As in previous years, SwimSwam’s Power Rankings are somewhere between the CSCAA-style dual meet rankings and a pure prediction of NCAA finish order. SwimSwam’s rankings take into account how a team looks at the moment, while keeping the end of the season in mind through things like a team’s previous trajectory and NCAA scoring potential. These rankings are by nature subjective, and a jumping-off point for discussion. If you disagree with any team’s ranking, feel free to make your case in a respectful way in our comments section.
With conference meets wrapped up, it’s time for our final round of NCAA Power Rankings, looking to predict the top 20 teams in the nation in advance of the NCAA Championships.
See also:
- First edition: Preseason
- Second edition: Pre Winter Invites
- Third edition: Post Winter Invites
- Fourth edition: Pre-Conference
We’re introducing a new format for our Power Rankings this season: a committee system where we average out the top 20 ballots of multiple SwimSwam writers to come up with our official ranking order. While this should help readers glean which teams are consensus picks at their rank and where in the order things get fuzzy and more subjective, bear in mind that these rankings are not an opportunity to personally attack any specific writer.
With that said, onto our final rankings for the 2017-2018 season:
(Also receiving votes: Florida State, UCLA)
#20: Purdue Boilermakers (PREVIOUS RANK: N/A)
Kaersten Meitz has looked strong in the distance races all year, and Purdue should supplement her with a good group of divers this week.
#19: UNC Tar Heels (PREVIOUS RANK: 17th)
Caroline Baldwin is the team’s only likely NCAA scorer, but with a great sprinter in the mix, a thin team can earn a surprising amount of NCAA relay points. -JA
#18: Wisconsin Badgers (PREVIOUS RANK: 19th)
Beata Nelson is a real star. Depth is concerning, but their relays could be competitive with some fire from the supporting cast of sprinters. -KO
#17: NC State Wolfpack (PREVIOUS RANK: 13th)
Without Courtney Caldwell and Ky-lee Perry, these relays will struggle. Elise Haan and Hannah Moore will have to really rise to the occasion. -KO
#16: Auburn Tigers (PREVIOUS RANK: 18th)
With a stable of standout sprinters and the ability to score big in 4 of the 5 relays, Auburn should be in great shape for NCAA success. -JA
#15: MINNESOTA GOLDEN GOPHERS (PREVIOUS RANK: 15th)
Who saw the Minnesota medley relays being so dominant? The Golden Gophs sit 4th nationally in both (with far less fanfare than anyone else in the top 10), and diving should be a massive boost as well. -JA
#14: MISSOURI TIGERS (PREVIOUS RANK: 14th)
Missouri looked amazing at their home invite in November and then just OK at SECs. Does that mean they’re losing momentum or saving their best stuff for NCAAs? Count us more toward the latter. Too much talent on this roster not to perform. -JA
#13: Ohio State Buckeyes (PREVIOUS RANK: 16th)
Great sprinters led by Liz Li, and they have other individual stars to bring in points in March. -KO
Is there a swimmer more valuable to their team than Liz Li? When she was out early in the season, Ohio State dropped out of our top 20. Now they’re 13th. What a difference a sprinter makes! -JA
#12: Kentucky Wildcats (PREVIOUS RANK: 11th)
We’ve known all year that the backstrokers would be outstanding, but the team’s young breaststroke corps (freshman Bailey Bonnett and sophomore Madison Winstead) has been the most pleasant surprise. -JA
#11: Virginia Cavaliers (PREVIOUS RANK: 12th)
The free relays rank 2nd, 2nd and 5th in the nation right now, which would be a massive point haul. There are some youngsters who are still unproven in the NCAA Championships’ bright spotlight, but vets like Jen Marrkand and Caitlin Cooper should be reliable. -JA
DeSorbo’s team is the real deal, but it remains to be seen how their newer contributors will perform on the big stage. -KO
#10: Georgia Bulldogs (PREVIOUS RANK: 6th)
Georgia is free-falling in our ranks after dropping SECs to Texas A&M by a massive 289 points. An ACL injury to backstroker Gabrielle Fa’amausili is just another cause for concern, though she’s still expected to swim at NCAAs. -JA
Still waiting for everything to come together for the Bulldogs… unless that doesn’t happen this year. -KO
#9: INDIANA HOOSIERS (PREVIOUS RANK: 9th)
Medley relays still rank extremely high. There aren’t going to be many big scorers beyond Lilly King, but she’s enough to book another top 10 slot. -JA
#8: Texas Longhorns (PREVIOUS RANK: 7th)
Texas didn’t have much reason to do much of anything at Big 12s, yet they still looked good. Last year proved they can show up well at NCAAs. -JA
Things are coming together for Coach Capitani, and freshman Evie Pfeifer was impressive at Big 12s. -KO
#7: USC Trojans (PREVIOUS RANK: 8th)
USC had trouble with depth at Pac 12s, but their top talent is NCAA A-final material, and that’s what counts. Louise Hansson, Maggie Aroesty, and Riley Scott are real stars. -KO
#6: Tennessee Volunteers (PREVIOUS RANK: 10th)
Erika Brown is on fire, and the Vols have great relays across the board. -KO
The biggest risers in our ranks for the second time this year, Tennessee had the best SEC meet imaginable. Now, though, they’ve got to prove they can back up big swims at NCAAs, particularly in the relays. -JA
#5: LOUISVILLE CARDINALS (PREVIOUS RANK: 5th)
The Swimulator is a little down on Louisville, but we expect those young sprint free relays to take a big step forward come NCAAs. -JA
#4: MICHIGAN WOLVERINES (PREVIOUS RANK: 4th)
Siobhan Haughey was fast at B1Gs, and having her on the NCAA roster would cement Michigan above the teams below them. -KO
#3: TEXAS A&M AGGIES (PREVIOUS RANK: 3rd)
It’s so close between the Aggies and the Golden Bears, but Cal’s sprinters are just so good and it’s hard to justify putting A&M ahead considering that. If Beryl Gastaldello can’t swim in March, it’ll be an issue. -KO
The Aggies have been dancing around the second rank all year, but with the health of star sprinter Beryl Gastaldello in question, catching Cal is just too tall an order. -JA
#2: CALIFORNIA GOLDEN BEARS (PREVIOUS RANK: 2nd)
They looked really good at Pac-12s. Their stars performed, and more importantly, people like Sarah Darcel, Keaton Blovad, and Ali Harrison really stepped up and could be crucial at NCAAs. -KO
Keep an eye on Abbey Weitzeil, who could make a big statement this year by pushing Simone Manuel or coming up relay hero as an anchor for the Bears. -JA
#1: STANFORD CARDINAL (PREVIOUS RANK: 1ST)
Call it a perfect season for Stanford, with #1 ranks in all five of our Power Rankings. With Katie Ledecky IMing her way into history, Simone Manuel back healthy and Ella Eastin leading the nation by a second and a half in the 200 fly, the Cards should be all but unstoppable. -JA
FULL RANKING BALLOTS
| Rank | Jared | Braden | Karl | Torrey |
| 1 | Stanford | Stanford | Stanford | Stanford |
| 2 | Cal | Texas A&M | Cal | Cal |
| 3 | Texas A&M | Cal | Texas A&M | Texas A&M |
| 4 | Michigan | Michigan | Michigan | Michigan |
| 5 | Louisville | Louisville | Louisville | Louisville |
| 6 | Texas | Tennessee | Tennessee | Tennessee |
| 7 | USC | USC | USC | USC |
| 8 | Tennessee | Indiana | Texas | Texas |
| 9 | Indiana | Texas | Indiana | Indiana |
| 10 | Georgia | Georgia | Georgia | Georgia |
| 11 | Virginia | Virginia | Kentucky | Virginia |
| 12 | Kentucky | Kentucky | Virginia | Kentucky |
| 13 | Minnesota | Missouri | Ohio State | Ohio State |
| 14 | Auburn | Auburn | Missouri | Missouri |
| 15 | Ohio State | NC State | Minnesota | NC State |
| 16 | NC State | Minnesota | NC State | Minnesota |
| 17 | Missouri | Ohio State | Auburn | Auburn |
| 18 | Wisconsin | Wisconsin | Wisconsin | UNC |
| 19 | UNC | Purdue | UNC | Wisconsin |
| 20 | Florida State | UCLA | Florida State | Purdue |
Swim Swam- may we please get a race video of Eastin’s 200 fly AR
No Iowa!?!?!?! Come on, they do so well in dual meets!
Do they even?
rofl you have some serious issues
Virginia at 11 seems way too low. But, this is exactly what fueled them to dominate the ACC meet the other week. How many other schools have 3 relays ranked in the top 5? That excuse of the youngsters not being proven in the “bright lights” yet is a cop out. They have all been to Olympic Trials, Jr. Nats, Sr. Nats and their conference championship meets.
I disagree, UVA is a team more suited to the conference meet than NCAAs this year. They just don’t quite have the top-end individual firepower to get into the top ten
their team has a lot of depth, but not enough top-end talent, which you need to score big at NCAAs. That’s why a team like USC will most likely do much better than Virginia at NCAAs, because of the big names.
Just straight scoring the psych sheet, UVA is 8th. Texas, Indiana, and Georgia are below them on that prediction, but higher on this list. I think moving Texas above UVA is justified because they presumably didn’t rest much for Big 12s while UVA swam their hearts out to win a conference championship. Texas has a lot of room for improvement. Georgia is a perennial favorite that usually steps up at the Big Dance, so I’ll give it to them. I don’t think Indiana should be higher than the Hoos though. Lily King is already ranked 1st and 2nd in the breaststrokes so that doesn’t give her much room to move up and their medleys are also already highly ranked. They… Read more »
Side note: Diving may also be a factor. UVA’s diver just won Zones, but I don’t know how she stacks up to the perennial top diving programs of Indiana, Texas, and Georgia.
2 Cents – our internal discussion at our pre-conference Power Rankings was mostly about whether we were way too high on Virginia to put them 12th. Not much has changed for me to rank them inside the top 10.
They’re 8th in psych sheet scoring with a disproportionately high percentage of those points coming from relays, where they’ll almost certainly get leapfrogged by a few teams. (Stanford, for example, is seeded behind UVA in both the 200 and 400 free relays with about a 1% chance of staying there).
The teams ahead of them in our ranks should all get big diving boosts (20 returning dive points for Texas with 3 divers already in, 27 returning dive points for… Read more »
Didn’t your predictions have them with a less than 1% chance of winning the ACC meet also? Or a less than 1% chance to finish in the top 2?….
2 Cents – No. We don’t give percentages or Vegas odds for conference champs, but UVA’s odds of winning ACCs were far higher than their current odds of beating Stanford relays that include Simone Manuel and Katie Ledecky.
Explain this then… https://swimswam.com/acc-womens-preview-beyond-psych-sheet/
From what I can tell you (swimswam) predicted the meet with a few different models… the most favorable towards UVA is using your baseline taper prediction which still said 1% chance UVA wins the meet. 2 of your models had UVA finishing 4th.
Then just above you said : “They’re 8th in psych sheet scoring with a disproportionately high percentage of those points coming from relays, where they’ll almost certainly get leapfrogged by a few teams. (Stanford, for example, is seeded behind UVA in both the 200 and 400 free relays with about a 1% chance of staying there).”
I’m not looking for “Vegas odds” (but if you were giving any, I’d… Read more »
2 Cents – the story you link is a purely mathematical analysis of psych sheet scoring, and I think Andrew (who does an amazing job with that type of statistical analysis) is pretty open about the potential flaws in that predictive model, particularly in diving (where Virginia added about 100 points) and in using historical taper predictions to project times under a new coach. There’s also the added complication of Megan Moroney, who was not seeded to score significantly, but was seeded much lower than lifetime-bests due to coming off of an injury and ultimately scored 82 points.
You’re critical of our writing staff’s ranking of Virginia, which is not a mathematical predictive model, but a product of our… Read more »
To think that Georgia won NCAAs just 2 seasons ago, to dropping out of the top 5, and barely making the top 10 is shocking to me. But I bet they will be back in play next season with their new class.
They do graduate a lot this year!
Agreed. Olivia Carter is the real deal.
In regards to Texas A & M, is Beryl definitely out? I saw that she swam a meet last weekend and went some pretty solid times. (22 low and 48 low)
yeah guessing that these votes were before that. looks like she’s def swimming