Please see another edition of our Division III Power Rankings. These power rankings have been delayed a bit, as we were all watching the Williams/PP matchup yesterday and tried to update the rankings accordingly. These rankings also do not have today’s UWW/Depauw matchup fully implemented into the rankings, but we wanted to get it to you as soon as we could. We are… already a day late! With Williams officially starting their season, we’ve seen every single team in the top 30 play a semi-meaningful match except Middlebury, who will be in action this weekend.
| New Ranking | Previous Rank | D3AS | D3West | D3NE | D3 Central | |
| 1 | CMS | 1 | CMS | CMS | CMS | CMS |
| 2 | Amherst | 2 | Amherst | Amherst | Amherst | Amherst |
| 3 | Wash U | 3 | Wash U | Wash U | Wash U | Wash U |
| 4 | Johns Hopkins | 5 | Johns Hopkins | Johns Hopkins | Johns Hopkins | Johns Hopkins |
| 5 | Middlebury | 4 | Middlebury | Trinity TX | Middlebury | Middlebury |
| 6 | Trinity TX | 7 | Trinity TX | Middlebury | Trinity Tx | Trinity TX |
| 7 | Emory | 9 | Emory | Williams | Emory | Carnegie Mellon |
| 8 | Carnegie Mellon | 8 | Carnegie Mellon | Carnegie Mellon | Williams | Emory |
| 9 | Williams | 6 | Case Western | Emory | Carnegie Mellon | Case Western |
| 10 | Case Western | 10 | Williams | Case Western | Case Western | Williams |
| 11 | Bowdoin | 11 | Kenyon | Bowdoin | Kenyon | Kenyon |
| 12 | Kenyon | 12 | Bowdoin | Pomona | Bowdoin | Pomona |
| 13 | Pomona | 13 | Pomona | Whitman | Pomona | Bowdoin |
| 14 | Whitman | 14 | Whitman | Redlands | Whitman | Whitman |
| 15 | Redlands | 15 | Redlands | Kenyon | Redlands | Redlands |
| 16 | Mary Washington | 17 | Mary Washington | Gustavus Adolphus | Mary Washington | Mary Washington |
| 17 | Gustavus Adolphus | 16 | Gustavus Adolphus | Mary Washington | UCSC | Gustavus Adolphus |
| 18 | UCSC | 19 | UT-Tyler | UCSC | Gustavus Adolphus | UCSC |
| 19 | UT-Tyler | 18 | UCSC | Cal Lutheran | UT-Tyler | UT-Tyler |
| 20 | Cal Lutheran | 21 | Whittier | UT-Tyler | Whittier | Cal Lutheran |
| 21 | Whittier | 20 | Cal Lutheran | Whittier | Cal Lutheran | Whittier |
| 22 | Washington & Lee | 23 | Washington & Lee | Washington & Lee | Wesleyan | Washington & Lee |
| 23 | NYU | 25 | Colby | NYU | Colby | NYU |
| 24 | Colby | 31 | NYU | Skidmore | Washington & Lee | Skidmore |
| 25 | Skidmore | 26 | Wesleyan | Colby | NYU | Brandeis |
| 26 | Wesleyan | 24 | Skidmore | UW-Whitewater | UW-Whitewater | Colby |
| 27 | UW-Whitewater | 22 | Tufts | Tufts | Skidmore | Wesleyan |
| 28 | Tufts | 27 | Brandeis | Trinity CT | Tufts | UW-Whitewater |
| 29 | Brandeis | NR | Trinity CT | Chicago | Trinity CT | Tufts |
| 30 | Trinity CT | NR | Denison | Denison | Bates | Chicago |
| NR | Chicago | NR | Chicago | Wesleyan | Chicago | Denison |
| NR | Denison | NR | UW-Whitewater | Bates | Denison | Trinity CT |
| NR | Bates | NR | Swarthmore | Brandeis | MIT | Bates |
| NR | Swarthmore | NR | Bates | Swarthmore | Brandeis | MIT |
| NR | MIT | NR | MIT | MIT | RPI | RPI |
| NR | RPI | 28 | RPI | RPI | Stevens | Stevens |
| NR | Stevens | NR | Stevens | Stevens | Swarthmore | Swarthmore |
| NR | Sewanee | NR | Sewanee | Sewanee | Sewanee | Sewanee |
Notable Moves:
Williams, Down 3 Spots – While the match yesterday was certainly an incredible match, Williams showed us that they have been heavily impacted by their senior graduations. Despite being the national champion, they went 5-4 with Pomona (#13) and needed a couple three set victories to pull that one out. They look like they are in that third tier of teams that begins right after Case Western. However, since they won, it’s tough to move them down all that much. The beauty of a power ranking is that we can move teams based on what we think, and Williams has dropped to #9 and could drop further.
Colby Mules, Up 7 Spots – Colby has broken into the national scene with a couple of top 30 victories. First, they took down Bates in a nail-biter, and now they have taken down UW-Whitewater as well. It’s definitely possible that both of these wins aren’t even that impactful, but we have to reward Colby for their solid play so far. Expect Colby to potentially drop in the rankings as UW-W continues their down year.
UW-Whitewater, Down 5 Spots – Again, we have not taken today’s Depauw match into consideration. With their loss to Colby, however, UWW deserved to move down and it looks like they will struggle for the rest of the year. This just represents what a crazy section the #22-30 area is. UWW has already beaten Chicago on the year so that is what is somehow keeping them afloat.
RPI, Down to NR – All of a sudden, RPI’s win against Stevens doesn’t really mean too much for us. They lost to MIT in the fall and have no other wins that are really all that good. They recently lost to Whittier in a tough one, 5-4. RPI is a potential top 30 team but we need to see what else they can bring to the table before rewarding them.
Notable Differences:
D3West’s Kenyon Ranking – Wow, ranked at #15 behind the West trio. D3West decided that he wasn’t a believer in a team that has only beaten Redlands on the year in the third match of Indoor Nationals. Redlands has a series of results that have been fairly strong lately, and Kenyon has been struggling against the likes of Swarthmore and Stevens (relatively). Tough to put them below Redlands, but an argument can be had that Kenyon needs to prove something once again.
D3NE’s Wesleyan Ranking – D3NE is very high on Wesleyan this year, despite them not having played a significant match. At #22, this is 3 spots higher than the next Wesleyan rank (D3AS) and significantly higher than D3West’s ranking of #31. D3NE truly believes in the strong recruiting class Wesleyan has brought in and is looking to prove us all wrong, despite history telling us that they will be around the #25-#28 range.
The only thing I can say to these comments is that the 20-40 teams are nearly indistiguishable at this point.
Washington and Lee is where they are simply because the rankings committee tends not to drop a team until they actually suffer a bad loss. When we don’t really know what to do, that’s what we fall back on.
RPI didn’t drop simply because their name (or lack thereof). It’s not like Colby is a household DIII tennis name. They’ve always been one of the worst teams in the NESCAC. Personally, the reason I dropped them to the bottom of the (very large) tier in the 20-37 range is because of their 5-4 win over Oxy. The Tigers simply aren’t that good this year, so that was my biggest concern there.
In the end, it’s really difficult to make a convincing argument for any of these teams over any of the others because none of them have great wins and they’ve all been beating up on each other. It’s only going to get more difficult next week with Depauw throwing their name in the conversation and Cal Lu officially joining the list of “Wait, they haven’t actually beaten anyone. Why are they so high in the rankings?” teams.
Other than that, please continue the comments. If anyone can make a truly convincing argument for any team, we will definitely take it into consideration.
You are right on when it comes to 20-40 teams. Still surprised by the RPI drop. I couldn’t justify a big drop by a win. Looks like it was their first match outside and 2 out of the 9 ended in injury. Of course no excuses but then what does the 5-4 loss to Whittier say about both those teams?
I think you got about 30 teams that all could potentially fill that 20-40 list.
RPI seemed headed for losses in the two matches they lost to “injury.” I would say that Whittier is a team with very defined strengths and weaknesses that will play close matches with just about anybody. They get two point from Konstantinov, but they’re quite weak at 5 and 6. If Whittier were to play a team like Skidmore or Tufts, I wouldn’t be too confident that they would win.
In the end, the only good result RPI has is a 6-1 win over Stevens, who has proven themselves not to be that good. You could definitely make a good argument that RPI should be ahead of Swarthmore, but Swat has been competitive in some of the matches they’ve lost to top 20 teams, and RPI simply hasn’t had a chance to show that they can do that yet.
Wesleyan is going to be very good this year. Wait until they really start getting into their season
You go D3tennis fan
I don’t understand why Washington and lee is ranked, they have no meaningful wins, and from the their losses, it looks like they have been crunched. Also it is amazing how whitewater beat Chicago though and whitewater has lost all these matches. They are just some teams that are just all over the place. Colby beat a bates team that was missing their 2nd doubles team as well. There are just a lot of good teams this year and unfortunately some have to be unranked. Perhaps they could extend the rankings past 30 like division 1.
Bates was not missing its 2nd doubles team, Ordway and Bogard played together all weekend down at Mary Washington. That is their 2nd doubles team. In fact, Colby is missing their #1/#2 singles player in Jason Ottomano
I think for the most part you guys nailed the rankings and it certainly gets dicey towards the bottom.
I do think its pretty laughable that since most people have never seen RPI in a ranking before that they have to prove themselves and you drop them 10 spots. Every other household tennis name gets a free pass… Colby, Wesleyan, Tufts, Brandeis, Trinity, Bates have a bunch of mixed results and inadvertent wins over an obviously weak UW-Whitewater so they get thrown into the top 30 somewhere haha.
Swarthmore is certainly inflated since their only decent win is over Stevens 5-4 and their losses pretty lop-sided to anyone else ranked.
Depauw’s win is great but certainly a lot less meaning after UW-W continues to show weakness.
Good luck figuring out those last few spots next week!
What about Depauw? They just murdered UW-Whitewater, and it is clear that they have talent.
this is in the article, but you must not have seen it. These rankings were done before today’s results (I’m pretty sure they were published before the match took place). Rest assured, that result will be factored in next week’s rankings.
Actually it’s in the article twice.