Power Poll #6 (ORCS Edition) 1. Virginia 1114 (same rank last week) [16 first place votes]
2. UCLA 1111 (same) [11]
3. Miami 1031 (same) [15]
4. NYU 897 (same) [1]
5. Furman 850 (same) [1]
6. George Washington 827 (same) [1]
7. Iowa 826 (same)
8. Northwood 741 (same) [1]
9. Columbia 681 (same)
10. UC Irvine 667 (11)
11. Michigan 595 (12)
12. Duke 587 (10)
13. Berkeley 566 (same)
14. Georgetown 499 (17)
15. Washington – St Louis 483 (same)
16. Harvard 457 (same)
17. Richmond 403 (14)
18. Northwestern 282 (22)
19. Cornell 278 (18)
20. Tennessee 217 (same)
21. Pittsburgh 213 (same)
22. Stanford 209 (19)
23. Yale 200 (24)
24. Georgia 156 (unranked)
25. Maryland 136 (23)
Dropped from Top 25: Loyola – Chicago.
Others receiving votes: Rhodes 115, Penn State 110, Loyola – Chicago 105, Chicago 87, EKU 71, Bellarmine 70, Washington & Lee 68, Ohio State 63, Texas 53, Air Force 50, Pennsylvania 47, Boston 39, Notre Dame 31, Arizona State 29, Central Florida 29, Drake 19, MTSU 18, Alabama – Birmingham 16, Princeton 16, Florida 15, Southern Methodist 14, Fresno State 12, Minnesota – Morris 12, Syracuse 11, Claremont McKenna 8, North Carolina 8, Brown 5, Vanderbilt 5, Rochester 4, Patrick Henry 4, South Carolina 4, Minnesota - Twin Cities 3, Hamline 3, USC 3, Gonzaga 3, Cornell College 3, Macalester 2, Kansas State 2, Brandeis 1, Emory 1, U. Washington 1, Lafayette 1.
Story LinesThe Biggest Non-Story. There have never been fewer changes to the Top 25. The first nine teams all held their positions and no one moved more than three spaces. The biggest gains went to Northwestern and Georgia, who both earned four bids to ORCs.
The Big Three. Virginia, UCLA and Miami have pulled away from the pack, more than 100 points ahead of anyone else. Collectively, they account for 79% of all top three votes—20% more than the top three from a year ago.
Best Regional Performance. Which school had the best performance at regionals? Obviously, that’s a subjective question, but let’s introduce one requirement: for a school to be eligible, every team from that school had to earn a bid to ORCs. Let’s make an exception for UCLA, who had five teams at regionals and qualified four.
Honorable Mention:Georgetown: 3 teams, 3 bids, 19-4-1 record (81%), 1 regional championship.
Georgia: 4 teams, 4 bids, 23-9 record (72%), 0 regional championships.
Chicago: 4 teams, 4 bids, 22-10 record (69%), 0 regional championships.
- #7. Northwestern: 4 teams, 4 bids, 24-8 record (75%), 1 regional championship. Only two teams have earned 4 ORC bids in both years of the ORC system: Northwestern and UC Irvine. The Wildcats didn’t post as impressive a record as they did a year ago, but 24 wins and 4 bids is still the most dominant performance in the Midwest.
- #6. George Washington: 3 teams, 3 bids, 21-3 record (88%), 1 regional championship. The defending runners-up sent three teams to regionals and they all won at least six ballots. What sets The GWU apart from other schools with great records is one round of sheer dominance by the Colonials B team: +52 and 54 in round one. Wow.
- #5. Furman: 4 teams, 4 bids, 26-6 record (81%), 1 regional championship. On top of the Palladins’ sterling record, it appears the Furman coaches stacked their teams very accurately. Furman A, B, C and B won 8, 7, 6 and 5 ballots respectively—each won one more ballot than the Furman team ranked one lower.
- #4. UC Irvine: 4 teams, 4 bids, 27-5 record (84%), 2 regional championships. Irvine won both California regional tournaments, with its B and C teams obtaining point differentials of +101 and +155. The Anteaters would have been #3 on this list, except for a disappointing 5-3 finish by their A team.
- #3. UCLA: 5 teams, 4 bids, 32-8 record (80%), 0 regional championships. UCLA finishes ahead of (most) other programs to earn 4 bids because its E team earned a bid. In fact, UCLA’s A, B, C, and E teams all earned bids. The UCLA C was remarkably impressive (more below). The only Bruin bunch that did not qualify was the D team that, at 5-3, was a single CS point from earning UCLA five bids! That’s domination.
- #2. Miami University: 4 teams, 4 bids, 30-2 record (94%), 2 regional championships. The Redhawks' top four teams won more ballots than any school in the nation, finishing with an amazing 30-2 and with three 8-0 teams. Their teams combined for a point differential of more than 300. It’s difficult to argue that Miami is not the deepest program in the country.
- #1. Virginia: 2 teams, 2 bids, 16-0 record (100%), 1 regional championship. To suggest that Virginia’s two teams were more dominating than Miami’s four teams finishing 30-2 might strike some as ridiculous. After all, Miami’s C team earned the same record as Virginia’s two squads (all 8-0). But though Miami’s performance may have shown more depth, Virginia’s shows more dominance. Virginia A and B achieved point differentials of 161 and 126, respectively, compared to 111 and 98 for Miami. Virginia also scored the most impressive single victory. Facing Richmond A—a team ranked in the top 20 since November—the Cavaliers won by 12 and 18 points. That 30-point win was Virginia A’s closest. Virginia B never came closer to losing than +24 in round three. The rest of the country should hope that Virginia feels sufficiently avenged from last year’s regionals letdown.
The Best C Team in the Country? UCLA C finished second in the Houston Regional with an 8-0 record. How powerful was UCLA C? It gave Texas A its only two losses and, against everyone else, the Longhorns averaged +25 per ballot! Under current AMTA rules, a C team that defeated an outstanding Texas A team is not going to nationals even though several teams with fewer than 5 wins are advancing to ORCs. Thoughts?
Bragging Rights. Question: What’s better than beating your rival? Answer: When your B team beats your rival’s A team. Three schools enjoyed those bragging rights at regionals. On the east coast, Columbia B beat NYU A (+1, +7), making a strong argument that Columbia is now the best team in New York—and that the schools’ current Power Poll rankings should be reversed. In the Midwest, WashU’s B team snatched both ballots from Rhodes A (+2, +7), justifying the Power Poll rankings of each. And out West, the Golden Bears scored the biggest upset among all 24 regionals. Not only did the Berkeley B team defeat UCLA A on both ballots (+5, +7), but Berkeley was the prosecution that round.
Strangest Tab Summary Ever. In the first round of the Jamaica, NY regional, UPenn A took on Columbia A in a battle of two heavyweights, both of whom placed top ten in Des Moines last season. The result wasn’t particularly surprising: a split. After that, one expect both teams to steamroll the competition. Columbia did, winning all 6 remaining ballots. But UPenn tied 5 of its 6 remaining ballots! Has there ever been a team with more tied ballots in one tournament?
Showing Vulnerability. While most teams in the Power Poll top ten cruised through regionals, two former national champions showed some weakness. Iowa A, currently ranked seventh, dropped a ballot to a team that finished 4-4 and another ballot to a team that finished 2-6. Northwood, our defending national champion, continued their recent history with a good-but-not-great regionals performance: they went 4-0 on defense, but 2-2 on prosecution with a negative point differential against Case Western and Bowling Green.
Seeing Double. In case you haven’t heard, the Syracuse regional was missing a few judges. Things got so bad that only one person scored each trial, and sometimes that person was a coach of a competing team. Each judge’s ballot counted double. To make amends, AMTA held a supplemental regional. With five teams competing for an ORC bid, Hamilton won 4 ballots last Saturday to claim their seat at the ORCs table.
Regionals King and Queen. Gus Lazarus of Miami earned 38/40 attorneys and captained a regional champion. And a Power Poll favorite, Jackie Delligatti of Yale, received 38/40 ranks as an attorney, also while captaining a regional champion.
Regionals Royal Family. Lauren and Julia Olivier of Texas both won attorney awards with 18 ranks.
Mac The Knife. Every week, someone writes to me and complains that his or her school is underrated (it’s a poll—I don’t make the results, I just report them). I usually just delete those PMs, but this week someone sent me a message too fun to ignore. Posted with permission from its Macalester author:
I'm seriously concerned that the Perjuries community has been underrating our team all season. Fifth at Loras, First at St. Thomas, 2nd in Superior, WI, since we formed our final A team lineup we have yet to drop both ballots. UM-Morris gets quite a bit of attention thanks to Collin Tierney’s advocacy - well, we took a ballot and tied the other at the St. Thomas invitational. We’re in a damn tight spot in St. Paul, but I expect to be eating some delicious Memphis ribs in a month and a half, and I don’t want any surprised faces when we do.Heisman Candidates. A few weeks ago, this Poll asked for nominations for best individual competitors. Seven attorneys and six witnesses received at least three votes (see below for the list of everyone receiving votes). Special congrats to Peter Fuller, the only person to receive three votes as an attorney and witness (Juliana Yee was close). In alphabetical order:
AttorneysCo'Relous Bryant - NYU
Peter Fuller - UCLA
Jonathan Hartsfield – Northwood
Gus Lazarus - Miami
Marissa Oxman - UC Irvine
Steven Strasburg - Rhodes
Ben Wallace - Virginia
WitnessesAlex Bluebond - Miami
Bill Cable - Richmond
Peter Fuller - UCLA
James Pennington - EKU
Bryce Rucker - Northwood
Juliana Yee - Virginia
Upsets Brewing? Last season, three of the Top 25—and two of the top four (Harvard and Bellarmine)—didn’t earn bids from ORCs to the Championship. Who will be upset this season? Will any top five or top ten teams fail to advance? We're about to find out!
Coming Up Next…. The Power Poll will return after ORCs conclude.
