

Virginia stays at No. 1 despite falling in the finals of the ACC Championship to Wake Forest. UVA's big win over North Carolina is what solidified their spot at the top though if UNC would have won that much they would have jumped up to No. 1. UCLA stays at No. 2 after winning the Pac-12 Championship with North Carolina staying at #3 after a semifinal showing at the ACC Championships. Ohio State rises one spot to No. 4 after beating both Northwestern and Illinois while TCU drops one spot to No. 5 after losing at Texas Tech.

There were some teams that improved their chances of qualifying for the NCAAs while there were others that really hurt themselves with some untimely losses. It's also going to be a battle to see who finishes in the top 16 and thus gets to host a NCAA regional.

4/19 Oracle/ITA Ranking Projections

Virginia stays at No. 1 after a big win on Friday over Wake Forest while UCLA surges up to No. 2 after its road win at USC.  North Carolina comes up to No. 3 after squeezing past Georgia Tech, TCU drops two spots down to No. 4 despite winning at Texas, and Ohio State drops two spots to No. 5 despite road wins over Minnesota and Wisconsin.

There were some teams that improved their chances of qualifying for the NCAAs while there were others that really hurt themselves with some untimely losses. It's also going to be a battle to see who finishes in the top 16 and thus gets to host a NCAA regional.

4/12 Oracle/ITA Ranking Projections - NEW #1

North Carolina's stay at No. 1 has come to end with the team that they've beaten twice now taking over the top spot. Virginia rises up to No. 1 after picking up nice road wins over No. 14 Florida and No. 31 Georgia Tech while North Carolina falls down to No. 5 after its stunning loss to No. 55 Notre Dame. The Tar Heels still have the best collection of wins however its losses are the reason for the drop. Interesting note - UVA would have still overtaken UNC for the top spot even if UNC had beaten Notre Dame on Friday.

TCU stays at No. 2 after beating SMU, Oklahoma, and Oklahoma State while Ohio State moves up two spots to No. 3 after rolling over Indiana and Purdue. The Buckeyes rise was largely tied to Oklahoma making a big jump last week while UCLA, which stays at No. 4, had a few of its best wins drop which is why it wasn't able to hold off Ohio State.

4/5 Oracle/ITA Ranking Projections

North Carolina stays at No. 1 for the third week in a row despite losing to Wake Forest on Sunday. UNC's win over Virginia was enough to keep it up top while TCU and Virginia remain at No. 2 and No. 3. UCLA moves up one spot to No. 4 after picking up wins over Cal and Stanford while Ohio State falls one spot to No. 5 despite winning both its weekend matches.

Georgia moves up one spot to No. 6 after picking up road wins at Texas A&M and LSU while Wake Forest drops one spot to No. 7 despite winning on the road over Virginia Tech and No. 1 North Carolina. I know what everyone is thinking - how can you beat the No. 1 team and drop? Correction: Wake will stay at 6 with 58.41 and UGA 7 - my sheet didn't count the road bonus from Wake's win at UNC.

3/29 Oracle/ITA Ranking Projections

North Carolina stays at No. 1 for the second week in a row but TCU leapfrogs past Virginia for No. 2 after its win over Northwestern on Tuesday. This week's rankings used each teams seven best wins with UNC's six top-20 wins still by far the best. Below my rankings chart I also did a top 10 that is sorted by each team's seven best wins with losses not in the equation.

Ohio State stays at No. 4 after picking up a road win at Michigan State and a nice home win over Michigan. UCLA moves back up to No. 5 after picking up road wins at Oregon and Washington in conjunction with last week's No. 5 Oklahoma State losing to SMU which dropped the Cowboys down to No. 8. Wake Forest jumps up from No. 13 to No. 6 after its road win at Florida State plus a few of its other top wins moved up a few spots last week. Georgia rises from No. 11 to No. 7 after a win over Kentucky while USC falls one spots from No. 8 to No. 9 after a win at Oregon and a loss at Washington. Texas A&M falls from No. 7 to No. 10 after its Friday loss at Vanderbilt.

3/22 Oracle/ITA Ranking Projections - New Men's #1

Virginia's stay at No. 1 was a short one with North Carolina surging back ahead this week. This week's rankings used each teams six best wins and UNC had six top-15 wins while Virginia had four top-15 wins. UNC also benefited when Florida State jumped in the rankings because that meant the loss to the Seminoles didn't hurt as much plus when UVA went to No. 1 last week that means the Heels road win over them counted that much more.

TCU, which won matches last week over Tulsa, Dartmouth, and Columbia, stays at No. 3 while Ohio State stays at No. 4 after winning at South Florida before falling to Georgia. Oklahoma State and UCLA swap spots for the second week in a row with the Cowboys moving back up to No. 5 after winning at Pepperdine last week while the Bruins were idle.

3/15 Oracle/ITA Ranking Projections - New Men's #1

There have only been two men's teams to hold down the No. 1 spot this season, North Carolina and Virginia. The Cavaliers held the top spot up until the National Team Indoors then the Tar Heels took over after winning the event in Charlottesville. After this happenings of this past weekend, which saw North Carolina get upset by Florida State while Virginia beat Oklahoma, Virginia has taken the top spot back by the slimmest of margins with UNC falling to No. 2

TCU, which was idle last week, holds firm at No. 3 while last week's No. 2, Ohio State, who was also idle drops down to No. 4. UCLA and Oklahoma State swap spots at No. 5 and No. 6 with just a .03 separating them.

This week's rankings took into account each team's five best wins though starting next week things really start to ramp up with the six best wins used and then following week it goes to the seven best wins.

3/8 Ranking Projections - Cal Women #1

North Carolina stays at No. 1 for another week while Ohio State jumps up from No. 4 to No. 2 after a nice road win over Oklahoma on Sunday. TCU stays at No. 3 while Virginia falls from No. 2 to No. 4 due to a few of its best wins falling the previous week.

This week's rankings take into account each teams five best wins just as last week's ranking did and just as next week's rankings will.

Kentucky was the big mover inside the top 20 with the Wildcats expected to rise from No. 22 to No. 12 after picking up wins over Arkansas and Ole Miss.  Tulane will move up from No. 35 to No. 22 after picking up nice ranked wins over Memphis and LSU. NC State's road win over No. 7 Wake Forest will be enough to propel the Wolfpack back inside the top 30 after dropping down to No. 40 last week.

3/1 Ranking Projections - New #1

Another week and another set of changes - this week's rankings use each team's 5 best wins after last week's used the best 4.

TCU should rise up to #3 after winning on the road at Wisconsin and Illinois while Oklahoma State should come up to #5 after beating South Florida at the Blue Gray.  Northwestern will move up to #9 thanks to five wins over top 30 opponents while it has just the one loss to Illinois.

Texas and Baylor will both make leaps into the top 15 after Texas won at #5 Wake Forest and Baylor beat #17 Memphis. Michigan will be up to #19 after a weekend sweep over #22 Tulsa and #28 Washington. Arkansas should move into the top 30 after winning at #10 Oklahoma on Sunday while Old Dominion will be just outside the top 30 after winning on the road at #25 NC State. Princeton should make a healthy jump after beating Auburn plus its road win over Penn is worth more points after the Quakers jumped into the top 75 last week.

2/23 Rankings Projection

When the new ITA rankings come out tomorrow it'll be the first computer poll of the season after the ranking committee voted on all the polls up until this point. Usually there are some pretty big changes after the computers take over because teams are now ranked on what they've actually done as opposed to being ranked on its reputation.

Anyone with enough free time can calculate the rankings using the ITA's formula though I don't recommend it because it is highly timely consuming.  There's always a chance I made a calculation error somewhere but by and large they are usually pretty close. These 2/23 rankings utilize each team's 4 best wins (with best being determined by who gives you the most ranking points).  Road wins are given a 10% bonus so beating the 65th ranked team on the road would get your more points than beating the 64th ranked team at home.

My Top 25 - Week of 2/2

We're now a couple of weeks into the dual-match season but we're still another 3 weeks away from the first computer rankings. Since the voters don't vary much from the previous week I thought I'd rank them based off what I've seen so far. The teams with some injuries are lower than they would be if playing at full strength (Oklahoma, Georgia, Stanford).

I also listed notable wins/losses up until this point.

1. Virginia (2-0) - win over Kentucky - the defending NCAA Champions will stay at #1 until they get beat. Ryan Shane didn't exactly have a great opening weekend with loses in singles versus Kentucky and doubles versus Eastern Kentucky but the rest of the team rolled.

Final Ranking Projections

I crunched the numbers twice and below is what I came up with.  If the NCAA seeding committee goes off the rankings then UCLA would get to host with Columbia missing out by a few points.

With the at-large cutoff at 42 it appears that Tulane and Dartmouth will be the first 2 out with Georgia Tech, Tennessee, and San Diego State just sliding in.

There is still some guesswork involved because since I only know who was ranked in the top 75 if someone has a win or multiple wins over teams ranked outside the top 75 then it's possible that I could over/under estimate points.  I've been pretty close all year but a small error on the first run could be compounded by the second run.

4/21 ITA Rankings Preview

The top 2 stays the same though Baylor narrowed the gap from 10 points to 7 points after picking up wins over Texas and Texas Tech last week. Texas A&M surged up from 6 to 3 by adding 3 top 25 wins after beating LSU, Mississippi State, and Georgia in route to the SEC Championship.  Illinois drops 1 spot from 3 to 4 after getting stunned by Minnesota - had the Illini not lost they would have been #3 with 70.44 points.  Virginia drops 1 spot from 4 to 5 though they'll have a chance to add some top 15 wins next week in the ACC Tournament.  

This week's rankings use each team's top 9 best wins and they will be the last set of published rankings before the NCAA Tournament field is announced on April 28th.  The rankings will be run next week by the ITA but they just won't be published until May 1st - I guess this is done so everyone won't know if they deviated from the rankings when doing the seeding.  I'll do my best to run them next week but it's the toughest of the year because they actually get run twice - once like normal using the 4/21 rankings as a base - then after finishing those they re-run them using the new rankings as a base.  I should be able to narrow down the Top 20 with pretty good accuracy because most of their wins are over top 30-40 teams.    

Minnesota was the big winner last week moving up 10 spots from 33 to 23 after picking up wins over then #3 Illinois and #27 Northwestern with both matches decided by a 3rd set tiebreak.   

4/14 ITA Rankings Preview

The top 4 stays the same this week though Oklahoma has extended its lead at #1 to almost 10 points after knocking off #2 Baylor last Friday.  OU's lead was 15 points but its stunning loss at Texas Tech dropped it down a full 5 points.  Baylor is #2 though its lead over #3 Illinois went from 6 points to 5 with the loss to Oklahoma. Illinois stays at #3 with #4 Virginia a little over 4 points back. 

This week's rankings use each team's top 9 best wins as will each of the next 2 rankings which will take us all the way up through the announcement of the NCAA Tournament field on April 28th.

Texas Tech and Stanford were the 2 big risers this week with Texas Tech coming up 7 spots from 23 to 16 after the win over #1 Oklahoma and Stanford coming up 12 spots after the wins over #5 USC and #15 UCLA. Some may wonder why the increase wasn't bigger and its due to the fact that the best 9 wins were used so its tougher to move the needle with just 1 or 2 wins.  Going into the weekend Stanford only had 5 ranked wins and 4 of those 5 were ranked between 55 and 75.  

Princeton takes the biggest fall inside the top 40 by dropping 5 spots from 30 to 35 after losing to both Dartmouth and Harvard

4/7 ITA Rankings Preview

The top 4 stays the same this week with Oklahoma, Baylor, Illinois, and Virginia at 1, 2, 3, and 4 though the separation between the 4 changed a good bit. Oklahoma's lead over #2 Baylor dropped slightly from 8.5 points to 7 points though it'll likely change more this week when these 2 Big 12 heavyweights meet on Friday in Waco.  Last week #2 Baylor and #3 Illinois were separated by just .17 points but the gap opened up significantly this week to 6.57 - I alluded to the change in the Illinois section of my Top 10 breakdown last week. The gap between #3 Illinois and #4 Virginia shrunk from 9.46 to 4.88 due to Virginia picking up a big win over Virginia Tech and Illinois' 8th best win being outside the top 30.  

This week's rankings use each team's top 8 best wins and then next week it'll go up to 9 and stay there until the end of the regular season. 

Mississippi State is expected to enter the top 20 this week after being ranked at 34 just 2 weeks ago.  The Bulldogs upset #6 Georgia on Friday and have now won 5 in a row.  

3/31 ITA Rankings Preview

Oklahoma is still on top as expected and has widened its margin to a 8.5 points over #2 Baylor thanks to a pair of top 10 wins last weekend over Texas and TCU.  This week's rankings use each team's top 7 best wins and then next week it'll go up to 8 and then the week after that it'll be at 9 and stay there until the end of the regular season. 

Viriginia makes the biggest jump inside the top 20 from 8 to 4 thanks to wins over North Carolina and Duke. Mississippi State should have the largest jump inside the top 40 as I see them coming up 8 spots from 34 to 26. Tulsa should also make a nice push jumping 7 spots from 27 to 20 after winning on the road at South Florida on Sunday.

Oklahoma State will take the biggest fall in the top 40 by dropping 8 spots from 22 to 30 after dropping a pair last week to Texas and TCU.  

3/24 ITA Rankings Preview

The gap at the top has widened as Oklahoma continues to add more and more top 10 wins.  Oklahoma now has 10 wins over teams in the Top 14 - that's a crazy figure and will likely keep OU at the top for a while. This week's rankings use each team's top 6 best wins and then next week it'll go up to 7 and then every subsequent week after that they add 1 more best win to get up to 9 by April 14th.

TCU will make the biggest jump within the top 20 as the Horned Frogs move up 8 spots from 18 to 10 after beating #2 Illinois on Monday and then defeating #48 Dartmouth on Saturday.  San Diego makes the biggest jump in the top 40 as it'll rise 9 spots from 30 to 21 on the strength of wins last weekend over #32 Princeton, #33 Drake, and #43 Denver.

Harvard will take the biggest fall in the top 40 by dropping 11 spots from 22 to 33 after losing to both Drake and Princeton out in San Diego.

3/17 ITA Rankings Preview

Definitely going to be some big movement in the rankings this week with several teams picking up keys wins while some took some rough losses.  This week's rankings are the last set to use each team's top 5 best wins and then starting next week with the March 24th rankings they'll use each team's 6 best wins and then every subsequent week after that they add 1 more best win to get up to 9 by April 14th.

Wake Forest will have the biggest jump within the top 20 as the Demon Deacons will move up from 19 to 12 on the strength of a pair of wins over Florida State and Louisville.  Tulsa also makes a big move from 29 to 20 after knocking off Ohio State yesterday.

Indiana will take the biggest fall in the top 40 by dropping from 30 to 39 after losing to Texas Tech and having some of its best wins drop in the rankings from the week before.  

3/10 ITA Rankings Preview

Another crazy week of upsets is behind us so now we get to see what the rankings will look like on Tuesday.  This week's rankings are using each team's top 5 best wins as will next weeks.  The March 24th rankings will use each team's 6 best wins and then every subsequent week after that they add 1 more best win to get up to 9 by April 14th.

Virginia Tech will be the biggest riser in the Top 50 by jumping from 44 up to 17 after knocking off Notre Dame and Duke over the weekend.

Notre Dame will take the biggest fall by dropping from 23 to 36 after losing to both Virginia Tech and Louisville.

Others Coming Up:

• Virginia comes up 5 spots from 12 to 7 by picking up 2 roads wins at Wake Forest and NC State.
• North Carolina comes up 7 spots from 19 to 12 by picking up wins at home over NC State and Florida State and they won both those matches without its #1 Brayden Schnur
• Northwestern comes up  6 spots from 21 to 15 by picking up a road win over Indiana.
• Minnesota comes up 11 spots from 34 to 23 by picking up ranked wins over Washington and Drake.
• Louisville comes up 6 spots from 33 to 27 due to its win over Notre Dame
• Oklahoma State comes up 6 spots from 37 to 31 largely due to 1 of its 5 best wins (Tulsa) jumping up so much last week

3/3 ITA Rankings Preview

Oklahoma will return to the top of the rankings tomorrow and in fact they would have been back at #1 even if USC hadn't lost to Tulsa.  Unlike last weeks rankings which used each teams 4 best wins, the next 3 sets of rankings will use each teams 5 best wins.  OU has 5 Top 20 wins and just the 1 loss to a top 10 Texas A&M.

Duke keeps climbing due to 5 Top 20 wins including road wins at #3 Illinois and #20 Northwestern. As a reminder the rankings reward road wins by giving a 10% points bonus.

Baylor's win over Virginia yesterday bumped them up to #4 just ahead of Georgia.

USC would have been #3 had they beaten Tulsa with the drop due to USC's 5th best win being over #37 Stanford.  The Tulsa loss pushed them down from #3 to #6.