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.
Men’s Movement:
Kentucky started off the year unranked before climbing to #47 last week – I see them making the jump all the way up to #19 this week after picking up a dominating road win over Notre Dame. Kentucky also has a road win over Duke which helped but that win won’t look as good next week after Duke falls out of the top 50 this week.
Oregon should jump up to #21 due to its 11-1 record which includes 6 wins over ranked opponents. Oregon will likely be 14-1 when it goes to UCLA on March 25th though it may drop some in the next few rankings due to some of its ranked wins dropping as well.
Penn State should come up to #22 with 4 ranked wins though the Clemson win won’t carry as much weight next week after it falls out of the top 75.
Minnesota, Pepperdine, and Louisville are a few teams that were ranked inside the top 50 recently that will fall out.
Women’s Movement:
Ohio State and Michigan up to #2 and #3.
Syracuse coming up 35 spots from 62 to 27.
Kansas coming up 30 spots from 54 to 24.
Tulsa coming up 20 spots from 34 to 14.
South Carolina coming up 20 spots from 37 to 17.
Washington coming up 14 spots from 33 to 19.
Clemson dropping 16 spots from 21 to 37
USC dropping from #11 to out of the top 40 – probably around 42 or so.
I only ran the numbers on about 60 teams so it’s possible that someone I didn’t run the numbers on could creep into the top 40. As the season goes on I’ll add more to try and get closer to the top 75.
| Rank | School | Points | Previous |
| 1 | North Carolina | 94.05 | 1 |
| 2 | Virginia | 84.88 | 2 |
| 3 | Ohio State | 73.90 | 6 |
| 4 | UCLA | 71.43 | 4 |
| 5 | Wake Forest | 66.86 | 5 |
| 6 | Texas Tech | 65.37 | 10 |
| 7 | Texas A&M | 65.20 | 7 |
| 8 | TCU | 62.00 | 3 |
| 9 | Oklahoma State | 60.59 | 15 |
| 10 | California | 53.00 | 18 |
| 11 | Illinois | 51.28 | 12 |
| 12 | South Florida | 50.21 | 14 |
| 13 | Oklahoma | 49.91 | 8 |
| 14 | USC | 49.76 | 9 |
| 15 | Northwestern | 48.81 | T20 |
| 16 | Georgia | 45.23 | 11 |
| 17 | Memphis | 42.67 | 28 |
| 18 | Ole Miss | 33.73 | 19 |
| 19 | Kentucky | 33.56 | 47 |
| 20 | Columbia | 31.25 | 16 |
| 21 | Oregon | 31.16 | 37 |
| 22 | Penn State | 30.80 | 44 |
| 23 | Tulsa | 30.55 | 29 |
| 24 | San Diego | 29.98 | 17 |
| 25 | NC State | 28.13 | 30 |
| 26 | Texas | 26.56 | 24 |
| 27 | UC Santa Barbara | 26.53 | 42 |
| 28 | Rice | 26.47 | 49 |
| 29 | Baylor | 26.20 | 13 |
| 30 | Michigan | 26.00 | T45 |
| 31 | Stanford | 25.56 | 22 |
| 32 | Florida State | 25.33 | 25 |
| 33 | Washington | 24.29 | 48 |
| 34 | Harvard | 23.50 | 36 |
| 35 | Tulane | 23.38 | 27 |
| 36 | Wisconsin | 22.43 | T56 |
| 37 | Dartmouth | 21.49 | 40 |
| 38 | LSU* | 20.98 | T33 |
| 39 | Florida | 19.95 | 23 |
| 40 | Purdue | 18.02 | 64 |
| Rank | School | Points | Previous |
| 1 | Cal | 88.63 | 1 |
| 2 | Ohio State | 81.27 | 5 |
| 3 | Michigan | 71.43 | 8 |
| 4 | Vanderbilt | 70.62 | 6 |
| 5 | Georgia | 69.22 | 4 |
| 6 | North Carolina | 67.21 | 2 |
| 7 | Florida | 59.65 | 3 |
| 8 | Texas Tech | 58.78 | 10 |
| 9 | Duke | 57.05 | 7 |
| 10 | Pepperdine | 52.07 | T15 |
| 11 | Oklahoma State | 47.23 | 14 |
| 12 | LSU | 42.28 | 19 |
| 13 | Miami | 41.52 | 12 |
| 14 | Tulsa | 40.85 | 34 |
| 15 | Kentucky | 33.86 | 20 |
| 16 | Stanford | 33.70 | 13 |
| 17 | South Carolina | 33.32 | 37 |
| 18 | Virginia | 32.32 | 9 |
| 19 | Washington | 31.94 | 33 |
| 20 | Ole Miss | 31.90 | 18 |
| 21 | Texas A&M | 31.16 | T15 |
| 22 | Wichita State | 28.72 | 31 |
| 23 | Arizona State | 28.37 | 27 |
| 24 | Kansas | 26.00 | T54 |
| 25 | Mississippi State | 25.24 | 25 |
| 26 | Fresno State | 25.21 | 28 |
| 27 | Syracuse | 24.10 | 62 |
| 28 | UCLA | 24.00 | 22 |
| 29 | Alabama* | 23.04 | 17 |
| 30 | Wake Forest | 23.00 | 43 |
| 31 | Notre Dame | 21.08 | 32 |
| 32 | Arkansas | 19.85 | 42 |
| 33 | Dartmouth | 18.92 | 41 |
| 34 | Rice | 18.85 | 29 |
| 35 |
First ones I do are usually a little rough because a lot of teams don't have enough ranked wins so I have to make an educated guess on where the unranked team falls. All teams ranked from 126 to 262 count the same but teams ranked from 76 to 125 carry higher point totals. It's tough to know what the ranking committee was thinking – some teams were ranked two weeks ago so I figured they were still probably in the 76 to 90 range but turns out they had all dropped below 125.<br /><br />There were a couple of computer errors on my end and a couple on the ITA's end. If a team keys in a result incorrectly in the ITAs computer and it doesn't get fixed that throws things off as well. There were a couple of teams that keyed in home/neutral wins as road wins so they got the extra bonus that they shouldn't have. <br /><br />
These were slightly off. What is the reason? ITA changed the formula?
Right all matches from the fall are used as well as the dual-matches in the spring
The formula for the rankings is available to the general public and people are interested to know in advance. Thanks
thanks, little weird though, one would think there should a requirement of having played at 2-3 matches in spring in order to get a ranking.
Right all matches from the fall are used as well as the dual-matches in the spring
So Bobby on the singles rankings, I am guessing the use matches from the fall to calculate rankings, I know at least one player in Women's Rankings who has not played a match this spring and is RS, but went from UR to ranked.
why does the ITA allow you to do this?
Hello Jeff, through my son's junior tennis we have met a number of the southern junior players and coaches. I reached out to one of the junior coaches from Raleigh who has had a number of ACC players. In his opinion, NC State recruits local players and it would be unfair to say that they only recruit foreign players. So that was good to hear. He however also said that he wouldn't let his dog play for that coaching ataff and he wasn't the only southern coach who felt that way. He felt that was more the reason as the foreign players wouldn't know any better.<br />I think I am not the only tennis parent sensitive to this issue of having a balance of opportunity for American players and the influx of international talent.
Yes I was because that was inaccurate portrayal of the NC State tennis program. And you are rating coaches based on how many Americans they have and not on their coaching ability. Why is it more impressive to develop an American than develop a foreigner. Many foreign players turn into busts in college tennis so it is a good coaching job to have a team of foreign players be good.
From a world tennis view. There are only 2 or 3 teenagers in the world top 100. The average age of a top 100 player is around 26-27. If a coach is a good developer of talent whether it's American or international, he has 4 or 5 years of their best development years. If they have any talent as a coach, they should be able to work with both local and international players. The easy way out is to make excuses.
Dear Anonymous,<br />I went strictly off of UTR. For any inaccuracies I apologize.
Hello Jeff, weren't you the apologist for NC State having 0 Americans in their starting line up? Foreign players definitely have a place in college tennis. It just shouldn't be every place in the line up.
Northwestern? They play Baez from Norway and Horov from Turkey at 3/4. They can't be 8/8, Uva plays Conish from Great Britain, Aragone from Latin America as his junior play is wholly foreign, and Reinhart from Swtzerland. Your list is not entirely accurate.
Good to see 3 of the top 4 projected are doing it with stateside talent.
So you are judging teams strictly on if they have Americans? Foreigners make college tennis better. I am glad they come to the USA in big numbers to compete.
Hello Bobby, after last week's discussion I was very curious. I went through your top 25 and looked at UTR to see which schools were winning with American talent. I looked at their top 6 based on UTR to grade them A-F and their top 8 to determine whether they got a + or a -. There was only one perfect 8/8 (Northwestern) and only one perfectly horrible 0/8(Olk St)<br />The grades based on UTR<br />(A:5 or 6 American starters)<br />A+ Northwestern<br />A UVA,UGA,Duke,Florida<br />A- UNC,Columbia,UCLA<br />(B:4 American starters)<br />B. Illinois<br />(C:3 American starters)<br />C+ FSU,TCU,<br />C. USC<br />(D:2 American starters)<br />D+ Wake,USD,Texas AM,Ohio St<br />D. Cal,Baylor,Va Tech<br />(F:1 or 0 American starters)<br />F+ Oregon,Ole Miss,Oklahoma,Tex Tech<br />F. USF<br />F- Oklahoma State<br />I have to give credit to Bobby as all the coaches he recommended except Tucker and Smith received A ratings.
Amazing! very nice job!