Power Poll #1
1. NYU 361 (3)
2. UCLA 335 (3)
3. Virginia 319 (3)
4. George Washington 301 (2)
5. Georgetown 258
6. Northwood 251 (1)
7. Furman 241
8. Harvard 232
9. Miami 227 (1)
10. Columbia 184 (2)
11. Berkeley 169
12. Cornell 165
13. Iowa 150
14. Duke 147
15. Stanford 146
16. Pittsburgh 139 (1)
17. Yale 127
18. Washington - St Louis 121
19. Rhodes 106
20. EKU 104
21. Michigan 95
22. Bellarmine 94
23. Richmond 85
24. UC Irvine 83
25. Texas 67
Others receiving votes: Penn 59, Maryland 51, Washington & Lee 51, Northwestern 50, Boston 43, Illinois 30, Georgia 26, Loyola – Chicago 25, Tennessee 21, Lake Forest 13, MTSU 11, Penn State 10, Princeton 10, Arizona State 9, USC 8, U. Washington 8, Florida 8, Claremont McKenna 6, Patrick Henry 6, Air Force 5, Minnesota – Morris 5, North Carolina 5, Loras 5, Alabama – Birmingham 4, Drake 4, Boston College 2, Arizona 1, Chicago 1, Saint Louis 1.
Story Lines
Because of Your Disrespect, We’ll Just Have to Do It Again. The defending champion, Northwood University, picked up just one first place vote and is ranked outside of the Top 5. In fact, despite consecutive years in the top two of their Championship division, the Timberwolves have never cracked the Power Poll Top 5. True, they’ve started slowly this season—with just 13 wins among their three teams at the Ohio State Invitational—but they started slowly the last two years, too. Be careful, pollsters: you probably don’t want to give Mr. Hartsfield and Company any bulletin board material.
Three for Three. In the year’s Poll, three schools garnered three first place votes: NYU, UCLA, and Virginia. Not coincidentally these three schools comprise the Top 3 in the rankings. All three return excellent veterans: Co’Relous Bryant and Amanda Tuminelli (NYU); Stephen Mayer and Peter Fuller (UCLA); and Paul Wiley, Juliana Yee, and Ben Wallace (Virginia). But all three also lost one of their A team captains: Justin Matarrese, Shoyeb Siddique, and Michael Griffin (NYU); Miles Prince (UCLA); and Shikha Gupta (Virginia). Virginia and NYU took first and second, respectively, at the Spider Classic. How will UCLA fare in their debut?
Early results are in… In addition to Virginia’s victory in Richmond, we already 8 other tournament champions. WashU began their consistent fall domination by winning the kickoff event, the Billiken Barrister, and EKU's invite. They're the only two-time winner so far. Duke took down the Elon’s Carolina Classic. Illinois’s victory at the Scarlet & Gray brought them to #31 in Poll. Lake Forest picked up votes with its 8-0 finish in the Twin Cities. Tennessee won Georgia’s Classic City Invitational. Columbia’s 6-2 at Penn State, while not exactly a roar, was good enough for first. New Hampshire won its own tournament. Luther won the (two-round) Norse Invitational.
Where is the Love? Last year, Stanford finished second in its Des Moines division and Penn finished third. Stanford now starts at only #15 and Penn is out of the Top 25.
Where is the Love, Part II? EKU starts the season as #5 in AMTA’s bonus bid rankings, but sits at only #20 in the Power Poll. EKU’s bigger gripe should be that despite consecutive Top Ten Championship finishes, the President’s gang was only ranked in the Top 25 by 7 out of 16 voters—the lowest number of any Top 25 team.
My Region is Better Than Your Region. How are the Top 25 distributed geographically? We have 8 teams from the Northeast, 8 schools from the South, 5 from the Midwest, and 4 from the West. The California schools will surely be claiming an east coast bias—but then again the Yankees and the Phillies did just beat the Dodgers and the Angels. Between the Northeast and the South, the nod goes to the Northeast, as all 8 Northeast teams are in the Top 17, while only 3 Southern schools can make that claim.
Till We Meet Again… The next Poll will be on November 19, just before the premier invitational of the Fall. Before GAMTI, everything else is just scrimmaging. Rankings are due on Wednesday, November 18. Until then, good luck, stay safe, and try not to anger Ronald Victory.
edited because of the helpful comment below...thanks
