Tag: SEC

SEC and ACC Dominate Women’s D1 ITA Rankings

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On January 5th, the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) released its pre-season poll for the women’s Division I NCAA tennis season. It comes as no surprise that the initial 2015-2016 rankings are only slightly different from the final 2014-2015 ITA rankings.

Only 13 conferences are represented in the top 50 teams with the SEC and ACC filling 22 of the 50 slots. The number of teams from each conference are listed in the table below.

# of Teams Conference
12 SEC
10 ACC
6 Big 10
6 Big 12
5 PAC-12
2 AAC
2 Ivy League
2 West Coast Conference
1 Big East
1 Big West
1 Colonial Athletic Association
1 C-USA
1 MVC

The January 5th ITA rankings of the top 10 singles players are  dominated by athletes from the ACC. Six of the top 10 players are from 4 schools in the  ACC, two are from the PAC 12, and one player is from the SEC and Big 10.

ITA Ranking Avg Player School Conference
1 64.91 Joana Eidukonyte Clemson ACC
2 64.81 Francesca Di Lorenzo Ohio State Big 10
3 60.17 Belinda Woolcock Florida SEC
4 56.35 Danielle Collins Virginia ACC
5 56.14 Maegan Manasse California PAC-12
6 54.31 Hayley Carter North Carolina ACC
7 53.23 Sinead Lohan Miami (FL) ACC
8 52.78 Julia Elbaba Virginia ACC
9 49.28 Stephanie Wagner Miami (FL) ACC
10 49.25 Klara Fabikova California PAC-12

While it is fun to follow the polls throughout the season, the early rankings (February and early March) may not be a good indicator of what is really happening. The rankings become more reliable once teams complete their preseason matches and are well into their conference season.

ITA Ranking School 2014-15 Final Rank Conference
1 Vanderbilt 1 SEC
2 USC 2 PAC-12
3 Florida 6 SEC
4 North Carolina 4 ACC
4 Georgia 5 SEC
6 California 7 PAC-12
7 Virginia 9 ACC
8 Stanford 11 PAC-12
9 UCLA 3 PAC-12
10 Texas A&M 10 SEC
11 Baylor 8 Big 12
12 Oklahoma State 12 Big 12
13 Miami 15 ACC
14 Michigan 13 Big 10
15 Alabama 14 SEC
16 Duke 19 ACC
17 Texas Tech 16 Big 12
18 Ohio State 21 Big 10
19 Pepperdine 22 West Coast Conference
20 Clemson 18 ACC
21 LSU 23 SEC
22 TCU 17 Big 12
23 Georgia Tech 20 ACC
24 Kentucky 25 SEC
25 Mississippi 24 SEC
26 Northwestern 26 Big 10
27 Arizona State 27 PAC-12
28 South Carolina 29 SEC
29 Mississippi State 32 SEC
30 Virginia Tech 30 ACC
31 Rice 28 C-USA
32 Dartmouth 31 Ivy League
33 Notre Dame 36 ACC
34 DePaul 33 Big East
35 Oklahoma 35 Big 12
36 Arkansas 38 SEC
37 Florida State 39 ACC
38 Houston 34 AAC
39 Wichita State 41 MVC
40 Long Beach State 40 Big West
41 Texas 37 Big 12
42 Auburn 46 SEC
43 Princeton 42 Ivy League
44 Purdue 43 Big 10
45 Saint Mary's (CA) 44 West Coast Conference
46 William & Mary 49 Colonial Athletic Association
47 Tulsa 51 AAC
47 Penn State 47 Big 10
49 Boston College 50 ACC
50 Indiana 48 Big 10

It will be interesting to see if Vanderbilt ends the season in the top spot and if Joana Eidukonyte captures the D1 singles title.

Can Colorado Afford to be in the Athletic Arms Race?

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Two and a half years ago, the University of Colorado announced they would join the PAC 12 in 2011. The move was justified by university officials for the following reasons:

  • More than 35,000 alumni reside in the Pac-12 footprint, whereas about 11,000 are located within the Big 12 regions.
  • This level of alumni support in key markets should help with recruiting.
  • CU should get more support on the road, because there is easier access to PAC 12 cities.
  • Many CU fans feel the PAC 12 cities are more desirable to visit.
  • PAC 12 teams will receive significant revenue from the new Pac 12 television contract.
  • The PAC 12 was a closer fit academically.

These are all legitimate reasons to make the switch; however, it was obvious that CU could not bankroll teams that could consistently compete against Oklahoma and the wealthier Texas schools. Most Coloradans hate to lose to Texas (at anything).

CU is not the only university that is having trouble dealing with the accelerated level of spending for athletic programs. In August 2011 Michael Smith, writer for Street and Smith’s Online Sports Business Journal was the author of an article entitled “Athletic Budgets Continue to Climb“, that focused on the rapid growth of budgets for the major athletic conferences. Though the data is slightly dated, it illustrates the amount of money spent on college athletic programs and their rates of growth.

Smith secured budgets for most of the schools in the Big 10, Big 12, SEC, ACC, and PAC 12. Texas tops the list in spending. The median rate of annualized growth is 5.4%.

Six SEC, four Big 10, and two Big 12 teams round out the top twelve schools in spending. Oregon is the top PAC 12 team at number 13 and North Carolina is the top ACC team at number 21. Four of the bottom eight schools are from the PAC 12, including newcomers Colorado and Utah.

In the PAC 12 Colorado and Arizona State have similar budgets and both are well above Washington State and Utah. The four schools stack up at the bottom of the conference.

If Colorado was still in the Big 12 it would be at the bottom with a budget similar to Iowa State and Baylor. The size of the Texas athletic budget is about the same as the combined budgets of Colorado, Iowa State and Baylor.

Of the 49th teams, CU was 42nd overall and 39th in the rate of growth. Six of the PAC 12 teams had budgets that grew at an annualized rate of 3.1% or less from 2010 to 2012.

The PAC 12 is a great conference for the University of Colorado for the reasons stated above. Time will tell whether schools such as Colorado, Oregon State, Washington State, and Utah can afford to participate in the PAC 12 or any other major athletic conference.

The table below expressed the athletic budgets for the schools in millions, from Smith’s article. In three instances estimates were made or to account for data that was not available in Smith’s report.

ACC Budgets were not available for Boston College, Duke, Miami and Wake Forest. The Big 10 budget for Northwestern was not available. The PAC 12 budgets for Stanford and USC were not available. The Big 12 budgets were not available for Baylor. The SEC budget for Vanderbilt was not available.  The 49 universities are color coded by Conference (Big 12 = grey, Big 10 = pink, SEC = green, Pac 12 = purple, ACC = light orange).