The College Squash Association (CSA) has published the preseason men’s and women’s team rankings with the 2019-2020 season just getting underway.
The opening rankings poll of the season includes only the 31 women’s varsity teams and 35 men’s varsity teams. Each varsity coach had the opportunity to submit one vote on behalf of their team with the total votes determining the order of the preseason rankings.
Club teams who have played the required number of matches to earn a ranking will be added to subsequent polls once they qualify. The rankings, adjusted manually at first due to a lack of significant match data, will be published regularly until late January 2020. From that point forward, the rankings will be determined using an ELO-based algorithm which accounts for wins and losses against proximate teams. CSA will publish the computed rankings every week until the team national championships.
Subtle movements characterize the women’s preseason rankings with only one team – Bowdoin College – moving more than one place compared to the end-of-season rankings from 2019. The teams making the one-place jump from last year are Princeton at No. 3, Virginia at No. 10, Tufts at No. 17, Franklin & Marshall at No. 19, Conn College at No. 24, and Colby at No. 26. The battle for a coveted Top-8 spot will be intense this season, with Cornell (No. 9) and Virginia (No. 10) gaining strength and hoping to push Columbia, Drexel, or Penn out of the last few Howe Cup spots.
Similar to last season, the men’s poll exhibited more movement than the women’s rankings. The headliner is Princeton’s jump into the top 4 after finishing 8th in last year’s tournament, all thanks to a strong recruiting class and top returning players. George Washington (No. 8) and Virginia (No. 9) will be right on the bubble all year long, hoping to stave off Dartmouth and Drexel, who both dropped relative to last season. Farther down the rankings, Tufts (No. 23) and Colby (No. 24) received early-season confidence boosts with their improved spots. Hamilton (No. 30) and Chatham (No. 33) will look to build successful seasons with strong incoming players.
View the full women’s and men’s preseason rankings here: 2019-2020 CSA Preseason Rankings.
