We’re back with some more Power Rankings of the week! After gracing you with The Guru’s thoughts on the DIII landscape this morning (yea, we have the Guru. That’s a boast) we now want to present you with our thoughts on the DIII landscape with our weekly power rankings. You’ll see that last week was actually a pretty exciting week in terms of matches and movement. First thing to note when going through these rankings is that these are POWER RANKINGS. These are not how we depict the ITA ranks will look. You can look at the ITA Rankings for that, if you so please. These are also in no way how the Brackets for the NCAA tournament will be made. Again, you’d have to (for the most part) look at the ITA Rankings for those as well. Okay, here we go!
| 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 | Emory | 4 | Emory | Trinity TX | Emory | Emory |
| 5 | Middlebury | 7 | Middlebury | Emory | Middlebury | Trinity TX |
| 6 | Trinity TX | 5 | Johns Hopkins | Middlebury | Trinity Tx | Middlebury |
| 7 | Johns Hopkins | 6 | Trinity TX | Johns Hopkins | Johns Hopkins | Johns Hopkins |
| 8 | Carnegie Mellon | 8 | Carnegie Mellon | Carnegie Mellon | Carnegie Mellon | Carnegie Mellon |
| 9 | Case Western | 10 | Case Western | Case Western | Case Western | Case Western |
| 10 | Bowdoin | 11 | Bowdoin | Bowdoin | Bowdoin | Bowdoin |
| 11 | Pomona | 12 | Pomona | Pomona | Pomona | Williams |
| 12 | Whitman | 13 | Whitman | Whitman | Williams | Pomona |
| 13 | Williams | 9 | Gustavus Adolphus | Williams | Whitman | Whitman |
| 14 | Gustavus Adolphus | 14 | Williams | Kenyon | Gustavus Adolphus | Kenyon |
| 15 | Kenyon | 15 | Kenyon | Gustavus Adolphus | Mary Washington | Gustavus Adolphus |
| 16 | Mary Washington | 16 | Mary Washington | Mary Washington | Kenyon | Mary Washington |
| 17 | UT-Tyler | 18 | Skidmore | Skidmore | Skidmore | UT-Tyler |
| 18 | Skidmore | 34 | Cal Lutheran | UT-Tyler | UT-Tyler | Chicago |
| 19 | Cal Lutheran | 17 | UT-Tyler | Redlands | Cal Lutheran | Cal Lutheran |
| 20 | Chicago | 19 | Chicago | Chicago | Redlands | Redlands |
| 21 | Redlands | 20 | Redlands | Cal Lutheran | Chicago | UCSC |
| 22 | UCSC | 21 | UCSC | UCSC | UCSC | Whittier |
| 23 | Whittier | 22 | Whittier | Whittier | Whittier | Depauw |
| 24 | DePauw | 24 | Bates | Depauw | Depauw | Washington & Lee |
| 25 | Bates | 32 | DePauw | Bates | Washington & Lee | Skidmore |
| 26 | Washington & Lee | 26 | Washington & Lee | Tufts | Bates | Bates |
| 27 | Denison | 25 | Denison | Denison | Denison | Denison |
| 28 | Tufts | 23 | Trinity CT | Trinity CT | Trinity Ct | Tufts |
| 29 | Trinity CT | 28 | Tufts | Pacific (OR) | Tufts | Brandeis |
| 30 | Brandeis | 27 | Brandeis | Brandeis | Brandeis | Trinity CT |
| 31 | Wesleyan | 29 | Wesleyan | Washington & Lee | Wesleyan | Wesleyan |
| 32 | Colby | 30 | Sewanee | Wesleyan | Colby | Colby |
| 33 | RPI | 33 | Colby | Colby | RPI | Sewanee |
| 34 | Sewanee | 35 | RPI | RPI | MIT | Swarthmore |
| 35 | Swarthmore | 36 | UW-Whitewater | NYU | NYU | MIT |
| 36 | MIT | 37 | Swarthmore | MIT | UW-Whitewater | Rochester |
| 37 | UW-Whitewater | 40 | Stevens | UW-Whitewater | Swarthmore | NYU |
| 38 | NYU | 39 | Rochester | Swarthmore | Pacific (OR) | UW-Whitewater |
| 39 | Pacific (OR) | 31 | NYU | Rochester | Rochester | RPI |
| 40 | Rochester | 41 | MIT | Sewanee | Sewanee | Stevens |
| 41 | Stevens | 38 | Pacific (OR) | Stevens | Stevens | Pacific (OR) |
| 42 | Vassar | 42 | Vassar | Vassar | Vassar |
Notable Moves:
Middlebury, Up 2 Spots to #5 – Middlebury moves up a big two spots with their recent performance over Williams and their recent performance over Bowdoin. Notice that even Amherst had a bit of trouble with Williams, so think of that before you start getting all up in arms about moving them up. Hopkins and Trinity TX have not done much lately so Middlebury gets the nod for looking really good in their past couple matches.
Williams, Down 4 Spots to #13 – The defending national champs have officially been broken. Skidmore came in with a healthy Loutsenko to take down the Ephs in what really was a stunner. Surprisingly, the Ephs only moved down 4 spots in our rankings despite the “bad loss.” This is really where I would have put them anyways as they don’t look that strong this year at all. Notice how I was the harshest critic of these guys with my rankings.
Skidmore, Up 16 Spots to #18 – How can you move this team all the way up?, you might ask. Well, with the return of Loutsenko to the singles lineup and their win over Williams, we can say that this team is a top 20 team. Think about it. Everyone in the Black Hole has a bad loss but not all of them have a good win. The win over Williams is the best win by any of them to date. Don’t believe us? Check your facts and get back to us. Skidmore gets the big jump as the pieces start to fall in place right before NCAAs.
Bates, Up 7 Spots to #25 – It felt weird not having Bates in the top 30 for a long time after their terrible loss to Colby earlier in the year. Now, it looks like they’ve shaken off that bad start and recently put in a decisive win over Tufts and then followed that up with a solid win over Brandeis. Bates is back in our good graces for now as they head into the NESCAC tournament (hopefully).
Those are really the notable moves of this edition, but I’d say it’s pretty clear to me that there are separate tiers in the DIII world. Like it happens every year, there are true contenders, Final 4 contenders (Tier 2), Tier 3 teams, and then this year, the Black Hole. Another thing to note – Skidmore’s win over Williams means that the bracketology we last posted now has a legit #2 seed in Amherst’s region, meaning we may not even need to change that bracketology. We’ll see when the next edition comes out. D3ASowth, out.
Who have been the most impressive Freshman this year Nationally while having the biggest impact on their team?
No question the answer is John Carswell from Wash U. We all believe he should be playing 1 singles, but Follmer doesn’t like putting freshmen there. He is undefeated at 2 with a win over CMS’s Dorn as well. Wash U is virtually unbeatable at 2 and 3 which also has a freshmen there in Jeremy Bush. Carswell plays 2 dubs and Bush plays at 1 doubles.
Oh, and let us not forget Buxbaum from Hopkins. The CMU freshmen have been great as well, but they’re playing low in the lineup
I like your Buxbaum and Schober picks. Maybe we can put together an All-Freshman team in the next couple of weeks? We could either do it and just pick the 6-8 top freshmen in the country or we could do it by position. Both could be fun.
Also, how about a listing of best singles and doubles by lineup position?
Singles:
1. Wood (CMS)
2. Carswell (Wash U)
3. Marino (CMS)
4. Butts (CMS)
5. Mayer (TU) or Zheng (CMU)
6. Reindel (Herst)
Doubles:
1. Soooo tough to choose. I’m going Fritz/Reindel
2. Marino/Pereverzhin
3. Butts/Kotrappa
That’s not being a West-region homer, either. CMS’ #3 doubles team, Marino, and Butts are all undefeated in DIII matches. Marino/Pereverzhin have one loss, which is incredible considering they’re all prosets. Wood also has just one DIII loss this Spring in soooo many matches, though you could make an argument for Ruderman or some other guys.
Mine would be almost identical, but probably Yaraghi (Amherst) at 5 singles as he now is playing there which is a bit nuts.
I think I would agree with West and Central. Either Yaraghi or Zheng at 5. Just to be different I’ll throw Krimbill/Klawitter at 1 dubs.
Carswell is #1 for sure, but you gotta throw Avery Schober from Sewanee and Yasgoor from P-P in there as well
Rpi went 5-4 with occidental….that cant be justified
lets penalize them for a win, yea?
MIT recently got smacked by Brandeis and lost to Bates who lost to Colby.
Let the rackets do the talking.
Hey Johny tennis I head that RPI played Occidental less than 12 hours after flying from east coast my guess is if Oxxy flew to east coast to play probably 7-2 or 8-1 win for RPI also MIT was in the fall. RPI Win against Skidmore who lost to Middlebury 8-1 while Middlebury beats RPI but only 6-3 guess that counts for nothing in your mind. Don’t know but guessing RPI should be a little higher than 33 if Skidmore is as high as 18
RPI lost to Vassar recently and their win against Skidmore was without Loutsenko playing singles. We believe they are adequately ranked. The Vassar loss really hurts them considering Vassar has literally not beaten anyone else close to the top 30 this year. Vassar also lost to Skidmore 7-2 btw, without Loutsenko
mit beat rpi….
… in October