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Arizona State Men, Virginia Women Top CSCAA Season-Opening Swimming Polls

The Arizona State men and the Virginia women lead the season-opening CSCAA Division I Dual Meet Polls for 2023-2024.

The CSCAA has not disclosed the 2023-2024 polling committee.

Division I Men

The Arizona State men, who finished 2nd at last year’s NCAA Championship meet, are 3-0 in the early season, taking a pair of dominant victories over #9 Georgia (one in long course, one in short course) and rolling through UNLV in the early weeks of the season.

The team is boosted by Leon Marchand, a triple titlist from last year’s NCAA Championships, with freshman Ilya Kharun showing massive early-season quality already, breaking a school record in the 100 fly in the early season.

The Cal men, the defending NCAA Champions, rank 2nd after winning their annual King of the Pool meet against Cal Poly. They face the Pitt men, led by former Cal assistant Chase Kreitler, this weekend.

While Cal are the two-time defending NCAA Champions and are co-favorites to win again, the choice of Arizona State atop this poll makes sense given their relative approaches to dual meets (this is a dual meet poll). The Sun Devils were fast in their first, while Cal left a lot of big names home from their opener.

With few blockbuster dual meets on the schedule so far (the SMU Classic being an exception), the rankings are not dissimilar to the NCAA Championship rankings from last year, plus-or-minus a few slots for each team.

The biggest movers are mostly in the negative direction: Missouri finished 16th at NCAAs but are ranked 20th here, while Notre Dame finished 18th at NCAAs but are unranked in the first poll. The biggest upward momentum is USC, which finished 22nd at NCAAs but is ranked 16th in this season-opening poll after placing 3rd at the SMU Classic behind Louisville (#12) and Auburn (#10). The poll ranked Auburn higher in spite of Louisville winning that meet by 1 point.

Rank Previous Team Points
1 NA Arizona State 299
2 NA California 289
3 NA Florida 272
4 NA NC State 264
5 NA Indiana 254
6 NA Tennessee 234
7 NA Texas 228
8 NA Stanford 210
9 NA Georgia 199
10 NA Auburn 186
11 NA Virginia Tech 182
12 NA Louisville 168
13 NA Texas A&M 161
14 NA Ohio State 148
15 NA Virginia 129
16 NA Southern California 121
17 NA Notre Dame 100
18 NA Michigan 86
19 NA Alabama 84
20 NA Missouri 75
21 NA Harvard 41
22 NA Wisconsin 38
23 NA Georgia Tech 36
24 NA Florida State 29
25 NA Kentucky 14

Division I Women

The women’s side, while based on predicted dual meet outcomes, is fairly-reflective of an expected NCAA Championship finish, especially at the top.

The three-time defending NCAA Champions from Virginia lead the way, followed by Texas and Louisville.

Louisville’s ranking at #3 is four spots better than USC’s ranking at #7, though the Trojans won the teams’ matchup at the SMU Classic behind some surprise freshmen and some early-season benchmarks that were faster than they swam at the NCAA Championships last year. The Trojans also have an NCAA relay “A” cut already in the 200 medley, the first women’s team to do that (the Arizona State men already have four “A” cuts).

Aside from the Trojans, this ranking again looks a lot like last year’s NCAA Championship finish, with a few notable exceptions. UNC was 10th at NCAAs but comes in 16th in this ranking behind Duke, who were 21st at NCAAs but climbed to 15th. Wisconsin, Georgia, and Michigan are all climbing quickly (Michigan up from 23rd to 14th), while a splashy freshman debut wasn’t enough to convince voters to keep Alabama in the top 20 (they were 14th at NCAAs).

Rank Previous Team Points
1 NA Virginia 350
2 NA Texas 336
3 NA Louisville 313
4 NA NC State 308
5 NA Ohio State 287
6 NA Tennessee 276
7 NA Southern California 256
8 NA Florida 256
9 NA Indiana 240
10 NA Stanford 235
11 NA California 200
12 NA Wisconsin 192
13 NA Georgia 186
14 NA Michigan 157
15 NA Duke 145
16 NA North Carolina 132
17 NA Virginia Tech 127
18 NA Auburn 122
19 NA Kentucky 106
20 NA Alabama 75
21 NA Arizona State 64
22 NA Northwestern 63
23 NA UCLA 40
24 NA Minnesota 32
25 NA Texas A&M 20

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Entgegen
1 year ago

I might be tripping but Wasn’t there a rule in years past that if a team ranked higher lost in a dual meet to a lower ranked team, they had to be lower on the polls?

SEC
1 year ago

Arkansas not being ranked after rolling over Kentucky is wild. 🤔

Melissa
Reply to  SEC
1 year ago

Sure is. At least LSU isn’t in the top 20….

About Braden Keith

Braden Keith

Braden Keith is the Editor-in-Chief and a co-founder/co-owner of SwimSwam.com. He first got his feet wet by building The Swimmers' Circle beginning in January 2010, and now comes to SwimSwam to use that experience and help build a new leader in the sport of swimming. Aside from his life on the InterWet, …

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