The Baltimore Sun's Top 20 poll
| No. School | 2011 W-L | Final 2011 rank* |
| 1. Duke | 14-6 | 6 |
| 2. Virginia | 13-5 | 9 |
| 3. Denver | 15-3 | 5 |
| 4. Johns Hopkins | 13-3 | 3 |
| 5. Cornell | 14-3 | 2 |
| 6. North Carolina | 10-6 | 7 |
| 7. Notre Dame | 11-3 | 4 |
| 8. Villanova | 11-5 | 14 |
| 9. Massachusetts | 10-5 | 20 |
| 10. Maryland | 13-4 | 8 |
| 11. Harvard | 10-6 | 16 |
| 12. Syracuse | 15-2 | 1 |
| 13. Penn State | 7-7 | NR |
| 14. Penn | 8-7 | 17 |
| 15. Yale | 10-4 | NR |
| 16. Delaware | 11-7 | 11 |
| 17. Bucknell | 14-3 | 10 |
| 18. Ohio State | 8-8 | NR |
| 19. Hartford | 11-7 | NR |
| 20. Colgate | 11-5 | 13 |
Other teams considered: Drexel (8-6), Fairfield (8-8), Hofstra (13-3), Loyola (8-5), Princeton (4-8)
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*regular season