TSC NCAA Power Rankings, Women's Round 1

This is the first edition of our The Swimmers Circle power rankings. These rankings are not a “poll,” in the sense that there were not ballots and no official polling done.

While polls are a great way to get the collective national opinions of coaches or media members, they have their inherent shortcomings. For starters, college swim coaches are all quite busy (especially during this recruiting season), and thus can’t always give their full attention and thought to the polling process. Besides that, coaches are voting on both themselves, as well as their recruiting opponents, which can add some big-time subjectivity into their rankings.

And so here we present the first version of our TSC Power Rankings for the NCAA women (men will come soon). These rankings are based on our opinions, with much discussion and debate with friends of the site (other swimming sites, coaches, and swimmers), of a team’s current standing headed towards NCAA’s. They are heavily weighted towards where we expect the teams to be at the NCAA Championships, with some deference to their current dual-meet and invitational performances. These rankings don’t replace the college swimming polls, rather they are a supplement thereto.

Each week, we’ll also highlight a swimmer from each team who falls into a certain category for the program. This week, we will look Don’t agree with our rankings? Feel free to sound off on the comments. We won’t take it personally if you don’t!

This week’s power rankings were very difficult to put together, mostly because there were about 10 different teams with top-6 rosters. NCAA women’s swimming is surging right now (as compared to men’s, which I would argue is at a bit of a low in a historical context), so every spot is going to be hard-earned.

1. Cal Golden Bears – Key Swimmer: Sara Isakovic As seems to be true year-in and year-out, big performances from Sara Isakovic are a key to the Golden Bears’ season. This Cal team lost some of their sprint freestyle depth after last year, but with the performances we saw from freshman Catherine Breed at the Pan Am Games (including a win in the 200 free), this might be less of a problem than first expected.

2. Arizona Wildcats – Key Swimmer:  Ellyn Baumgardner

This team didn’t swap in or out much as a program from last year, and are incredibly young. They will, however, have two new swimmers on the roster in Lauren Smart (who sat out a year after transferring from Virginia) and Emma Darlington (who is returning from a shoulder injury). With the way this team progressed even as freshmen, and we know that Eric Hansen has no problem coaching women to elite performances, they are going to surprise a lot of people. Ellyn Baumgardner shoulders much of the weight for the breaststrokers, and she had a very good summer, and will be the key to this team.

3. Stanford Cardinal – Key Swimmer: Maddie Schaeffer

Stanford graduated a pair of big contributors after last year (notably Kate Dwelley and Liz Smith), but with the addition of Maddie Schaeffer and Katie Olsen, they’ve found two immediate-impact replacements. Schaeffer is going to have to help out the relays a lot at NCAA’s, but she’s as good as anyone despite being only a freshman. Kerry Kraemer was also granted a 5th year, which doesn’t hurt either. She was an NCAA scorer in 2008 before an injury took her sophomore year. If she can get back to pre-injury form, that will help a lot too.

4. Georgia Bulldogs – Key Swimmer: Megan Romano

Georgia has already started loading up with a huge recruiting class for the 2013 NCAA Championships, but there is still a bit of a gap year here with Allison Schmitt taking a redshirt. Megan Romano made big strides over the summer, and will really have her work cut out for her this year to lead this team to another top-3 finish.

5. Texas Longhorns – Key Coach: Kim Brackin

The Texas women keep getting more-and-more talented every year. They lost a few small pieces off of their NCAA squad last year, but brought in more than enough replacements for them points-wise. In the past two seasons, though, they haven’t been able to put their best meet together at NCAA’s. Realistically, this team has top-4 talent, and it all comes down to head coach Kim Brackin putting together the plan to get them there. Several of the Longhorn women had great summers (highlight: Karlee Bispo at the World University Games), and they’ve got great divers, which is a good foundation for the 2011-2012 season.

6. Auburn Tigers – Key Swimmer: Abby Duncan

The Tigers have one of the best sprinters (might be the best in one year) in NCAA history in Arianna Vanderpool-Wallace, which at the end of the day is the huge anchor-point for the entire team. They had a roller-coaster in the breaststroke events the last few years with Micah Lawrence, and it’s probably better for everybody that she’s now at SwimMAC. Abby Duncan, a freshman who somehow escaped Minnesota, comes in as the 2nd-best breaststroker in the class, though, and if things come together for her, Auburns’s medleys look very scary.

7. Teas A&M Aggies – Key Swimmer: Lili Ibanez

Texas A&M’s stock has been rising rapidly this week. Mexican Nationals Lili Ibanez and Rita Medrano have been putting up great performances at the Pan American Games, and could move up the power rankings in future weeks. A&M had only two real freestylers last year, and one of them graduated, so now is the time for Ibanez to step up and take over that role. The return of Jaelle Patrick, one of the country’s top two-or-three divers, will have a huge impact for the Aggies – had she not redshirted last year, A&M would have finished 8th at NCAA’s.

8. Florida Gators – Key Swimmer: Sarah Bateman

The Florida women probably have jumped a spot in my mind since the beginning of the season, as they’ve looked very good early on (almost unnervingly good, given what we know about the typical Gregg Troy early-season practice). There are a ton of leaders on this team (Elizabeth Beisel and Teresa Crippen included), but they can’t offer much for relays. The ever-more-exceedingly versatile Sarah Bateman, however, is going to have to single-handedly carry them in those relays, and she’s looked very swift early this season.

9. USC Trojans – Key Swimmer: Lindsay Parrish

USC lost very few swimmers in numbers, but those who they did lose were so important in both individual scoring and relay scoring. Especially in relay scoring, because the Trojans have such limited depth in relays (and don’t have much to help that in the way of freshman). That’s why Lindsay Parrish could be so important for them. She was on the verge of a breakthrough last season in the sprints.

10. Indiana Hoosiers – Key Swimmer: Brenna MacLean

This Indiana team is a veritable lock to win their 4th-straight Big Ten title. The difference between this year’s team and last year’s is the level of experience. Senior Allysa Vavra can now be counted among the country’s best IM’ers, and they have a loaded middle-distance group. Their big-time freshman class from last year (Sara Delay, Brenna MacLean, Bronwyn Pasloski, Lindsay Vrooman) is ready to bloom. The only scoring loss is butterflier Brittany Barwegen, and they’ve got the defending Canadian 200 fly Champion MacLean to take over her spots. They’ve also got three NCAA-worthy divers.

11. Tennessee Volunteers – Key Swimmer: Kirstyn Colonias

Tennessee had a very young team last year, and this year they will come back with some serious starpower. That includes Jenny Connolly, including a record-breaking performance at the World University Games. They’ve got Kelsey Floyd and Lindsay Gendron on board too. Now, a year older, Tennessee is ready to crack the top 10. Kirstyn Colonias is the swimmer who’s going to have to step up the biggest in terms of relays, because she’s by far their best breaststroker after the graduation of Martina Moravcikova.

12. Minnesota Golden Gophers – Key Swimmer: Haley Spencer

Minnesota lost two of their NCAA Champions to graduation (Jillian Tyler and diver Kelci Bryant), but they return one (Haley Spencer) and have another with National Title potential (Ashley Steenvoorden). Their relays took a hit, but then again their relays didn’t score a ton of points anyways. They’ve brought in an enormous freshman class that should help bring depth and sustainability to the team’s success in the long term.

13. Virginia Cavaliers – Key Swimmer: Lauren Perdue

This Virginia team has a lot of talent, and though they return the biggest names, they lost some key pieces. They also brought in four top-50 recruits, with Emily Dicus needing to catch up to speed the most for the Cavalier relays. Three A-finals from Perdue is a must, and the bonus points from a 200 free National Championship would be a great psychological boost for them on day 2 of the NCAA Championships, before headed into a day 3 where they’re expected to earn a lot of their points.

14. Wisconsin Badgers – Key Swimmer: Beckie Thompson

Some parts of this Wisconsin team performed well at NCAA’s last year, and some didn’t. The one who performed the best (200 backstroke champion Maggie Meyer) graduated. This team’s depth is so fragile, that even her loss off of the relays are a huge blow. Beckie Thompson is going to have to pick up a lot of the slack – both on the relays, and in individual events. Last year she only swam one individual event at NCAA’s, in the 50 free.

15. LSU Tigers – Key Swimmer: Marlene Niemi

LSU graduated Jane Trepp, but Amanda Kendall is swimming as well as anyone in the country this fall (she was probably the women’s swimmer of the meet at Pan Ams). Finnish sprinter Marlene Niemi will have to play catch-up in a hurry, but these LSU women have some good swimmers beyond just Kendall, and have swum well early in the season.

16. Missouri Tigers – Key Swimmer: Shara Stafford

Last year, Missouri scored 40 NCAA points and finished 23rd without qualifying a single relay, which is a relatively impressive feat. Dominique Bouchard only scored in one event at NCAA’s, but she scored big with a runner-up finish in the 200 back. This year, they’ve earned a one-year transfer from Florida’s best freestyler, Shara Stafford. This ranking is predicated entirely on her ability to help the Tigers score some relay points, in addition to her individual points potential. The Tigers also have last year’s best freshman diver, Loren Figueroa.

17. Arizona State Sun Devils – Key Swimmer: Shannon Landgrebe

Arizona State put a lot of quality, young relays into the NCAA Championships last year, including an 8th-place finish in the 200 medley. They’ll pick up points from Rebecca Ejdervik, who should’ve been an NCAA finalist but was DQ’ed. They graduated their relay anchor, Kathryn Caron, but Shannon Landgrebe has been very strong filling that role early for the Sun Devils.

18. UNC Tar Heels – Key Swimmer: Carly Smith

This North Carolina team is better than their 23rd-place finish at NCAA’s last year. A DQ’ed relay and two others that didn’t score points is not good enough for the quality of this roster. Carly Smith had an up-and-down meet overall, and should be a three-event scorer at NCAA’s this year. Really, North Carolina should be more like a top-15 team, but until they prove that a bit more, it’s hard to move them any higher than this.

19. Maryland Terrapins – Key Swimmer: Carolyn Fittin

Maryland graduated their breakout star Ann Fittin from last year, but she wasn’t even their top scorer at NCAA’s. Megan Lafferty will be an A-finalist in the 100 fly, and Ginny Glover is on the verge of some individual finals. The Terrapins will bring in Ann Fittin’s little sister Carolyn, who is a mile ahead of where her big sis was from day 1. The faster she can can come up to speed, the better-off this Maryland team will be.

20. Penn State Nittany Lions – Key Swimmer: Chelsea Weedman

Penn State had a ton of entries at NCAA’s last year, 28 by my count, and every single won of them were by underclassmen. Yet, only three of them came through for points (at low B-finals). When you look at this team with Amy Mogdlin and Merritt Krawczyk and Paige Whitmire, there’s a lot of very good swimmers who just didn’t put it together for points. With that many quality swimmers, though, it’s hard for a team to stay down. Chelsea Weedman was one of the best freshmen in the Big Ten last year, and was close to NCAA points.