01-08-2020, 11:40 AM
All, the first team rankings of the new season are out, and Stanford women's tennis checks in at #1. https://www.wearecollegetennis.com/2020/...an-8-2020/
I know we're the defending champions and all, but given the ridiculous strength UNC has at the top of the lineup, and the questions that Arbuthnott and Shin have to answer about playing higher in our lineup, I was legitimately surprised to see it.
As a reminder, the first few rankings of the year are done by committee vote, and after several weeks of that the rankings switch to a formula, so we can see that Stanford got 8 of 12 first-place votes, UNC got 3, and Georgia got 1. Here's the full top 25 (with teams on our schedule in italics):
1. Stanford
T2. UNC
T2. Georgia
4. UCLA
5. Duke
6. Pepperdine
7. Texas
8. N.C. State
9. South Carolina
10. Vanderbilt
11. Oklahoma State
12. USC
13. UCF
T14. Washington
T14. Michigan
16. Florida State
17. Cal
18. Texas A&M
19. Kansas
20. Virginia
21. Florida
22. Tennessee
23. Miami
24. Wake Forest
25. Ohio State
* Notable climbs in the rankings from last year's year-end set are UCF (up 6 spots), USC (up 4), UCLA, Florida, and N.C. State (each up 3)
* Notable drops in the rankings are Kansas (down 6), South Carolina and Washington (each down 4), and Miami (down 3).
I think Cal is very much underranked here, given the strength we saw from their freshman class in the fall season, and Washington is likely overranked--I think losing Stacey Fung will hit them a lot harder than this ranking anticipates. But otherwise, the Pac-12 is well-regarded, with both UCLA and USC expected to improve on last year.
If USC, UCLA, and Cal all do well in non-conference, then I think wins over those teams will be Top 10 wins by the end of the year. So, if Stanford sweeps the Pac-12 (which I think is far less likely this year than in past years), Stanford could well be the #1 seed at NCAAs, as they'd have three Top 10 wins in the regular season plus likely 2 more in the Pac-12 tournament. Add that to a win over Texas, and you're at 6 great wins. You need 9 countable good wins, so you need 3 more good ones, and we could get those from National Indoors and from Washington. The issue, as we've discussed, is that things could get bleak very quickly if we don't win those matches due to the very thin schedule this year--lose some 4-3 matches to Pac-12 foes and at National Indoors and all of a sudden we don't have the resume to even host the first two rounds of NCAAs. But that's a problem for another day. First things first, we have the Freeman Memorial Championships next weekend where we'll see some good individual matches, and hopefully a season debut from Emma Higuchi. The first dual match of the year is at home vs. South Florida on January 25th, at a time TBD.
I know we're the defending champions and all, but given the ridiculous strength UNC has at the top of the lineup, and the questions that Arbuthnott and Shin have to answer about playing higher in our lineup, I was legitimately surprised to see it.
As a reminder, the first few rankings of the year are done by committee vote, and after several weeks of that the rankings switch to a formula, so we can see that Stanford got 8 of 12 first-place votes, UNC got 3, and Georgia got 1. Here's the full top 25 (with teams on our schedule in italics):
1. Stanford
T2. UNC
T2. Georgia
4. UCLA
5. Duke
6. Pepperdine
7. Texas
8. N.C. State
9. South Carolina
10. Vanderbilt
11. Oklahoma State
12. USC
13. UCF
T14. Washington
T14. Michigan
16. Florida State
17. Cal
18. Texas A&M
19. Kansas
20. Virginia
21. Florida
22. Tennessee
23. Miami
24. Wake Forest
25. Ohio State
* Notable climbs in the rankings from last year's year-end set are UCF (up 6 spots), USC (up 4), UCLA, Florida, and N.C. State (each up 3)
* Notable drops in the rankings are Kansas (down 6), South Carolina and Washington (each down 4), and Miami (down 3).
I think Cal is very much underranked here, given the strength we saw from their freshman class in the fall season, and Washington is likely overranked--I think losing Stacey Fung will hit them a lot harder than this ranking anticipates. But otherwise, the Pac-12 is well-regarded, with both UCLA and USC expected to improve on last year.
If USC, UCLA, and Cal all do well in non-conference, then I think wins over those teams will be Top 10 wins by the end of the year. So, if Stanford sweeps the Pac-12 (which I think is far less likely this year than in past years), Stanford could well be the #1 seed at NCAAs, as they'd have three Top 10 wins in the regular season plus likely 2 more in the Pac-12 tournament. Add that to a win over Texas, and you're at 6 great wins. You need 9 countable good wins, so you need 3 more good ones, and we could get those from National Indoors and from Washington. The issue, as we've discussed, is that things could get bleak very quickly if we don't win those matches due to the very thin schedule this year--lose some 4-3 matches to Pac-12 foes and at National Indoors and all of a sudden we don't have the resume to even host the first two rounds of NCAAs. But that's a problem for another day. First things first, we have the Freeman Memorial Championships next weekend where we'll see some good individual matches, and hopefully a season debut from Emma Higuchi. The first dual match of the year is at home vs. South Florida on January 25th, at a time TBD.