It’s a bit late this Tuesday, but as scheduled, we will have the weekly power rankings for the Men’s! We had a lot happen the last couple of days, including Nick Ballou going to Indian Wells to represent the Blog and DIII Tennis at a Wilson PR Event, Trinity beating Kenyon with 6 three set matches, Pomona taking out CMU in a huge Pool C match, along with some other matches. As I said last week, we will be providing a list of all the latest results to help you form your own power rankings or poke holes in our arguments. We welcome new commenters and ideas alike, so please feel free to give your two cents! Latest results below, let us know if this format is a bit messy because I’m sure it is.
Latest Results:
Redlands def. Mary Wash 6-3
CNU def. Whittier 7-2
Cruz def. Whittier 5-4
Kenyon def. Cruz 5-4
Trinity def. Kenyon 8-1
Coe def. McMurry 7-2 (McMurry – #1 singles)
P-P def. CMU 5-4
P-P def. Mary Wash 5-4
Stevens def Swat 6-3
Skidmore def NYU 7-2
Skidmore def. RPI 6-3
Denison def Kalamazoo 6-3
Carnegie Mellon def Rochester 9-0
CMS def. CLU 9-0
Chicago over Depauw 7-2 (no Chua)
Bates def. Babson 8-1
Gustavus def Whitewater 7-2
Wash U def Rochester 7-2 (half of Wash U’s lineup)
UT Tyler def Wabash 9-0 (not on the move)
Swat def W&L 7-2
Babson def Vassar 8-1
MIT def Vassar 6-3
Pacific and GFU def. Lewis and Clark 5-4
Mary Wash def. Cal Lu 5-4
| New Ranking | School | Previous Rank | D3AS | D3West | D3NE | D3 Central | D3Regional |
| 1 | CMS | 1 | CMS | Trinity TX | CMS | CMS | CMS |
| 2 | Trinity TX | 2 | Trinity TX | CMS | Trinity Tx | Trinity TX | Trinity TX |
| 3 | Amherst | 4 | Amherst | Amherst | Amherst | Emory | Emory |
| 4 | Emory | 3 | Emory | Emory | Emory | Amherst | Amherst |
| 5 | Wash U | 5 | Wash U | Wash U | Wash U | Wash U | Wash U |
| 6 | Johns Hopkins | 6 | Middlebury | Johns Hopkins | Johns Hopkins | Johns Hopkins | Johns Hopkins |
| 7 | Middlebury | 7 | Johns Hopkins | Middlebury | Middlebury | Middlebury | Middlebury |
| 8 | Kenyon | 8 | Kenyon | Kenyon | Kenyon | Kenyon | Kenyon |
| 9 | Case Western | 10 | Case Western | Case Western | Case Western | Chicago | Chicago |
| 10 | Chicago | 11 | Chicago | Chicago | Chicago | Case Western | Case Western |
| 11 | Williams | 12 | Whitman | Williams | Williams | Williams | Williams |
| 12 | Whitman | 13 | Pomona | Bowdoin | Whitman | Bowdoin | Carnegie Mellon |
| 13 | Carnegie Mellon | 9 | Carnegie Mellon | Pomona | Carnegie Mellon | Gustavus Adolphus | Redlands |
| 14 | Bowdoin | 14 | Bates | Whitman | Pomona | Bates | Wesleyan |
| 15 | Pomona | 17 | Bowdoin | Carnegie Mellon | Bowdoin | Whitman | Whitman |
| 16 | Bates | 15 | Williams | Bates | Bates | Pomona | Gustavus Adolphus |
| 17 | Gustavus Adolphus | 16 | Redlands | Gustavus Adolphus | Redlands | Carnegie Mellon | Bowdoin |
| 18 | Redlands | 18 | Wesleyan | Redlands | Gustavus Adolphus | Redlands | Bates |
| 19 | Wesleyan | 19 | Gustavus Adolphus | Wesleyan | Mary Washington | Wesleyan | Pomona |
| 20 | Mary Washington | 20 | Mary Washington | Mary Washington | Wesleyan | Mary Washington | Tufts |
| 21 | Tufts | 21 | Tufts | Tufts | Tufts | UT-Tyler | UCSC |
| 22 | UT-Tyler | 22 | UT-Tyler | UT-Tyler | UT-Tyler | Tufts | UT-Tyler |
| 23 | UCSC | 23 | UCSC | UCSC | UCSC | UCSC | Mary Washington |
| 24 | Trinity CT | 24 | Trinity CT | UW-Whitewater | Trinity Ct | Trinity CT | Trinity CT |
| 25 | UW-Whitewater | 25 | Stevens | Cal Lutheran | UW-Whitewater | UW-Whitewater | Cal Lutheran |
| 26 | Cal Lutheran | 26 | Cal Lutheran | Stevens | Stevens | Cal Lutheran | UW-Whitewater |
| 27 | Stevens | 31 | UW-Whitewater | Trinity CT | Cal Lutheran | Brandeis | Skidmore |
| 28 | Denison | 28 | Denison | NC Wesleyan | Brandeis | Denison | Denison |
| 29 | Brandeis | 27 | NC Wesleyan | Denison | Denison | NC Wesleyan | Brandeis |
| 30 | Skidmore | 30 | Skidmore | Skidmore | Skidmore | Stevens | Stevens |
| 31 | NC Wesleyan | 29 | Swarthmore | Swarthmore | DePauw | Skidmore | Swarthmore |
| 32 | Swarthmore | 35 | Brandeis | Brandeis | NC Wesleyan | Depauw | NC Wesleyan |
| 33 | DePauw | 32 | Washington & Lee | Coe | Coe | Swarthmore | Coe |
| 34 | Coe | 40 | Coe | DePauw | Swarthmore | Coe | DePauw |
| 35 | Washington & Lee | 34 | DePauw | Pacific | Sewanee | Washington & Lee | Washington & Lee |
| 36 | Pacific | 37 | Pacific | Colby | Pacific | Colby | Pacific |
| 37 | Colby | 38 | Colby | Washington & Lee | MIT | Sewanee | Colby |
| 38 | Sewanee | 36 | Babson | Babson | Washington & Lee | McMurry | Sewanee |
| 39 | Babson | – | CNU | George Fox | Colby | Pacific | Babson |
| 40 | MIT | – | George Fox | CNU | Babson | Babson | CNU |
| 41 | CNU | – | |||||
| 42 | George Fox | – |
This week, there were actually a surprising lack of moves in the Power Rankings despite the many results. Some quick hitters below:
Carnegie Mellon – Drops 4 Spots to #13
The big mover of the week was CMU, and that isn’t a good thing. They dropped 4 spots with their recent loss to Pomona and that’s without taking the Bowdoin loss into effect. CMU will be dropping farther unless they can pull some magic out of their hat (or some miracle grow) due to their many injuries and failures. Disaster spring break for CMU right now.
Stevens – Up 4 Spots to #27
Stevens moves up 4 spots to #27 after taking out Swarthmore who took out Washington and Lee. Stevens has had a solid year so far and are steadily moving up the rankings with the top 25 in their grasp. It will be interesting to see where they end up because they aren’t necessarily the most talented team, but they are hard workers and have a lot of dedication.
My computer is bugging out and I don’t want to lose this draft, so instead of calling out Swarthmore (good job Garnet!) I will post this article so you can all view it. All hail the blog, Asouth OUT.
Have not even checked, but I am probably wrong about the NWC having three men’s team ranked in the ITA. Probably George Fox is not in there and I was confused because George Fox made the top 42 or so in the Power Rankings. Still, I think having two ranked teams in the top 40 is a good accomplishment, compared to almost all otherother leagues.
We will just have to wait for me to do my compilation, unless someone else volunteers to do it.
I’m holding my breath.
Pacific isn’t ranked either. It takes literally three seconds to look at the rankings, man
Guess that is not why I am not a blogger, who check the facts before they write about them. But I bet the bloggers, who vote on the Power Rankings, consider them to be more accurate than the ITA rankings. Both Pacific and George Fox are in the top 42 in the Power Rankings, so that should count for something.
Whitman, Linfield, and Lewis & Clark are in the top 40 of the ITA rankings, but the latter two did not make the Power Rankings, probably because they stop at #34.
Correction — Whitman, Linfield, and Lewis & Clark are in the top 40 of the WOMEN’S ITA rankings.
The rankings will change very quickly. Case is a very overrated team at number 9 and will be at number 15 in the next rankings. Some underrated teams include Bowdoin, Pomona-Pitzer, and Carnegie Mellon. CMU beat Trinity, who is the number 1 team in the country. Bowdoin beat CMU. Now, Pomona-Pitzer is beating Bowdoin and will defeat Case with ease at Stag-Hen. In my opinion, Case should be ranked in the 15-18 range, because they are very weak in doubles this year and lack depth in the singles lineup. CMU should be ranked 9 in the country. Then, Pomona-Pitzer should be ranked at 10 with Bowdoin being ranked at 11. It is tough doing these rankings, but Case is the most overrated team in the country. They do not belong in the top 10 at all this year. Case has lost to Kenyon twice, lost to John Hopkins, and got crushed by Wash U.
Nice that George Fox replaced RPI in the rankings. Must be because George Fox had a much better “close loss” against a team ranked much higher than them than did RPI, as I explained in a prior post.
Still feel that any 5-4 loss against a team ranked much higher should count for something in the rankings, and more so if the order of finish shows the score was tied, 4-4 before the final match was completed and/or there were many three set singles matches, more so if they occurred later in the match. Under my ranking system, everything is relative, not using a head in the sand all or nothing approach (i.e. nothing counts in the rankings unless you win, baby).
George Fox has a tough match this Saturday against their NWC brethren, #36 Pacific, at Pacific, and has a chance to switch rankings with them if they win. They soon play three teams that are probably just outside the current list of ranked teams, Occidental, Vassar, and Chapman, before playing the team they just replaced in the rankings, RPI, as their second match of the day after playing Chapman.
I am not a fan of George Fox but, in general, am a fan of the Northwest Conference, which I think has been generally been slighted in past years, both with respect to its men’s and women’s tennis.
You get what you want and you still complain?
Not to mention here you are complaining constantly for George Fox while Cruz loses 5-4 to Kenyon moves nowhere and you say nothing? I personally think that’s justified but this is exactly what you were complaining about except it’s not a NorthWest team so you say nothing. Can you tell how biased you are?
My initial comment was initiated solely based upon my feeling that the Northwest Conference does not get enough recognition. (or “love”). I should add that it was nice that whichever blogger recently substituted George Fox for RPI in his ratings, to get George Fox ranked, did the right thing, and I understand that it is a big job to do rankings. I certainly wouldn’t want to have to task to compile them. Way too much work.
Your comment about my being biased is funny. I did not volunteer to do a complete review of the rankings nor was I asked to. Therefore whatever feelings I have about, biased or not, are totally irrelevant. Actually, I have a warm place in my heart for UCSC, as my son’s first serious tennis coach played there (said he was the first player to win both D3 singles and doubles titles in a single year) and I have had a few nice conversations with former Slug (current Middlebury) coach Bob Hansen.
Getting back on topic, if I have time tonight I will examine the Cruz – Kenyon scorecard and give you my thoughts on how much I think Cruz should have moved up (and Kenyon moved down) just on that match.
A possible future comment I might make is exactly what factors of a 5 – 4 loss most help move the needle to change a ranking (there are about four of them, with greater numbers of them existing entitling more of a change in the rankings).
But, prior to that, what I will surely post, which will demonstrate how little respect the Northwest Conference gets, is to take the latest ITA rankings and tally how many schools from each conference are now in the top 40, both for the men and the women. The Northwest Conference now has three teams in that category for both the men and the women, which I feel, without doing any checking, makes them rank fourth in this category. I’ll post the results of my compilation soon, but if the NWC is anywhere close to fourth I don’t think that is too shabby, and actually pretty damn good.
Ok sorry about that. I guess I just assumed that since you have the gall to tell the bloggers where teams should be nationally ranked that would mean you actually followed the big matches on the national scale, or hell at least scan through the matches that were posted on the article you’re commenting on now.
So really, if you know so little about the national D3 tennis scene that you don’t even know when a team that you claim to have “a warm place in your heart” has a tight match against a top 10 school do you think you should be telling bloggers where they should be placing schools in their power rankings?
Hater,
Each article the bloggers post has a place under it allowing people to “leave a reply.” To me, at least, that means that they are looking for responses. That means when they write an article on Power Rankings, and allow for a reply, there are looking for comments on that subject, good or bad on that subject.
I just honed in on something that interested me, which was the ranking of a single Northwest Conference team. I commented and the bloggers listened, putting the team I focused on, George Fox into their next rankings. You “assumed” (see your language “I just assumed”) wrong. I don’t follow the national scene very closely and don’t have to, so the rest of your incoherent rant is based upon a false assumption.
However, since I have been following my favorite team closely the past few days, I may have something to say about whether I think the next ranking of them is fair, which may provide a lead in to my comments on how to determine whether a “close good loss” should be determined and begin a discussion of what is a “bad loss” is. But it may not be posted because it will probably be too long. So I may have to break those comments into two separate posts — 1) where I would rank my favorite team and 2) how to determine what a “close good loss” is, with gradations, and when and how much it can move the rankings needle, and also perhaps begin to discuss what a “bad loss” is. I’m sure all of you out there are just dying to read what I have to say.