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The Chase to Corvallis

The Chase to Corvallis begins in January, as the nation's top teams battle for one of the coveted 12 spots at the National meet.  Teams have been hard at work through the Fall training period, adapting to the new code, and working to gain a competitive edge.  CollegeGymFans.com takes a look at the Top 25 teams, as determined by the Coaches' Preseason Poll.  

Since the NCAA officially began sponsoring the Championships in 1982, just four teams have taken the title, Alabama, Georgia, UCLA and Utah.  Last season was no different, and defending champion Georgia is the Coaches' PreSeason favorite to take it all.  Will this year be any different?  Not according to the Poll, which places these four teams in the top four slots, and divvies up first place votes among them.

The teams that make it to Corvallis won't be easy to predict, once again.  And once teams have made the National finals, it could be even more difficult to predict who the final Super Six will be come April.  Increasing parity, a modified code, and the all or nothing nature of the Regional meet makes the field wide open.  Last season, we saw the partial deployment of the Judges Assigning System.  This system will now be mandatory throughout the NCAA, and should result in more uniformity than the obvious discrepencies created last year.  As always, injuries unfortunately always seem to play a major factor, especially with teams battling for the final slots at Nationals.  This was especially true last season, as certain injury-beset teams such as Stanford found themselves sitting home in April.

Location sometimes plays a factor in boosting the confidence of the host teams, and here are the 2006 Regional Host sites:

So without further ado, here is a brief look at the Top 25, as determined by the Coaches' Preseason Poll.

Teams Ranked 1 through 6

Teams Ranked 7 through 12

Teams Ranked 13 through 18

Teams Ranked 19 through 25

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