Folders |
Close Championships Battles Predicted in Both Men’s and Women’s Division I Team Rankings - USTFCCCAPublished by
Close Championships Battles Predicted in Both Men’s & Women’s Division I Team RankingsBy Kyle Terwillegar, USTFCCCA March 10, 2014
NEW ORLEANS – Entries for the NCAA Division I NCAA Indoor Championships are in and the final U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) National Team Computer Rankings are out: the Florida Gators’ men and women are the pre-meet favorites. Based only on entries into the NCAA Championship meet – held March 14-15 in Albuquerque, N.M. – the Gator men are projected by the computer as the most likely team to claim the NCAA team title, which would be their fourth in the past five years.
With 13 entries apiece, both Florida, with a team rankings score of 176.35, and defending indoor champion No. 2 Arkansas at 155.62 are in very strong position to contend for the team title. The Gators actually slightly bolstered their position in terms of team rankings score by about 10 points. Historically, the Gators are in a good position as the top-ranked team entering the NCAA Championships, with each of the past five national men’s indoor champions – including Florida itself from 2010 through 2012 – having claimed the team title as the No. 1 team in the rankings. Only Florida State in the USTFCCCA rankings’ inaugural year of 2008 was not crowned the team champions after entering with the top spot.
The Florida women, on the other hand, remained at the top of the rankings for the second consecutive week but dropped ever closer into a three-way race for No. 1 with four-time defending national champion No. 2 Oregon and No. 3 Texas A&M. Not since the USTFCCCA rankings began in 2008 have the top three women’s teams been as close to one another as they are this season, with fewer than 10 team rankings points between top-ranked Florida and third-ranked A&M. Florida (170.46) topped the list of total entries into NCAAs with 14, but Oregon (166.84) and Texas A&M (160.58) both boast 13 entries, themselves. No. 7 Arkansas is just one more back with 12. The 3.62 difference between Florida and Oregon is the third-slimmest margin between women’s No. 1 and 2 teams since 2008. LSU’s 2.98 gap over Arizona State in 2008 is the smallest.
Based on the past six seasons, the odds of the top-ranked team claiming the national title are equal to the field taking the crown. Oregon won as the top seed in each of its first three of four consecutive titles between 2010 and 2012, but came from the No. 4 spot to claim its most recent 2013 crown. Tennessee and Arizona State won as two seeds in 2009 and 2008, respectively. Rounding out the men’s top five were No. 3 Texas A&M (126.85), No. 4 Wisconsin (109.10) and No. 5 Arizona (103.85). Both Wisconsin and Arizona moved up one spot to bump Oregon (97.06) down two positions to No. 6. The remaining top ten held stationary from a week ago: No. 7 Florida State (71.70), No. 8 Penn State (64.33), No. 9 Villanova (60.55) and No. 10 Southern California (60.46). Completing the women’s top five were No. 4 Georgia (125.59) and preseason favorite No. 5 Texas (116.21), which moved up a spot from a week ago. Unlike the men’s rankings, the women’s were significantly shuffled with the announcement of the entries. No. 6 Kentucky (101.49) moved up a spot, while down two was No. 7 Arkansas (96.30). No. 8 LSU (73.36) improved three positions, No. 9 Florida State (70.49) went up four and No. 10 Dartmouth (67.80) was up two. The national team rankings are complied by mathematical formulae based on national descending order lists. The purpose and methodology of the rankings is to create an index that showcases the teams that have the best potential of achieving the top spots in the national team race. Rankings points do not equate with NCAA Championships team points. A full description of the rankings can be found here. The USTFCCCA National Team Computer Rankings should not be referred to as a “poll” as no voting occurs during the process.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
