http://collegeswimming.com/poll1/

The women stay the same while the men go down even with the amazing invite the women had and the undefeated first semester the men had.

I think the women are about in the right spot. No idea why the men went down. I blame it on uninformed coaches voting in the poll.

thats just silly

the mens team has not been put to the test as yet, and cannot be judged accurately.
is there a prize for being on top of the poll in December?
this poll is irrelevant.

So is every poll that has ever came out in history. But that is the point of message boards, to let people express their opinions and complain about things that don't matter

now you're making $en$e

Also I heard from Cecil Newton that if you are the dad of someone on the top ranked team in December, you will be given the aforementioned prize!

my be irrelevant in terms of performance in march, but seemingly naive high school recruits are always looking at things like that to help them in their decision. maybe a kid will get online and fill out a questionnaire if they see a school is ranked fairly high. obviously that should not be and typically is not the deciding factor in a kid's decision but it couldn't hurt to have a higher mid-season duel meet ranking. for example, even though the team finished 12th at NCAA's in 2009 they didn't win a single duel meet. 12th looks really good but 0-6 looks really bad. we are possibly still reeling from that 0-6 duel meet season in terms of voters not taking us seriously.

Mizzou being 26th should take away the validity of this poll.

continuing on my last novel-esque post, the poll should not really exist, it gives some mediocre teams that get a higher than average rank a sense of false hope, makes people throw hissy fits, and the top teams don't really care about it.

I like the polls. Increased interest in the regular season is the biggest growth opportunity for our sport ATM.

Agree that women are right on. Sure, our young swimmers are performing amazingly well, but these polls are running off of what's the now, not what we'll be next year.

Also agree with the men's ranking. Who have they swum? SMU win doesn't carry the weight it has in years past. After beating LSU in January, our ranking should improve.

If Louisville were to go up against A&M they would not win. I don't know much about Louisville's team but just can't see a way, especially after these past 2 years that they would beat A&M.

I know it's not what you guys want to hear....BUT....if we swam Louisville today, they would CRUSH us. A&M probably wins the 100 free and the 400 free relay. Enriquez would battle with their distance guys, but even if he won Louisville would still take 3 of the top 4 spots. 200 free would be tight in the top 4. Everything else, Louisville probably wins. And that's not even including the times that Louisville swam at SCY Nationals last weekend.

If you pull a report of the top 50 times in all of the individual events in the country, Louisville has 18. A&M has 2. Top 20 relays-Louisville has 3, A&M has none.

Of course, NCAA's will be a whole different story. But taken in the context of what it is (a poll measuring who would likely win a dual meet over the next month), Louisville ranking ahead of us proves the polls as accurate, not inaccurate

[This message has been edited by AGBlastoff (edited 12/20/2010 1:30p).]

I see the point you have, but also from what I can tell the aggie men did not go to an invite which means no fall taper, while Lousiville went to the Purdue invite http://www.uoflsports.com/sports/c-swim/stats/2010-2011/day1results.html
It looks like most of the times come from this meet. Unless, in this hypothetical dual meet, Louisville decides to rest or taper I still think that Aggie men would win. All of this doesn't mean anything but it sure is fun to talk about!

"Of course, NCAA's will be a whole different story"

I agree with you on that. After quickly looking at their schedule, it seems that they may have been rested for the Purdue Invitational. Is the poll supposed to gauge who would win in a dual meet or rank teams on the NCAA schedule?

and Favre beat me to it.

[This message has been edited by TheSituation80 (edited 12/20/2010 6:57p).]

They're fully and completely dual-meet rankings. The good news is that most people don't take them too seriously...but like Favre said, they make things fun to argue about.

I think that, unrested, it would be a very good meet. In fact, it's one I'd like to see, as the two team's lineups match up very well. Louisville has some very good breaststrokers (Almeida for one is an NCAA scorer) and are deep in the distance events. As we've discussed on here before, what always hurts the A&M men in a dual meet is what helps them at NCAA's. We do VERY well in relays, and sort of put all of our eggs in one basket there for March where relays are a huge part of the scoring. In duals, not many points can be made up in relays, so individuals are a lot more important.

Louisville got a lot of times at Purdue, but they swam a lot of even faster times at SC Nationals last week that don't end up in the collegeswimming database for some reason. I'm sure they were rested some for both meets, but I think they're not a bad team in dual meet rankings.

Can't expect things to get much better when the next poll comes out January 17th...no meets before then...but LSU will be factored in before the February one.

Ags would beat louisville handily, wish we could see them swim against Louisville.

also, top ten finishes arent earned in mid season duel meet rankings

[This message has been edited by dbcooper (edited 12/20/2010 9:26p).]

While I appreciate the effort of the coordinator, in its current form it's a flawed poll.
If the coordinator wanted it to be based on dual meet rankings, he would provide the teams' dual meet records to those who cast ballots. Instead, he provides Top 50 times which by this time of year includes performances at shaved invites.
Again, it's nothing to lose sleep over and better than the alternative which is to have nothing.

I remember last year when I checked them out you could see which coaches were involved in the voting. Seen anything like that this year?

Swam4UT - were you once a high school swim coach in the Austin area? I think we know each other (you coached my son).

Guilty.

Happy New Year to you.....

My boys say hi.