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The No. 1 men's team entering 2011-12 is ...

August 31, 2011

Fans in Westwood will be happy to see that UCLA is the No. 1 ranked team in the *Golf World/*Nike Golf preseason Division I coaches' poll.

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The Bruins earned eight of the 19 available first-place votes after finishing first in the stroke-play portion of the 2011 NCAA Championship. This is the second time in four seasons that coach Derek Freeman's team has started the fall as the No. 1 ranked team, the other being at the beginning of the 2008-09 campaign.

Oklahoma State comes in at No. 2. I mention this because it's the first time the Cowboys haven't been ranked No. 1 in the poll since the end of the 2008-09 season.

The SEC has the most teams in the top 25 of any individual conference with six. The Pac-12 (going to take me a little while to get used to typing this) and the Big 12 each have five teams, while the ACC has four and the Big Ten has three.

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Abilene Christian enters the 2011-12 season as the No. 1 ranked team in the Division II preseason coaches' poll. The Wildcats won five tournaments a year ago and finished no worse than fourth in any of their 13 starts, reaching the Final Four of the NCAA D-II Championship.

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Greensboro, the defending NCAA champion, begins the 2011-12 season as the top-ranked team in the D-III preseason coaches' poll. The Pride claimed 10 of the 14 first-place votes after last year's three-win campaign.

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Oklahoma Christian, which won its second NAIA championship in three years last spring, enters the 2011-12 season as the No. 1 ranked team in the NAIA preseason coaches' poll. The Eagles won five times last season and finished outside the top two in just one event. The squad claimed eight of the 10 available first-place votes.

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Indian Hills, the defending NJCAA D-I champion, is the No. 1 ranked team in the first ever Golf World/Nike Golf NJCAA D-I preseason coaches' poll. The Iowa-based school was the first "northern" program to win the national title after the Warriors had finished either second or third at the championship seven of the previous 10 years.

South Mountain can boast of holding the No. 1 ranking in the first NJCAA D-II preseason coaches' poll. The Cougars claimed five of the seven first-place votes available.