The January 25th edition of the CSCAA college swimming top-25 dual meet poll has been released, reflecting results from the first round of 2012 dual meets.

Men’s Poll

Men

This week’s men’s poll showed a high level of consistency, as the 7 voters had nearly-identical rankings through the top 15.

Arizona furthered their distance from their competition thanks to wins already this semester against both #3 Stanford and #6 Cal. Texas comes in at #2 in the rankings, which sets up an epic 1 versus 2 matchup in Tucson this Saturday, January 28th, at 11.

Stanford comes in at #3, and Michigan checks in at #4, winners of the SMU Classic (ahead of the likes of  #5 USC and #7 Florida). The top 6 in the poll remained unchanged from the last edition that came out on December 7th.

The first swap was Florida hopping SEC rivals Auburn for #7 after narrowly escaping a 153-147 decision in front of the home crowin in Gainesville. That moves Florida up from 13th in the last poll.

Ohio State dropped a spot to #9, as did Georgia at #10. Indiana fell out of the top 10.

Newcomers to this week’s poll include #18 Texas A&M, who beat #19 LSU in Baton Rouge last weekend. There are a lot of new teams in the poll this month, including Virginia Tech, NC State, and SMU. Meanwhile, UNLV, UCSB, Florida State, and Penn State all dropped out.

Iowa moved up a spot after they lost (by 101) to #1 Arizona, but knocked off Northwestern 178-120. Minnesota rocketed up the rankings after topping #25 Missouri 177-120 two weeks ago. Iowa beat Minnesota earlier in the season, but both teams still seem over-ranked.

Right now, there seems to be too much volatility in the bottom end of this poll. For example, since the last poll, UCSB topped UNLV 134-122 (those teams ranked #17 and #19 in the last poll), but somehow both still dropped out because their meet wasn’t as high-profile as others’.

1. Arizona
2. Texas
3. Stanford
4. Michigan
5. Southern California
6. California
7. Florida
8. Auburn
9. Ohio State
10. Georgia
11. Indiana
12. Louisville
13. North Carolina
14. Iowa
15. Virginia
16. Minnesota
17. Purdue
18. Texas A&M
19. Louisiana State
20. Tennessee
21. Virginia Tech
22. SMU
23. North Carolina State
24. Princeton
25. Missouri

Women

After the Cal women at #1 (who easily earned that spot via a 50-point win over #9 Arizona a week ago), the women’s poll lined up very nicely, as 4 out of the next top 5 were in a chain.

#2 Florida beat #3 Auburn by 26; #3 Auburn beat #4 Texas by 34; and #4 Texas beat #5 Georgia by 10; Georgia had been #1 in the previous poll, but based on a literal tessalation, they got bumped down to #5.

Texas A&M moved up 5 spots to #6, presumably based on the long course exploits of Cammile Adams, Breeja Larson, Paige Miller, and others at the Austin Grand Prix.

USC, who had only a sizable win over #19 Wisconsin since the last meet, dropped from #3 to #7 (seemingly pushed out by the 2-3-4-5 matchups). Stanford also dropped from #6 to #8, despite beating #9 Arizona by 22 last weekend. The Cardinal have a big weekend coming up with duals against UCLA and USC Friday and Saturday.

Arizona and #10 Tennessee round out the top 10.

Indiana dropped out of the top 10 to #11 after matching a loss to #17 Michigan with a narrow win over unranked Purdue. The other big mover in the Big Ten was #15 Minnesota, who were up eight spots from December after upending Missouri by a huge 66 point margin.

New teams in the poll include #20 Penn State and #25 Florida State (who both received votes in the previous poll). They took the spots of Purdue and Arkansas, who both fell out.

1. California
2. Florida
3. Auburn
4. Texas
5. Georgia
6. Texas A&M
7. Southern California
8. Stanford
9. Arizona
10. Tennessee
11. Virginia
12. Indiana
13. SMU
14. Ohio State
15. Minnesota
16. North Carolina
17. Michigan
18. Missouri
19. Wisconsin
20. Penn State
21. Arizona State
22. Maryland
23. Louisiana State
24. Louisville
25. Florida State