Admin (Garrett Zatlin)
Nov 22, 202220 min
NOTE: These rankings are based on how a team fared throughout the entirety of a season, not just how they ran at the NCAA XC Championships or at a singular meet. You will notice that these rankings may mirror the national meet results, but not precisely. That is intentional. These rankings are intended to be an aggregate. They are not recency lists.
Was not ranked in our last update.
First number indicates how much the team has moved in the rankings.
The second number indicates where the team was ranked in our last update.
The Arkansas men have been in and out of our rankings this year, starting all the way from the summer months to now. They always proved to be competitive, and their historical success probably played a favorable role in prior ranking updates, but there was never a guarantee that they would end this season in our top-25.
After a bit of a shaky season, Patrick Kiprop ended his fall campaign with a 24th place All-American finish to give this team a much-needed scoring spark. That result was huge, especially since Myles Richter (139th) was the only other Razorback in the top-140 of the overall results.
With their final three scorers placing 155-175-201, the Razorbacks ended their season somewhat close to where we thought they would.
There are certainly argument for other teams to be ranked at this spot such as California Baptist, Portland and Princeton. But with the Razorbacks actually qualifying for the national meet, securing a top-25 finish and ultimately tying with Tennessee at the SEC XC Championships, it feels only right to give them our TSR #25 spot.
Ever since the preseason, it always felt like the Butler men were capable of being ranked, but just didn't have enough on their resume to earn a spot. If I had to guess, they were probably floating around the 26th to 29th spots in our non-existent and completely made up TSR top-30 rankings.
But with a 21st place finish at the NCAA XC Championships, but the Bulldogs arguably have enough to be listed as a top-25 team when looking at the entire 2022 cross country season.
Seeing Barry Keane place 17th overall on Saturday was really nice to see. This is a guy who has clearly been one of the top distance talents in the nation for the last few seasons, but an All-American honor seemed to always elude him.
Keane led the way with a potent low-stick result, but he was the only other runner who Butler had in the top-100. Jesse Hamlin (119th) has been better than his performance would suggest and their final three scorers finished 165-167-182 in the overall results which, for a team outside of the top-20, is fairly decent as far as backend scoring goes.
The Bulldogs were far from perfect this year, but they had a handful of results that deserve your respect. They were 6th at Joe Piane (where they beat Cal Poly, Michigan and NC State) and they were 3rd at Pre-Nationals, defeating an Arkansas team that just finished 23rd at the national meet.
And while they certainly left more to be desired at the BIG East XC Championships, Butler's performance this past weekend likely counter balances that result.
This seems like an overly aggressive drop for the Montana State men. Is it fair that the Crimson Tide struggled slightly more than the Bobcats at the national meet, but it is the Montana State men who are dropping further down in our rankings?
The counter argument to that is that Alabama clearly had a better season leading up to the national meet. The Montana State men were good, but their collective accolades just weren't as strong.
Either way, I think placing a team that finished 25th at the national meet at our TSR #23 spot is plenty fair.
Matthew Richtman (40th) came away with a huge All-American finish after being a sneaky-good low-stick scorer alongside Duncan Hamilton for most of this season. Meanwhile, Hamilton earned a respectable 67th place finish which could've been better, but it was far from terrible.
The problem, however, is that no other Montana State runners finished in the top-150 as their final three scorers went 159-200-233 in the overall results. Clearly, inexperience on this kind of stage got the best of this team.
Even so, the Bobcats should be plenty happy with how their season went. They proved to be nationally competitive and they were able to translate their outstanding track performances to the grass -- and that is not as easy to do as one may think.
Finishing 22nd at the national meet and then settling in at TSR #22 in our rankings seems about right. And truthfully, when you look at Virginia's results throughout the season, they seem destined to end the season at this spot.
The Cavaliers were first tested at Panorama Farms where they were trounced by Wake Forest, but also beat a very solid Texas team as well as Charlotte, Eastern Kentucky, Ole Miss and Cal Poly.
But when UVA tried to take that next step up at the ACC XC Championships, they weren't able to match their competition and finished 6th overall.
No one on this team finished in the top-100 on Saturday, something that can likely be attributed to the relative youth and inexperience throughout this lineup. That said, they put all five of their scorers in the top-150, meaning that they didn't have any legitimate scoring flaws or gaps...but they very clearly lacked firepower.
Not every team is going to run well at the national meet. By the nature of racing, someone is going to go home disappointed. And in this case, it was the Alabama men.
The Crimson Tide didn't have a great showing at the South Regional XC Championships, but we weren't going to hit the panic button, especially since they had thrived at the SEC XC Championships two weeks earlier.
But on Saturday, almost everyone fell flat.
Victor Kiprop finished 66th after being viewed as a deep sleeper to win the individual national title while Eliud Kipsang placed 98th, the only other runner to finish inside the top-100 for the Alabama men.
With their final three runners falling to 198-209-232 in the overall results, the Crimson Tide settled for a disappointing 27th place finish in the overall results.
Yes, this past weekend was bad for the Alabama men. Really bad. But anyone who has followed this group throughout the season knows that this result was clearly a fluke. This is a team that was 3rd at Joe Piane and they won the SEC title!
Those results don't just happen by accident.
And truthfully, this result only looks as bad as it does because of the way that Alabama's scoring structure works, mainly because they have been heavily reliant on three men all season long. And when those three men faded, then the Crimson Tide's team score was never going to be salvaged.
I'll be honest, I don't know if it's entirely fair to place Alabama at this spot. They were probably better than Texas, but with the national meet holding more weight compared to any other results, I don't know if the Crimson Tide should even be ranked higher than Montana State or Virginia.
And truthfully, I don't know if there's a good answer to this ranking conundrum.
Much like the Harvard men, the Texas men ended their season with a national meet finish (18th) which matched their preseason ranking (TSR #18).
The Longhorns were solid this year, but they were never amazing. Their 12th place finish at the Cowboy Jamboree (ahead of Harvard, Washington and Ole Miss) was solid, but relatively unexciting. At Panorama Farms, they finished 3rd behind Wake Forest and Virginia. And at the BIG 12 XC Championships, they placed 3rd yet again, this time behind Oklahoma State and Iowa State, just two points out from a runner-up result.
An 18th place finish on Saturday was a clear deviation from what the Texas men had shown us throughout this season. They were fine, but they weren't ever a top-25, much less a top-20 team.
I love that Haftu Knight (27th) finally delivered on his fully potential as an elite low-stick and Isaac Alonzo (93rd), even if it wasn't his best race, still put together a respectable performance.
With Cruz Gomez, Rodger Rivera and Abraham Avila-Martinez going 139-145-189 in the overall results, the Longhorns were able to do enough to get past other teams that didn't have the same upfront scoring prowess that Texas did.
Just like we mentioned with Harvard, we're struggling to put Texas this high in our rankings. The Longhorns lost to Virginia and Iowa State this season, two nationally competitive teams, but neither that was viewed as a top-20 squad.
It's also a challenge to put them ahead of an Alabama team that finished 3rd at Joe Piane and then won the SEC title. I don't know if Texas could have done that.
But when you consider that the Longhorns did defeat the likes of Harvard, Washington and Ole Miss earlier this season, and then rallied to peak in the postseason, we don't have much of a choice but to put the Texas men at TSR #20.
The Harvard men came into this season ranked at TSR #17...and they just finished 17th at the national meet! However, that result would look a lot more impressive if we had actually kept the Crimson in our rankings.
Admittedly, Harvard's season as whole just wasn't that exciting. They struggled a bit at the Cowboy Jamboree (where they finished 13th) and the backend of their lineup proved to be even more vulnerable at Nuttycombe (where they finished 21st).
And with Princeton defeating Harvard at the Ivy League XC Championships, there just wasn't anything on the Crimson's seasonal resume to suggest that they were a top-25 team, much less a top-20 team.
But somehow, their lineup structure turned out to be the most effective on the national stage. Graham Blanks (6th) was tremendous on Saturday while Acer Iverson (50th) still held his own despite leaving a good number of points on the table.
Their final three scorers went 152-156-190 in the overall results, and none of those three men were David Melville who was the clear, and somewhat respectable, third scorer for this team throughout the entire season.
Despite outperforming expectations, I actually don't think that the Harvard men even ran their best race! And while I struggle to see how they were able to slide into our TSR #19 spot after their season that they had, the teams ranked behind the Crimson just didn't have anything to get truly excited about.
There's no other way to say it: Most of the Tennessee men were flat-out bad this past weekend. But truthfully, it could have been so much worse if it wasn't for their top-two runners.
Dylan Jacobs (4th) and Yaseen Abdalla (33rd) produced electric All-American results to give the Volunteers one of the better 1-2 punches in the field. But with no other Tennessee runner finishing within the top-175, that scoring duo couldn't carry this team any further than 20th place overall.
Despite finishing 20th place at the national meet, it seems fairly clear that the Vols are better than that. They were, after all, the runner-up finishers at Joe Piane against a loaded field.
But truthfully, that Joe Piane result doesn't feel quite as strong as it did during the regular season when you see how the top teams in that field fared during the postseason. And after losing the SEC title to Alabama, while barely escaping Arkansas (on a tie-breaker) and Ole Miss in that same meet, the overall resume for the Vols doesn't actually have much to be excited about.
Do I still think that teams like Tennessee and Villanova are (currently) more talented than programs such as Oregon and Washington? Yes, I do.
But just because I think that doesn't mean that the results are there to reconcile my opinion.
It was just a flat-out rough day for the Villanova men who, truthfully, didn't even record that poor of a result! Their 19th place finish, while far from ideal, wasn't terrible, either.
Liam Murphy (92nd) and Jack Jennings (99th) showed plenty of promise as the future scoring identity of the Wildcats. The same could be said for Marco Langon, the true freshman who was 121st on Saturday and Villanova's third scorer.
The young guys, despite their relative youth and inexperience, were the ones who ultimately kept this team afloat. Charlie O'Donovan (130th) was fine, but with their final scorer placing 160th overall, and no elite firepower to lean on, the Wildcats could only go so far.
Seeing Haftu Strintzos struggle this season was not ideal as he never really offered that lineup-altering scoring that we thought he could. Even so, the Villanova men still deserve to end their season as TSR #17.
That's because they likely would have beaten North Carolina at Paul Short (by a lot) if Strintzos had toed the line, because they finished 9th at Nuttycombe and because they dominated a fairly deep BIG East conference.
Don't let one "off" day at the national meet lead you to believe that 19th was the Wildcat's true ceiling. They are clearly much better than that.
I have no idea how this Oregon lineup had as much success as they did this fall, but maybe that's just the magic that comes with hiring Jerry Schumacher as your head coach.
The Ducks' scoring approach this year was something along the lines of, "Lean heavily on Aaron Bienenfeld and just say a few prayers about the rest of this squad."
...and honestly? It kinda worked.
Aaron Bienenfeld's 14th place finish at the national meet almost perfectly matched our expectations for him, giving the Oregon men an elite low-stick who brought a spark to a still-developing backend.
James Gormley's 94th place finish was probably a bit better than some might have expected out of him and Abdinasir Hussein was at least decent enough in 131st place. Quincy Norman had a fine race by placing 146th overall while Alex Slenning was 162nd to close out the scoring.
Were those next-four scorers amazing? No, not really, but they weren't bad, either. Outside of Aaron Bienenfeld, this group was a bit unexciting, but does that really matter if you're still going to finish 16th overall at the national meet?
Oregon's national meet finish feels like a perfect reflection of where they should be ranked. They're a solid team, and they proved that they could be competitive, but they still have work to do to reach that next tier.
It took a while, but the Washington men finally peaked when it mattered the most.
The Huskies did not have a great start to their season, finishing a very disappointing 14th place at the Cowboy Jamboree. They started to pick up some steam at Nuttycombe when they finished 15th and they kept the momentum going with a 3rd place finish at the PAC-12 XC Championships.
And with a 14th place result on Saturday, it was clear that Coach Andy Powell had primed his athletes to peak in the postseason.
Brian Fay's 13th place finish at the national meet was a massive result that outperformed the standard that he had set during the regular season. Luke Houser's 42nd place finish seemingly validated him as the secondary low-stick that he ultimately became in the postseason.
And with Isaac Green in 104th place, things were at least solid enough through three runners and there was a lot of encouraging scoring to be happy about.
However, as we had seen multiple times during the season, the gap from Green to the final two scorers in this lineup ultimately limited how high this team could go. With no one else finishing in the top-160, the scoring potency of Fay and Houser could only take the Washington men so far.
Did the Huskies' track success from last spring translate over to the grass like we thought it would? No, certainly not. Even so, they peaked when it mattered and that's all that you can really ask for.
So...does anyone truly know good the Gonzaga men were this year? Honestly, I'm not entirely sure if the Bulldogs themselves know where they should stand in this hierarchy of teams when looking at their overall season.
The Bulldogs didn't have James Mwaura until the postseason, leaving us a little unsure as to how we should gauge their regular season results. Their 10th place finish at the Cowboy Jamboree with a somewhat limited lineup was fairly impressive, especially since certain teams like Ole Miss, Harvard, Washington and Texas began to come on strong in the postseason.
But a 26th place result at Nuttycombe, where no one except Wil Smith ran well, makes it really hard to rank the Gonzaga men much higher than TSR #14.
Even so, a massive 13th place finish at the national meet gives them a nice boost. And when you consider that they beat Washington three times this season (out of four matchups), it didn't make sense to rank them any lower than here / behind the Huskies.
Fellow D1 writer Gavin Struve almost had his bold prediction come true. He suggested that the Bulldogs wouldn't have anyone finish in the top-50, but that they would still fall between 10th and 15th place this past weekend.
That almost came true as Yacine Guermali's 41st place finish was the only top-50 finisher who the 'Zags had. Fellow teammate Wil Smith settled for a 59th place finish while James Mwaura was able to earn a 101st place result. And with their final two scorers finishing 128th and 133rd overall, the Bulldogs did enough to finish 13th overall.
Admittedly, I'm surprised that having only two men in the top-100 was enough to get Gonzaga a top-15 result, especially since they had zero All-Americans. However, having two men in the top-60 and placing all five scorers in the top-140 left this team with very few lineup deficiencies.
You never really knew what you were going to get out of the NC State men this year.
They were an atrocious 9th place at Joe Piane, but then rallied beautifully at Nuttycombe to finish 10th overall. They later faltered at the ACC XC Championships to finish 5th, but then just ended their season with an 11th place result at the national meet.
What I think we can take away from these results is that the NC State men thrive in overwhelmingly large fields. And that makes sense given their lineup structure which has plenty of stable scoring, but not a ton of scoring potency behind Ian Shanklin.
On Saturday, we saw Shanklin finish 38th overall to earn All-American honors while Brett Gardner (64th), Hannes Burger (76th) and Ian Harrison (80th) came through by offering outstanding scoring support behind Shanklin while stabilizing this lineup.
And with veteran Robinson Snider (112th) coming through in the clutch, the Wolfpack men just didn't seem to have any of the same lineup fallacies that we saw from them at Joe Piane or the ACC XC Championships.
Overall, this was a very successful season for NC State.
Gosh, what a tough season for the Notre Dame men. On paper, they were arguably just as talented as a team like Colorado, Wisconsin or Wake Forest. In fact, their regular season results suggested that those comparisons were accurate!
The Fighting Irish won the Joe Piane Invitational and later placed 5th at Nuttycombe.
But when the postseason came around, this team faltered. They were an underwhelming 4th place at the ACC XC Championships and recently finished 15th at the national meet.
Carter Solomon (18th) proved to be the real deal this fall as an elite low-stick while Izaiah Steury (63rd) has an argument to be voted as the best freshman in the country this fall.
However, no other Notre Dame runners cracked the top-100 on Saturday and the other high-profile distance standouts on this roster either struggled in the postseason or never really built any serious momentum to begin with.
That said, we can't simply dismiss how good Notre Dame was at some of the biggest and most competitive meets of the year. Their eyebrow-raising results at Joe Piane and Nuttycombe do soften the Irish's postseason performances which is why they settle in at TSR #12 instead of where they finished at the national meet.
It's also hard to suggest that teams like NC State and Gonzaga were truly better than the Fighting Irish throughout this season as a whole. For example, Notre Dame overwhelmingly trounced the Wolfpack men at Joe Piane, beat them quite handily at Nuttycombe and still edged the Raleigh-based men at the ACC XC Championships despite the Fighting Irish having a tough day.
And when it comes to Gonzaga, their 26th place finish at Nuttycombe makes it a little too challenging to rank them any higher than where we have them now.
I am really happy for Syracuse. Ever since the departure of Justyn Knight, this team has struggled to find and maintain an identity. They've had a few seasons where they've simply faltered in the results and their moments of brilliance were often plagued by inconsistency.
But the 2022 cross country season was a different story. This team shook off their postseason woes, maintained steadier results and turned out to be one of the most reliable teams in the country.
The Orange finished 12th overall at the national meet on Saturday, proving to us that they could deliver on expectations better than almost any other team in the country. No one was an All-American, but that wasn't necessarily a surprise. The greatest strength of this team was their collective pack and depth.
Nathan Lawler (TSR #48) almost perfectly matched his ranking with a 46th place finish while Paul O'Donnell (58th) continued to be one of the better support scorers in the NCAA. His rise has been fantastic this year.
With Nathan Henderson and Noah Carey finishing 80th and 81st, respectively, and Sam Lawler (110th) closing out the scoring relatively quickly, the Orange could end their season knowing that they ran somewhat close to their full potential.
There is an argument that Syracuse should be ranked ahead of North Carolina, a team that the Orange men beat twice this year. But finishing 12th at the national meet after originally being ranked at TSR #12 makes it difficult to push a team into the 10th spot.
A 10th place finish at the NCAA XC Championships is enough to give the Tar Heels a top-10 ranking, even if it's unexciting to list a team at the same spot as their national meet finish.
Parker Wolfe (9th) was unsurprisingly awesome on Saturday while Ethan Strand (62nd) was a pleasant surprise alongside John Tatter (72nd). With Will Coogan (106th) and Patrick Anderson (113th) rounding out the scoring, there wasn't really anything that surprised us about North Carolina.
We knew that the Tar Heels had seven men who could *probably* be scorers for their team at the national meet, but we only expected five of those seven runners to come through -- and for the most part, that's what happened.
Patrick Anderson still has us scratching our heads as we try to figure out where he belongs among the nation's hierarchy of individual distance talents. However, at least knowing that he can be a low-stick is encouraging for this team moving forward.
UNC was never perfect this season, losing to Notre Dame at Nuttycombe and losing to Syracuse at both Nuttycombe the ACC XC Championships. There's an argument for the Orange to be ranked ahead of the Tar Heels, but I never thought that the gap between these two teams was a massive chasm which is why we're giving the nod to the Tar Heels.
Well, that and because it's hard to justify a team that was ranked at TSR #12 finishing 12th at the national meet and then moving up to TSR #10 (i.e. Syracuse).
This is probably going to be one of our more "controversial" rankings decisions, mainly because the Colorado men defeated Tulsa at the national meet. The Buffaloes finished 8th overall while the Golden Hurricanes settled for 9th.
The reason why we're ultimately giving Tulsa the edge is because of how they handled the Colorado men throughout the season. The 'Canes didn't just beat the Boulder-based men at Nuttycombe, but they also held off Colorado with relative ease at the Cowboy Jamboree.
If these two teams had only faced each other at Nuttycombe, and the Cowboy Jamboree was out of their schedules, then we wouldn't have a choice but to give the Buffaloes the edge.
But if the national meet holds 45% of our rankings weight, Nuttycombe holds 30% and the Cowboy Jamboree holds 25% (which are all numbers that I just made up off of the top of my head) then the Golden Hurricanes get the edge.
Tulsa had four men who were capable of All-American honors, but only two of those guys (Cormac Dalton in 15th and Shay McEvoy in 23rd) delivered on those expectations while Isaac Akers (44th) and Michael Power (61st) at least hung on for respectable results.
Their fifth runner, however, is what sent their team score sky-high.
As for the Buffaloes, they ran almost exactly how we thought they would during the preseason -- although we just thought that their lineup structure would produce a better result on the national stage.
Austin Vancil (36th) matched expectations and Austin Kent (43rd), even without having his best day, still held on to offer great scoring potency. And truthfully, the rest of this lineup matched our expectations with Seth Hirsch (68th), Charlie Sweeney (69th) and Brendan Fraser (89th) all delivering results that we said during the summer were plenty realistic.
The Buffaloes were always going to be a high-floor team, but without any upper-tier low-sticks who were capable of cracking the top-30, their ceiling could only go so high.
When the Air Force men stunned the country with their monster 4th place finish at Nuttycombe, we placed the Falcons at TSR #7. That may have felt insulting in the moment, but it was only because they finished a far less exciting 9th place at the Cowboy Jamboree earlier in the year.
Air Force eventually moved their way up to TSR #5, but it looks like our initial evaluation of this team was fairly accurate after they finished 7th overall on Saturday.
Recent All-American, Ryan Johnson (28th), was one of many men in this program who had a breakout year. Ethan Marshall (49th) validated his nationally competitive campaign, Sam Gilman (57th) wasn't terrible, but likely left points on the table, Luke Combs (70th) was so steady and reliable despite his youth and Bryce Lentz (77th) may have been the most underrated runners on this team.
But maybe the craziest part in all of this was that the Falcons never had Nick Scheller this season and seemingly lost Scott Maison mid-way through this fall as well. There was certainly a ceiling where the Falcons were a 5th place or podium team, but they likely needed more firepower, not middle-lineup support.
Regardless, a huge congratulations to Air Force. We thought that they had the potential to outperform their preseason TSR #13 ranking, but not like this.
There was never going to be a scenario where the Wisconsin men ran poorly on Saturday. They boasted a couple of top-tier low-sticks and the rest of their lineup was wildly deep (and very interchangeable).
Bob Liking (34th) didn't have his best day, but he was far from bad and still a true low-stick. Instead, it was his teammate, Jackson Sharp, who finished 16th overall in what was a monumental performance that could argued as the best of his career.
With Rowan Ellenberg (45th) and Charlie Wheeler (54th) keeping scoring gaps at a minimum, it was clear that the Wisconsin men could have been in the conversation for a top-five finish or even the last podium spot.
The Badger easily trounced their competition at both the Griak Invitational and the BIG 10 XC Championships. And while they did lose to teams like Air Force, Notre Dame and Tulsa at Nuttycombe, the Wisconsin men ultimately beat those teams at the national meet which, as we all know, holds more weight in our rankings than Nuttycombe.
The Wake Forest men finished 5th at the national meet and therefore settle in at TSR #5 in our final team rankings. And while a top-five result was probably on the higher end of possible outcomes for the Demon Deacons, it was also a very realistic result.
The men from Winston-Salem, North Carolina probably had one of the most complete lineups in the country this fall, at least through five runners. However, what we didn't expect to see was Zach Facioni (20th), Luke Tewalt (22nd) and Aaron Las Heras (26th) all having the best races of their season on the same day.
Facioni and Tewalt had been really solid this season, but we didn't expect them to be this good. With Thomas Vanoppen placing 56th, continuing to offer outstanding scoring support, and their final runner finishing 100th overall, the Demon Deacons ultimately had a best-case scenario which resulted in them finishing 5th on Saturday.
From a ranking's perspective, Saturday's podium results were a worst-case scenario for TSR.
Yes, we said that these rankings are an aggregate of a team's overall success throughout a whole season and not entirely dictated by the national meet.
But by that logic, the Northern Arizona men would still fall behind Oklahoma State, BYU and Stanford in these rankings...even though they won the national title and beat all of those teams at the national meet.
But is that actually fair? Can a reasonable person say that the national title winners were only the fourth-best team in the country? Sure, maybe if this was the college football playoffs that would work, but fundamentally, it's hard to get behind.
At the same time, why should every other team's season be viewed as an all-encompassing evaluation of performances while these four teams seemingly skip that methodology?
Well, after some lengthy debate and conversation with my fellow writers, we ultimately settled on this reasoning: The podium simply means more for the teams that were already favored to be there, effectively trumping regular season results. Those top-four spots, in our eyes, have to hold more weight than results that fall within the top-10 or top-20 of the NCAA XC Championships.
Naturally, someone would then argue, "Ok, but does that mean that moving forward, TSR will always rank the top-four teams at the national meet in order, regardless of what happened earlier in the season?"
That's a good question, but no, that won't necessarily be the case.
If the Princeton men or the Georgetown men had ended up winning the national title, then we wouldn't have placed either of those teams at TSR #1. That's an extreme example, but it makes sense.
Sure, the Northern Arizona men weren't the same title favorites that the Stanford men were, but they were still in the conversation to earn gold and it was not at all inconceivable to suggest that they could stand atop of the podium.
If it sounds like we're making up these rules as we go, then you'd be right. We are. We have no idea if this is truly fair, if our thought process holds merit or if fairness should outrank the wholistic value shown on a resume.
And yes, I know, this was a philosophy lecture that you didn't sign up for.
Regardless, we can sleep soundly tonight knowing that we chose the best option possible...until the next rankings conundrum causes even more headaches.
Harvard Crimson
Texas Longhorns
Arkansas Razorbacks
Butler Bulldogs
Portland Pilots
California Baptist Lancers
Colorado State Rams
Ole Miss Rebels
Portland Pilots
California Baptist Lancers
Colorado State Rams
Ole Miss Rebels
Georgetown Hoyas
Michigan Wolverines
Iowa State Cyclones
Princeton Tigers
Boise State Broncos
Providence Friars
Duke Blue Devils
Utah State Aggies
Eastern Kentucky Colonels
Charlotte 49ers
Cal Poly Mustangs
Michigan State Spartans
Indiana Hoosiers
Cornell Big Red
Furman Paladins
La Salle Explorers
Indiana Hoosiers
Loyola (Ill.) Ramblers
Wyoming Cowboys
- N/A