Swish Appeal Prep Poll of Polls 2014-2015 (week of January 25, 2015): Status quo at the top, movement below

Current state of affairs

Mater Dei High School of Santa Ana, California, and Neumann-Goretti High School of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, continue locked at the top each with 98 of the possible 100 points and both schools receiving two first place votes.  There was minor shuffling amongst the teams grouped three to six.

After that the changes started to come in.  The biggest addition was Dillard High School which checked in at #13 thanks to a recent win over Miami Country Day School, which held its ranking by beating Potter's House Christian Academy (now #15-16) a week later.  Some of the individual polls give as much weight to quality wins as losses while others punish a loss more severely.

Independent private school versus state association member match-ups

Recently we had two rare match-ups of national powers from non-state association members (Potter's House and New Hope) versus two national powers (Miami Country Day and Myers Park) representing schools which play in nationally sanctioned state associations.

Both games (Miami Country Day over Potter's House and Myers Park over New Hope) produced close results indicating the quality of play by the top independent private school teams is close to that of top teams from state association member schools.  I salute these teams for playing each other, sometimes very difficult to impossible to arrange due to rules against such match-ups by various state associations.

The system

For those of you who missed poll #1, here is how this poll works.  The four national polls (links below) were reviewed and 25 points assigned to the team ranked first down to one point for a team ranked 25th.  Then the points were added up (maximum score 100) to create the ranking order.

Here are the links to the individual polls:

Blue Star Media: THE MOUNT: Mississippi school joins Blue Star Media Elite 25 girls' basketball rankings; No. 10 Dillard (FL) rolling - Blue St

ESPN: espnW 25 Power Rankings - ESPN

MaxPreps: MaxPreps Top 25 national high school girls basketball rankings - MaxPreps

USA Today: Girls Varsity Basketball Expert Rankings | USA Today High School Sports

Swish Appeal Prep Poll of Polls (from polls released week of January 25, 2015)

1-2 Mater Dei High School (Santa Ana, California) 98 (2 first place) (#1-2)

1-2 Neumann-Goretti High School (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) 98 (2 first place) (#1-2)

3 St. Mary's High School (Stockton, California) 87 (#5)

4 Blackman High School (Murfreesboro, Tennessee) 85 (#3)

5 Bedford North Lawrence High School (Bedford, Indiana) 83 (#4)

6 Whitney Young High School (Chicago, Illinois) 78 (#6)

7 Myers Park High School (Charlotte, North Carolina) 61 (#11-13)

8-9 Cypress Woods High School (Cypress, Texas) 55 (#15-16)

8-9 Miami Country Day School (Miami, Florida) 55 (#9)

10 Poly (Long Beach, California) 53 (#11-13)

11 Elizabethtown High School (Elizabethtown, Kentucky) 52 (#11-13)

12 Lawrence North High School (Indianapolis, Indiana) 49 (#15-16)

13 Dillard High School (Fort Lauderdale, Florida) 48 (NR)

14 Paul VI High School (Fairfax, Virginia) 41 (#8)

15-16 Potter's House Christian Academy (Jacksonville, Florida) 39 (#7)

15-16 Ridgeway High School (Memphis, Tennessee) 39 (#14)

17-18 Chaminade College Prep School (West Hills, California) 27 (#20)

17-18 Hopkins High School (Minnetonka, Minnesota) 27 (#19)

19 Marian High School (Bloomfield Hills, Michigan) 24 (#18)

20-21 Desert Vista High School (Phoenix, Arizona) 20 (NR)

20-21 Eastview High School (Apple Valley, Minnesota) 20 (#21)

22-23 Princess Anne High School (Virginia Beach, Virginia) 19 (#22-23)

22-23 Gonzaga Prep (Spokane, Washington) 19 (#24)

24 Olive Branch High School (Olive Branch, Mississippi) 13 (NR)

25 Central Dauphin East High School (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania) 12 (NR)

25 New Hope Christian Academy (Thomasville, North Carolina) 12 (#17)

Dropped out:

Long Island Lutheran High School (Brookville, New York) previously #10

Cardinal O'Hara High School (Springfield, Pennsylvania) previously #22-23

Heritage Christian School (Indianapolis, Indiana) previously #25

Notes:

Teams with location are listed according to number of points garnered with prior poll standing in parenthesis.  Where there are ties, teams are listed alphabetically. NR stands for "not ranked" in last poll.  Again for more details on each team, see the four polls individually.   Hopefully, our next update will be posted in about two weeks depending on the publication of the individual polls.