Wait a minute. You literally said part of your reason for having Pepperdine 8 was a close game with Stanford. Now you are saying it wasn’t very close and you were at the game? Your exact quote:
8: Pepperdine (9-6): This week, Pepperdine lost to CBU 15-10 before beating Princeton 15-12. Despite the loss to CBU, Pepperdine remains in my top 8 due to a plethora of quality wins on the season and close games with Cal and Stanford.
I’ll go ahead and leave it as it. I actually truly enjoy fun harmless banter on rankings and it is one of many reasons sport is so great. Even better with buddies in person when we root for different teams, and the reality is nobody is actually right or wrong. Enjoy the rest of the season.
You’re right, that’s my bad. I should’ve only mentioned the Cal loss in my original post. I meant that I only mentioned the Cal loss on this thread.
Nevertheless, I have a lot of respect for CBU and love their ability to get up for certain matchups. I pride myself in having unbiased rankings that reflect a teams entire body of work across the whole season.
Hats off to you for being willing to publish your own rankings. Most, including myself, don’t go that far and open yourself up to the debate. It is much more fun to debate sports than most any other topic.
He did win the Open division title with the girls last year. He has turned that girls program around really fast
Well I guess that’s better than nothing. Still waiting for that boys open title
Im curious as well RB. Ross at NHHS has to be in conversation based on CIF wins one would think. Jack is a solid guy and good for the sport for sure but hasn’t done a ton of high level winning.
you do great work, that many of us dont have the patience to do.
I don’t want to go off the rails on the WPW thread, but I’ll put this here and leave it at that. Kids flock to winning coaches. Segesman basically siphoned off a large chunk of the top talent in Orange County, including many great players who would of gone to Newport or Huntington Beach. Newport really struggled losing that talent. Segesman retires and now all those homegrown Newport players stay home and they become the powerhouse they are now. Ormsby enters the picture and he starts siphoning off talent around Orange County. I don’t follow the high school game as closely anymore, so I’m not sure if Ormsby is getting any of those Newport players, but I would guess not many (location is probably part of that). Same with Harvard Westlake. Flacks got great talent from all over Los Angeles, including some players that made very far commutes. He leaves, and I’m not sure that void has been filled in Los Angeles. The door is open to Kocur taking a chunk of the players that might of gone to HW in the past. The time is now for Oaks to build a dominant program, I just haven’t seen it yet. Now he is clearly a good coach, but I need to see championships before I crown someone the best in America.
Very much appreciate all the discussion from everyone. Shows how much everyone cares about the game.
If anyone is interested, LAAC Water Polo is hosting a banquet at the Los Angeles Athletic Club in DTLA on Jan. 31, 2026 that includes a FREE 12U SPLASHBALL CLINIC! All are welcome, and there are some exciting perks.
Check the thread here for details:
Cheers
Another great episode as always. Thanks for doing what you do.
Interesting take on UCSD. Akerstrom only played in 5 games this year (and they did won all 5). UCSD lost their BW opener to UCSB and Romaguera hasn’t played since. I would say getting him back in the water would be very important for them. In his first game out, they lost a close game to LBSU to definitely put them in the hole to start BW play, but they already do have a win over Davis at the MPSF they can point to. And without Romaguera, they rebounded from the LBSU loss to beat Princeton last weekend (I know it was Princeton’s last game of a grueling trip, but UCSD barely pulled out a win over Princeton with both Akerstrom and Romaguera at MPSF). No idea how close Romaguera is to coming back, but I would think they have a great shot to win the Big West tournament with him in the water (and should be confident in doing so) no matter what their seed.
Unrelated question for Water Polo Wednesday - do you plan on doing any commentary/coverage of LEN or the Champions league season? Mainly the quarter-finals and final 4, which would fill a vacancy for content after the mens NCAA season ends. There is a definitely a void for American coverage of European club play and it could be a great way to get some American fans interested in the Champions League. Love the podcast, keep it up.
Stanford not streaming the Fordham game? Shame shame shame!
It looks to be on Overnght as they are covering the Julian Fraser event minus Santa Clara matches.
As of Saturday there was no streaming plan for the Fordham v Stanford game.
This morning I was told everything got ironed out and they will stream those games! We were asked to do the broadcast so working those details out now!!!
Great question. I don’t see why not! Will do the best we can with it to cover that, European championships, World Cup and NL in the spring, if we have the time/bandwidth! Appreciate you, @OneStarKelpReview !!!
Lets rock and roll.
A Fordham recap, a game changing goalie and conference scenario breakdowns coming your way on this episode of WATER POLO WEDNESDAY!!!
Great episode once again. Thanks for doing these.