These are Power Rankings. Read them. Debate them. Get mad at them. Tweet at Brad Entwistle about how good GAC is at tennis. Print them out. Put them on your bulletin board. Complain about naming conventions. Debate the logo being used for your team. Put Middlebury above Bowdoin. Put teams that lost 9-0 to a team above them in the rankings. Speculate injuries. Speculate returns. Speculate suspensions. Tell NE he can’t put all NESCAC schools in the rankings. Comment below. POWER RANKINGS, HERE!
And that is all. ASouth, OUT.
In no particular order:
1. There is almost no daylight among the teams at 2-6. Almost any reconfiguration of those five could be justified. Having said that…
2. I don’t understand why Bowdoin would be ranked above Midd.
3. Williams’ loss to Chicago was their first D3 match of the season, so it makes sense to me that it should be weighted less heavily (which these rankings seem to imply).
4. GAC’s win over Chicago should have carried more weight than it did. On the other hand, it’s hard to move GAC above CMS, and Chicago has some other good wins. So I can understand GAC at 8 (though it doesn’t feel great). I could also see CMS-GAC-Chicago as the ranking at 5-6-7.
5. I’d rank the top 7 in this order, EXCLUDING any impact from DLiu, which I don’t know how to factor in: Emory – Midd – Bowdoin – WIlliams – CMS – GAC – Chicago. (This happens to match CHB’s slate, I just noticed).
1. I actually believe all of 1-7 are very close and can beat each other on any given day, depending on matchup.
2. Since everyone has beaten each other, it’s kind of hard to keep recency bias out of the equation. Yes, Midd looked fantastic this past weekend beating Bowdoin easily, but they were playing at home and really had more on the line in this match. If you remember two years ago, Middlebury smoked Bowdoin in the regular season as well before, well Bowdoin smoked them in the NCAA Final. I went on body of work and overall confidence in their resume, that led me to Bowdoin being higher power ranked than a team they just lost 8-1 to.
3. Agreed regarding Williams and their first match of the season. Although, I will point out that Erik Kerrigan did not play in that match.
4. I agree and disagree. GAC can rightfully claim that they are the better team right now, but David Liu is one of the guys I really believe in in Chicago. I also factored their senior experience (although I know that GAC has it too) given that they’ve made 2 Final 4s in 3 years. I think Chicago is a team to beat this year and will play well come playoff time.
5. Kind of what I said at 1, the whole 1-7 is a bit of a muddled mess. Which means great competition at the end of the year!
CMS has a total of 3 points scored against them in six matches since the biginning of the month and they drop????
That Coe blurb is golden for those who know what’s up
Middlebury at 3 and CMS at 6 seems weird given that CMS beat Midd 8-1…
I’d argue that Middlebury beat Bowdoin 8-1 and Bowdoin beat CMS as well. Hard to Power Rank these teams from #2-7 because they all have beaten each other in a cycle – which to me boiled down to rating teams based on how confident I was in their postseason play and overall talent/ability to win one big match. That led me to pick Middlebury in at #3 instead of my other options (Williams, CMS, Chicago, GAC).
What do you guys make of the situation in Amherst?
Their coach ruined the team. Apparently there is more too it but the fact that 8 people have been driven out and quit really says something.
There’s really not much to make of it. I think some of it has to do with the Amherst culture (take a look at some of the things happening within Amherst athletics in most recent years) and obviously something is not clicking with the team. I don’t think sole blame is to be placed on any individual, but clearly something is not a good fit.
In terms of DIII Tennis, Amherst is obviously much weaker go forward and I doubt they become a factor when it comes down to NCAAs.
what are some of the things that have happened within Amherst athletics in recent years? We are still talking about a program that has won 2 national championships since 2010 and used to be quite dominant most years.
I wouldn’t write them off just yet (long term). They have one of the top, if not the top, incoming recuiting classes. They might be in a lull right now but every program does from time to time.
Don’t get me wrong, Amherst is still one of the most highly-regarded programs and schools in the nation. There has been talk about the relationship between athletics and non-athletes on the Amherst campus, as well as the recent news with one of the football players (i will let you do your own research, as it is a sensitive topic).
Amherst will continue to be strong, but I did want to avoid blaming one person (Coach Doebler) because to me, that is extremely unfair.