Every Wednesday, we will post the College Power Rankings here on the front page to facilitate discussion in the comments and serve as a permalink for each week’s rankings.
D-I Men’s Power Rankings
Rank
Team
Change
Prior
Dropped from rankings:Michigan (10), Connecticut (18), Maryland (25)
Hellooooooo, Brown! From unranked to #6, Brownian Motion’s run to the final of Florida Warm Up, with a healthier roster, made believers out of us. Now, they have to show consistency.
Despite three of the top four playing, they remain the same. Minnesota looked great at Florida Warm Up…until they ran into Carleton in the semifinals, where they got smoked. Oregon and Carleton won the weekend’s events.
A 4th place finish at Florida Warm Up pushed Virginia Tech up to #7 from #14. They are now 12-31 and all of their losses have been close and to top 10 teams.
Cal Poly SLO rose to the #9 slot following their run to the Presidents’ Day Invitational final, including nice wins over Washington and Colorado2.
Speaking of Washington, they fell from #7 to #11 following a quarterfinal exit at PDI. It wasn’t the smashing followup to Santa Barbara Invite they might have hoped for, and they stumbled through their consolation rounds.
Both Colorado and BYU gained ground, moving to #15 and #12, respectively, following solid work at their respective events. Colorado notched a win over SLO and reached the semifinals of PDI, while BYU compiled an impressive 7-1 record at Florida Warm Up.
Wisconsin dropped from #5 to #19 after a poor showing at Warm Up, where they went 5-4, including losses to Connecticut and Florida.
Auburn didn’t do much better than Wisconsin, dropping to #23 after they failed to register any notable victories and lost to Harvard, Northwestern, and Texas.
Michigan and Connecticut fell out of the rankings altogether following their Warm Up performances. Michigan, who started the spring at #5, has gone 9-6 this season, with their best win coming over Northeastern at QCTU (who beat them at Warm Up). UConn looked a bit overmatched in Tampa, losing to Florida State and Texas.
It was a big weekend for UC schools, with both UC San Diego and UC Santa Barbara gaining lots of ground at PDI. UCSD moves to #5 after a 3rd place finish while UCSB reached #14 after finishing in 6th place. It’s the highest UCSD has ever been ranked, while UCSB hasn’t been this far up the charts since February of 2015.
Stanford finally overtook British Columbia for the #2 ranking, as they won their second straight tournament without a loss. The strength of Stanford’s wins and the impressiveness of their ceiling is enough to move them above UBC, who will debut at the Stanford Invite March 3rd and 4th.
Texas dropped two slots, from #7 to #9, despite an appearance in the semifinals after a big win over Oregon in quarterfinals. But a 4-5 weekend with losses to UCSB and Minnesota, along with getting jumped by UCSD, were enough to move them lower.
Minnesota leaped four spots to #18, powered by double game point wins over Western Washington and Texas to open the weekend. They would have moved higher had they not taken an ugly 9-7 loss to unranked UC Davis.
California, Ohio State, and Washington shifted around, reordering to #15 Ohio State, #16 Washington, and #17 California. Washington took a head to head win over Cal, but was hurt by a loss to unranked Southern California.
Despite a 6-3 weekend, Western Washington fell five spots to #19. At PDI, they registered just one win over a ranked team (13-9 over UCSB) while falling twice to Minnesota and getting blown out by Texas.
#24 Victoria entered the rankings, taking the spot of Iowa State. UVic has only lost to ranked teams, nearly defeating UCSB at Santa Barbara Invite, while Iowa State stumbled to a 3-6 record at PDI, including a blowout loss to Colorado College.
Richmond fell to #10 from #3 courtesy of a 3-5 weekend at Easterns Qualifier, with losses to UNC Charlotte and William & Mary. They settled for a 15th place finish.
Meanwhile, Dartmouth gained a spot, in part thanks to Richmond’s fall and in part due to a 5-3 showing at Easterns Qualifier, including a blowout win over Davidson. They are now #3.
It was a long drop for Davidson from #5 to #18, but they won only two games at Easterns Qualifier. They finished just two spots out of last place at the tournament.
