The ITA seeding draft was completed today. The top 16 seeds are simply final team rankings from last season; it is not indicative of how strong teams look for the coming year.
But the remaining 42 spots are very telling: teams get to choose in order of previous season ranking which host site they want to attend. So logically team #17 is going to choose whichever host they perceive to be the weakest. And team #18mis going to choose the 2nd weakest, Etc… the last hosts to get a regional 2 seed toselect them is likely the strongest team on paper.
there are exceptions: teams may choose local to cut travel costs or have some other reason, but generally this works.
so by putting teams in reverse order of getting a 2nd seed, you get a rough “coaches poll” of a preseason ranking:
- Pepperdine
- Auburn
- NCSU
- aTm
- TX
- UGA
- UVA
- OK
- UNC
- LSU
- dook
- UCLA
- Vandy
- USC
the list above does not include 4 seed tOSU and 12 seed Michigan who have byes. And of course there will be teams outside of the 2025-26 post season rankings who jump into the top 16. And just to reiterate, teams can choose where they go for other reasons. But all in all, this is a rough idea of where coaches perceive UNC: borderline top 10.
the next question is: were these selections made before or after coaches learned Khirin was transferring to UNC? Maybe Miami regrets their decision?
it is notable that UNC has struggled with Miami last season. We squeaked by 4-3 by winning courts 5 & 6 late in 3 sets. perceived individual matchups may have weighed into their decision.