SwimSwam Pulse is a recurring feature tracking and analyzing the results of our periodic A3 Performance Polls. You can cast your vote in our newest poll on the SwimSwam homepage, about halfway down the page on the right side, or you can find the poll embedded at the bottom of this post.
Our most recent poll asked SwimSwam readers to pick the women’s Pac-12 favorites:
RESULTS
Question: Who should be the preseason favorite to win the 2021 Women’s Pac-12 title?
- Stanford – 81.3%
- Cal – 12.9%
- USC – 1.3%
- UCLA – 0.9%
- Arizona State – 0.9%
- Someone else – 2.7%
Stanford is running away with the women’s Pac-12 title in the preseason – at least, according to SwimSwam voters.
The Cardinal are heavily favored in returning points, with almost 400 more returning individual points than second-best Cal. A 2021 win would make five in a row for Stanford, one of the frontrunners for the 2020 NCAA title had the meet not been canceled amid the pandemic. Stanford also returns 19 of 20 relay legs, and it’s still possible that Canadian star Taylor Ruck returns to the roster after an Olympic gap year.
Stanford also adds the nation’s best recruiting class, led by all-world backstroker Regan Smith.
Cal pulled just 12.9% of the votes in our poll. They return 687.5 individual points and bring in a stellar class, also led by a star backstroker in Isabelle Stadden.
No other team got more than 1.3% of the votes. USC graduated the bulk of its individual points (senior Louise Hansson was arguably the conference’s best swimmer) and will undergo a coaching change this season. UCLA is the opposite, returning a huge amount of scorers and sitting just 57 points behind Cal in returning individual points.
Our poll was created before the huge news break that Arizona State will be redshirting its entire swimming roster next year amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
Below, vote in our new A3 Performance Poll, which asks voters to pick the men’s Pac-12 favorites:
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ABOUT A3 PERFORMANCE
The A3 Performance Poll is courtesy of A3 Performance, a SwimSwam partner
The favorite is COVID-19
Arizona is wildly underrated.
Keep in mind that this is a “winner only” vote, not a “ranked-choice voting” vote. The reality is that Stanford is a prohibitive favorite; anybody after that is really just “the preference of favorite teams for voters who don’t like Stanford,” because even the Cal, USC, UCLA, and Arizona fans must know deep down that Stanford will probably win.
Arizona graduated its highest-scoring class, last year’s seniors. They were 6th last season at Pac-12s, and they’ll obviously move up a slot with no Arizona State. It was a big gap (270 points) to UCLA. Arizona has a pretty good women’s class coming in, but so does UCLA.
I just don’t see Arizona closing the gap on UCLA this season. I… Read more »
“do you support teams redshirting all their swimmers?” or “should teams follow suit on ASU redshirting everyone?”
Would be a more fun poll to ask what program will be next to redshirt everyone….
Stanford won’t have their team on campus this coming year.
Why do you say that? I thought they said they would have their team on campus.