The MWPA Guide To The Polls 2022

The Michigan Water Polo Association (MWPA) is just 21 days from it's first preseason poll release, and a breakdown on how it all works is here.

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Q: How are the polls made? Who ranks the teams?

A: The Polls are voted on weekly by the coaches. Each head coach gets to vote by ranking teams 1-10 for the gender they coach. If they coach both genders, they can submit a poll for the girls and a poll for the boys.

Each team gets 10 points for a first place vote, 9 for second, and so on down to 1 point.

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Q: When does the first poll come out? A: The girls top 10 will come first - last season, they were announced second. The girls rankings will be announced March 10th at 11 am ET.

The boys top 10 comes second, releasing on March 11 at 11 am ET.

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Q: How often do rankings happen? A: This one is a little schedule dependent. If there aren't enough teams playing, say, week one, the MWPA will wait an extra week for the first in-season poll to allow for more data and more games to be played. But once the season gets rolling, Top 10 rankings will release weekly on Mondays. Exceptions include spring break.

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Q: What are "Poll Points?" A: A newer feature to the polls last year was poll points - it's not really complicated. Poll points are the percentage of the maximum points each week that a team earns...except we dropped the percent sign/the period in front of the number off.

For example - an unanimous #1 team would receive 1000 poll points. Any less, and they were not voted first place by every voter.

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Q: What is "On the line?"

A: On the line are the first three teams outside the top 10 based on poll points. ________________________________________________________________

Q: Why is that important? A: For one, the more teams we can publicize, the better - our mission is to grow. The only way to grow is to spread the wealth and notoriety. Last season, near half of all MWPA schools were either ranked or on the line at some point.

Secondly, it gives the voters a better idea of who other coaches think is playing in that realm of teams. We recommend coaches talk to other coaches before voting about teams they've seen, as well as checking out our comprehensive schedule and standings pages to compare and contrast teams.

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Q: What really is the purpose of rankings? Do they have any bearing on the postseason? A: We'll answer the second question first....NOPE! They do not have any bearing on the MWPA's postseason tournament.

To answer the first question - publicity. We want the water polo world to have material to learn about us. While the polls are almost never perfect, they do give some insight into our sport here in Michigan including recruiting college coaches, athletes, and other coaches. Polls happen in other states, but our goal is to make our weekly poll an event people get excited to read about.

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