Feb. 9, 2011
The Texas A&M men's swimming and diving team climbed one spot to No. 18 in the latest edition of the Collegeswimming.com/CSCAA Div. I Team Poll.
It marked the highest ranking of the school year in the poll for the 5-1 Aggies, who suffered their first dual meet defeat of the season at the hands of the No. 4 Texas Longhorns last Saturday. The Aggies won six events against the defending NCAA Champions, but couldn't pull off the upset in a 170-.5-127.5 loss in Austin.
The Aggies also shined in the Avidasports Performance Rankings, which rates teams on two equally-weighted metrics - a team's rate of improvement over their season-best times and their overall ranking among other NCAA programs. A&M's 101.9 percent improvement along with its 22.0 performance index moved the Aggies to a tie for No. 1 (with Virginia Tech) in the overall rankings.
Trailing the Aggies and Hokies in the Avidasports Performance overall rankings were North Carolina, Georgia Tech, North Carolina State, California, Navy, UNC-Wilmington, Princeton and Stanford. In the performance rankings, the Aggies were No. 7 behind Texas, California, USC, North Carolina, Indiana and Missouri.
A&M concluded its regular season worksheet against the Longhorns last Saturday, and are now preparing for the 2011 Big 12 Championships, which will be contested Feb. 23-26 in Austin.