By now you’ve probably seen our preseason poll where over 15 editors produced what they believe to be the top 36 teams for the 2024 season. Then we did some basic math and came out with our overall ranking. In this week’s roundtable, we’re talking about our decisions—why we put some teams where we did, didn’t include others, and any differences we think we may see from what we ranked in the real thing on Road to Nationals.
Did you use any sort of methodology when ranking your top 36?
Elizabeth: I looked at last year’s top 36 (mostly to ensure I didn’t forget any important teams), and then I rearranged from there based on losses and gains. Nothing too scientific went into my decisions beyond that though, as I truly feel I have a good gut sense of teams’ potential.
Julianna: For my first preseason poll (!!) I looked at a few different things when ranking my top 36. The first thing I looked at was the final standings from last year and also the potential lineups from this year to see how significantly teams might be rising or dropping from the standings at the end of the 2023 season.
Mary Emma: I have a similar strategy as Elizabeth, where I list the top 40 or so from last year and then rearrange the teams as I see fit based on what they gained and lost…
