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2020-2021 NCAA WOMEN'S SWIMMING & DIVING POWER RANKS: FEBRUARY EDITION
It's our last round of power rankings before conference meet season and we've got a theme of this month's ranks:
One big question for each team heading into conference championships.Less than a year removed from a canceled NCAA Championships, will teams approach conference meets differently?Previous Ranks:
#25: UCLA BRUINS (+)
How well can the Bruins hold up their current Swimulator projection of 34 relay points? That includes the nation's 8th-ranked 400 free relay - but it's very difficult to project how much the current relay rankings will be shaken up after a pandemic season with limited competition opportunities. Breaststroker
Claire Grover probably booked an NCAA invite with a 59.91 breaststroke last month, faster than she went in all of 2020.
#24: AUBURN TIGERS (-)
#23: NOTRE DAME FIGHTING IRISH (-1)
#22: ARKANSAS RAZORBACKS (-2)
#21: WISCONSIN BADGERS (-)
#20: UNC TAR HEELS (-2)
#19: USC TROJANS (+4)
Will
Marta Ciesla get back to her best times in sprint free? Ciesla was a few tenths off career-bests last year, and that was without an NCAA meet. The Pac-12 is probably the biggest mystery of any conference right now, because they've had so few meets to show their stuff. We know the breaststrokes are in good hands with
Kaitlyn Dobler and
Isabella Odgers, but USC needs their kingpin sprinter to pull the relays together.
#18: TEXAS A&M AGGIES (-1)
#17: LOUISVILLE CARDINALS (-2)
#16: VIRGINIA TECH H2OKIES (+3)
#15: INDIANA HOOSIERS (+1)
#14: OHIO STATE BUCKEYES (-)
#13: FLORIDA GATORS (-)
#12: MISSOURI TIGERS (-1)
#11: NORTHWESTERN WILDCATS (+1)
#10: KENTUCKY WILDCATS (-)
Can the Wildcats drum up one or two more sprinters to support
Riley Gaines on the relays? Freshman
Megan Drumm has been a pleasant surprise so far. Kentucky just has to develop one or two more relay legs.
#9: ALABAMA CRIMSON TIDE (-)
Will
Cora Dupre regain her freshman phenom form from Indiana, giving the Alabama relays a huge boost?
#8: TEXAS LONGHORNS (-)
Can the Texas women be as good in the post-season as they have been in the regular season? (Note: this big question copy/pasted from every power rankings in the past decade).
#7: STANFORD CARDINAL (-1)
Who from Stanford is going to show up? We haven't seen, for example,
Lucie Nordmann at all this season. With a brief intermission in their parade of stars (Neal, Manuel, Ledecky, Ruck, Smith), Stanford is going to have to rely on its incredible depth more than ever.
#6: GEORGIA BULLDOGS (+1)
How game-changing can
Zoie Hartman be? Obscured behind the eye-popping swims and versatilty of #1-ranked recruit
Kate Douglass last year, #2 Hartman was a do-everything star in her own right. Did you know Hartman went 58.2/2:06.2 in the breaststrokes and 1:53.0 in the IM at SECs last year, but also split 22.2/47.4/1:42.2 on free relays? Just how much better would she have been by NCAAs?
#5: MICHIGAN WOLVERINES (-)
How many points will the relays score? Michigan is currently 16th in the Swimulator, but with zero projected relay points. For reference, the Wolverines were projected for 104 relay points last year and scored 156 relay points in 2019.
#4: TENNESSEE VOLUNTEERS (-)
We know
Mona McSharry is a legitimate NCAA title contender in breaststroke. But how good can she be as a sprint freestyler on Tennessee's fully-reloaded relays? McSharry has been 22.3 and 49.4 so far this year, helping to ease the loss of Erika Brown to graduation.
#3: NC STATE WOLFPACK (-)
As a freshman, highly-touted backstroker
Katharine Berkoff didn't hit personal bests in the 100 or 200 back, suggesting she might have been saving a full taper for an NCAA meet that never happened. With Berkoff already hitting her career-best 100 back and near a career-best 200 back this year, the question is whether we're about to see an explosion of two years speed - and if so, exactly how fast could Berkoff (50.4/1:50.1) go?
#2: CAL GOLDEN BEARS (-)
The Pac-12 has had limited competition opportunties, but Cal has pretty much answered any questions with a deluge of fast swims over the past month.
Izzy Ivey's event lineup remains an intriguing question. She went 200 IM/100 fly/100 back last year, but is also the #2-ranked 100 freestyler in the nation this year. Does she try to avoid Maggie MacNeil in the fly and chase an event title elsewhere? If the team battle is at all tight, could Cal try to use Ivey to battle Virginia's
Kate Douglass anywhere - maybe the 100 free or 100 fly? Pac-12s might offer some hints - or it might be purely misdirection.
#1: VIRGINIA CAVALIERS (-)
What will the Cavaliers do with
Kate Douglass on day 4 of NCAAs? She's the top 100 freestyler and 200 breaststroker in the nation, and both by a wide margin. But UVA is already deep in the 200 breast. Do they chase a headline-grabbing event with 5 potential A finalists in the 200 breast (Douglass, Walsh, Nelson, Keating, Wenger), but risk their own swimmers bumping each other into the B final? Or do they spread out their talent, using Douglass to counter Cal's strong 100 free crowd?
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) & #6 Lillie Nordmann ... not to mention #2 Torri Huske, #4 Amy Tang & #8 Samantha Tadder from the 2021 recruiting class.
