The first official team rankings of the year were released late Wednesday afternoon with Virginia coming in at No. 1 as anticipated. In the past, all team rankings have listed the top 75 but this year the D1 Operating Committee voted to just make it a top 25 and it will remain that way until the first computer rankings begin after the National Team Indoors in February. Virginia remains at the top while the defending ACC Champion Wake Forest Demon Deacons move up to No. 2. Ohio State, which added JJ Wolf to the roster on Thursday, came in at No. 3 and Texas shoots up to No. 4.
If comparing these to last season’s final rankings the biggest risers are Texas (+12), Baylor (+10), and Kentucky (+8) while Texas Tech (-12), South Florida (-8), UCLA (-6), and Oklahoma (-6) are the ones to fall the most. Those teams were the ones that I provjected to be the big movers as well for the reasons I mentioned in this preview.
| Rank | School | 2016 Rank |
| 1 | Virginia | 1 |
| 2 | Wake Forest | 8 |
| 3 | Ohio State | 4 |
| 4 | Texas | 16 |
| T5 | California | 9 |
| T5 | Georgia | 7 |
| 7 | TCU | 3 |
| 8 | UCLA | 2 |
| 9 | North Carolina | 5 |
| 10 | USC | 12 |
| 11 | Florida | 10 |
| 12 | Oklahoma | 6 |
| 13 | Northwestern | 15 |
| 14 | Oklahoma State | 13 |
| 15 | Kentucky | 23 |
| 16 | Texas A&M | 14 |
| 17 | Illinios | 18 |
| 18 | Stanford | 21 |
| 19 | Arkansas | 20 |
| 20 | Mississippi State | 19 |
| 21 | Michigan | 25 |
| 22 | Baylor | 32 |
| 23 | Texas Tech | 11 |
| 24 | Columbia | 28 |
| 25 | South Florida | 17 |
Others Receiving Votes: (Duke , Florida State , SMU , Tulsa , South Carolina , Tulane , Notre Dame , Mississippi)
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Wake Forest sophomore Petros Chrysochos is the new No. 1 after winning the All-Americans back in October. Preseason No. 1 Mikael Torpegaard fell one spot to No. 2 while the National Indoor Intercollegiate Champ Mike Redlicki rose to No. 3. Cameron Norrie (TCU), Alex Rybakov (TCU), Andrew Harris (Oklahoma), Aleks Vukic (Illinois), Collin Altamirano (Virginia), Paul Oosterbaan (Georgia), and Konrad Zieba (Northwestern) were a few of the notable absenses since none of them played any fall collegiate events.
There were a few names that I had to look including the trio that were tied for 115th – UConn’s Justin Warren and Arnaud Valentin and Wagner’s Hans Ohrner. I looked over each’s fall results and have no idea how they ended up ranked because none of them had any ranked wins or for that matter anything close to a ranked win. The other one that also looked off was Charleston freshman Alec Angraddi who was ranked 120. I emailed the ITA’s Ranking Coordinator for some clarification but haven’t heard back yet.
The table below has the top 125 broken down by school, conference, class, and by Universal Tennis Rating.
Singles Rankings (click to view in separate window)
How are they going to jump to a top 75 for the first computer rankings when teams ~35-75 probably won't have any wins over ranked teams? Basically all those spots are going to be determined by who has the least-bad loss? This seems like a not so great idea.
Got to think for that last poll before the computers they'll do a top 75 but maybe only publish the top 25. We'll have to wait and see – if I get any intel sooner I'll post it.