Coming off winning a repeat Pac-12 title on the weekend, the Arizona State men close out the season as the clear-cut #1 team in the nation according to the CSCAA, ranking atop the organization’s final Division I poll released Tuesday.
The CSCAA polls take conference championship results into account, but are meant to rank teams based on how they perform in a dual-meet setting.
The Sun Devils were given the top ranking at the beginning of the season and never dipped.
The team has been a juggernaut with blistering in-season swims culminating with numerous records last week at Pac-12s, led by Leon Marchand, Hubert Kos and Ilya Kharun who are all contenders to win multiple events at NCAAs.
At Pac-12s, ASU won 15 of the 17 swimming events on the schedule, with Marchand and Kos going three-for-three individually with one NCAA/U.S. Open Record apiece, and Kharun winning both fly events. The Sun Devils also swept the relays, setting a new U.S. Open Record in the 200 medley.
Including Marchand’s lead-off leg from the 800 free relay (1:30.43 in the 200 free), Arizona State leads the national rankings in 13 different events this season:
- 200 FR – Leon Marchand, 1:30.43
- 500 FR – Leon Marchand, 4:06.18 U.S. Open Record
- 1650 FR – Zalan Sarkany, 14:23.01
- 100 BK – Hubert Kos, 43.75
- 200 BK – Hubert Kos, 1:35.69 U.S. Open Record
- 200 BR – Leon Marchand, 1:48
- 200 FLY – Ilya Kharun, 1:37.93
- 200 IM – Hubert Kos, 1:38.77
- 400 IM – Leon Marchand, 3:34.66
- 400 FR RELAY – Arizona State, 2:44.23
- 800 FR RELAY – Arizona State, 6:06.14
- 200 M RELAY – Arizona State, 1:20.55 U.S. Open Record
- 400 M RELAY – Arizona State, 2:58.49
The University of Florida moved up one spot into 2nd, coming off winning a 12th straight SEC title with a record-setting point total, while Cal, despite losing a dual meet to Stanford in late February and placing 3rd at Pac-12s, also moved up one spot to overtake NC State.
The Bears were without several of their regulars at both of the aforementioned meets, including three of their biggest stars at Pac-12s.
The Wolfpack dropped from 2nd to 4th, while the other team to move more than one spot inside the top 10 was Texas A&M, which fell from 8th to 10th.
Virginia Tech and Virginia also moved up to two spots while Arizona was the biggest dropper, falling from 17th to 22nd.
LSU was the lone team to crack the top 25 after sitting on the outside in February’s poll, while Princeton was the team to fall out.
DIVISION I MEN’S RANKINGS
RK | Prv | Team | Points |
1 | 1 | Arizona State | 325 |
2 | 3 | Florida | 308 |
3 | 4 | California | 293 |
4 | 2 | NC State | 292 |
5 | 6 | Stanford | 271 |
6 | 5 | Indiana | 265 |
7 | 7 | Georgia | 239 |
8 | 9 | Texas | 224 |
9 | 10 | Auburn | 222 |
10 | 8 | Texas A&M | 209 |
11 | 11 | Notre Dame | 188 |
12 | 11 | Tennessee | 186 |
13 | 15 | Virginia Tech | 184 |
14 | 14 | Louisville | 150 |
15 | 13 | Ohio State | 139 |
16 | 18 | Michigan | 125 |
17 | 20 | Virginia | 113 |
18 | 16 | Florida State | 106 |
19 | 21 | Wisconsin | 89 |
20 | 19 | Alabama | 72 |
21 | 23 | Southern California | 46 |
22 | 17 | Arizona | 46 |
23 | 22 | Harvard | 35 |
24 | NR | Louisiana State | 33 |
25 | 24 | Georgia Tech | 25 |
Also Receiving Votes: SMU (20), Minnesota (17), Princeton (1), Penn State (1), Navy (1)
Each committee includes ten representatives from the Power Five leagues and five at-large programs. The committee chairs for women and men are Naya Higashijima (NMU) and Bill Roberts (Navy), respectively.
Men’s Poll Committee:
Jim Bolster, Columbia; Jason Calanog, Texas A&M; Dan Carrington, Penn State; Courtney Hart, Georgia Tech; Alicia Hicken-Franklin, Denver; Sam Iida, Arizona State; Mike Joyce, Minnesota; Jessica Livesy, Old Dominion; Laura McGlaughlin, Villanova; Trevor Maida, Louisville; Pete Richardson, USC; Bill Roberts, Navy (Chair); Neal Studd, Florida State; Dr. Rick West, West Virginia.
USC must have a great publicist. Arizona beat USC in the dual meet and conference meet, and ended up with the same amount of voted points, but USC still ended up ranked ahead of Arizona. Interestingly, the graphic above (which seems to have been created by CSCAA) has Arizona ranked 17th last month, and USC at 23. Those should be inverted. USC was 17th. Perhaps there is hope that CSCAA just posted things wrong this time and Arizona is ranked ahead of USC?
Leon “The Alien” Marchand broke swimming.
This is the weirdest and most useless poll ever. It is guessing a dual meet finish for meets that will never take place and has nothing objective, all subjective. Our sport has such clarity of who touches the wall first. This poll makes no sense at all. It doesn’t really provide anything of benefit and comes out before the biggest meet of the year where swimmers would have time drops.
I guess it’s just me, but I’m experiencing a bit of “Marchand fatigue”. . . .