Collegiate Water Polo Association Releases Preseason Polls

The University of California-Los Angeles is the favorite to repeat as National Champion as the Collegiate Water Polo Association (CWPA) releases the 2016 Men’s Varsity National Top 20, Division III Top 10, Northeast Water Polo Conference (NEWPC) Top Five and Mid-Atlantic Water Polo Conference (MAWPC) Top Five Preseason Polls for the 2016 Men’s Varsity season.

The two-time defending National Champion Bruins lead the Men’s Varsity Top 20 balloting, while Whittier College acquires the No. 1 position in the Division III Top 10 after finishing the 2015 campaign in third place.

Two polls begin in 2016 and one does not return as the CWPA divided into the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic Water Polo Conferences starting in the 2016 season.  In the inaugural NEWPC rankings, 2015 CWPA Champion Princeton Universityedges out Brown University for the honor of being the group’s first top-ranked squad.  2015 CWPA Championship runner-up Johns Hopkins University holds a four-point lead over Bucknell University to top the first MAWPC poll.

Voted on by a panel of coaches from the MAWPC, NEWPC, Golden Coast Conference, Western Water Polo Association (WWPA), Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF), Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC) and the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), the polls will be compiled and released on Wednesday during each week of the season through the week following the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Championship.

2016 Men’s Varsity National Top 20 (Preseason)

The 2014 and 2015 National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Champion Bruins of the University of California-Los Angeles will open the season on top of the sport as the squad holds the No. 1 position in the 2016 Preseason National Men’s Varsity Top 20 Poll.

UCLA (99 points) falls one point shy of being a unanimous No. 1 selection as the Bruins hold a three-point margin over runner-up the University of Southern California (96 points). The University of California (90 points), University of the Pacific (84 points) and Stanford University (82 points) complete the Top Five in a mirroring of the final poll from the 2015 season.

The University of California-Santa Barbara (72 points) will open the 2016 season two places better than its final ranking from last year at No. 6 with Long Beach State University (68 points) and the University of California-Irvine (60 points) rating at No. 7 and 8.

The University of California-San Diego (59 points) and the University of California-Davis (52 points) round out an All-West Coast Top 10.

Pepperdine University (45 points) and Princeton University (45 points) are tied at No. 11.  Fellow Ivy League/Northeast Water Polo Conference (NEWPC)/East Coast institutions Brown University (36 points) and Harvard University (28 points) fellow the Tigers of Princeton in the rankings at No. 13 and 14, respectively, prior to the United States Air Force Academy (27 points) notching the No. 15 slot.

Johns Hopkins University (26 points), California Baptist University (20 points), Bucknell University (14 points), Santa Clara University (13 points) and St. Francis College Brooklyn (11 points) complete the Top 20 at No. 16-to-20.

Six other programs received votes in the Top 20 as Loyola Marymount University (9 points), San Jose State University (6 points), the University of Redlands (3 points), George Washington University (2 points), the United States Naval Academy (1 point) and Fresno Pacific University (1 point) also earned notice.

2016 Men’s Varsity Division III Top 10 (Preseason)

The Poets of Whittier College (96 points) will open the 2016 season two places better than where they concluded the 2015 campaign as the squad is the No. 1 ranked team in the 2016 National Preseason Men’s Varsity Division III Top 10 Poll.

Whittier’s rise to No. 1 is part of a dramatic shift in the Division III rankings from the final 2015 balloting.

Johns Hopkins University (95 points), which was tied with Claremont-Mudd-Scripps Colleges at No. 1 in the final voting of the 2015 campaign, rates one point behind Whittier to claim the No. 2 spot to start the 2016 season.  Claremont-Mudd-Scripps (92 points) comes in at No. 3 with the University of Redlands (85 points) and Chapman University (79 points) completing the Top Five.

Pomona-Pitzer Colleges  (73 points), the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (72 points), California Lutheran University (66 points), the University of La Verne (62 points) and Occidental College (44 points) conclude the inaugural Top 10 for the new season.

Washington & Jefferson College (11 points) also received votes.

2016 Men’s Varsity Mid-Atlantic Water Polo Conference Top 5 (Preseason)

For the first time in the history of the sport at the institution, Johns Hopkins University will enter a men’s varsity season as the top-ranked team in its conference as the Blue Jays will initiate play in the first-year Mid-Atlantic Water Polo Conference (MAWPC) as the No. 1 selection in the league’s Top Five Poll.

Hopkins, which finished second to Princeton University last year at the Collegiate Water Polo Association (CWPA) Championship hosted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and ranked in a tie at No. 1 in the final Division III Poll of the 2015 season, leads a new conference derived from the CWPA that also includes previous Southern Division programs Bucknell University, George Washington University, the United States Naval Academy, Gannon University, Mercyhurst University, Monmouth College, Salem International University and Washington & Jefferson College; former Northern Division teams Connecticut College and Fordham University along with first-year varsity programs Wagner College and La Salle University.

Bucknell (95 points) will start its championship hunt in the MAWPC at No. 2 with Navy (88 points) and George Washington (69 points) coming in at No. 3 and 4, respectively.

Fordham (67 points) completes the Top Five with Mercyhurst (32 points) also receiving votes.

2016 Men’s Varsity Northeast Water Polo Conference Top 5 (Preseason)

2015 Collegiate Water Polo Association (CWPA) Champion Princeton University will aim to return to the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Championship for a second-year in a row against a new-look list of foes as the Tigers are narrowly the No. 1 selection in the first-year Northeast Water Polo Conference’s (NEWPC) Preseason Top Five Poll.

Derived from the CWPA, the new conference is comprises of longtime Northern Division foes Brown University, Harvard University, Iona College, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Saint Francis College Brooklyn along with the formerly Southern Division based Tigers.

Brown falls one point shy of tying Princeton for honors as the groupings inaugural leader as the Bears picked up 94 points.  St. Francis Brooklyn comes in at No. 3 with 91 points, while dueling Cambridge, Mass. programs Harvard (90 points) and MIT (48 points) complete the Top Five in the No. 4 and 5 spots.

Iona also received votes as the Gaels garnered 32 points.

This is courtesy of Collegiate Water Polo Association.