First off, the rankings came out yesterday. Here they are, if you haven’t had a chance to look at them. It looks pretty obvious that the ranking committee had a pretty hard time with basically every team after the top 3. You could make so many arguments for so many teams being higher than lower that it’s almost not even worth discussion, but the few that jump out to me are: Cruz at #5 and CMS at #8 seem a little high based on this season’s results. Carnegie Mellon also seems a little high if you’re going to move NCW that low. If Carnegie Mellon really is the #13 team in the country, it’s hard to believe NCW would drop all the way from #5 to #18 for that one loss, but it is convenient for the UAA for Carnegie Mellon to arbitrarily end up one spot ahead of Redlands when they only have wins against the #18 and #25 ranked teams (whereas, Redlands has wins over the #15, #19, and #25 ranked teams). Again, there was really no right way to this, but those are my thoughts.
Now on to the results. Depauw beat Wisconsin-Whitewater 5-4 yesterday. This was a huge win for their program. There’s absolutely no chance they make the tournament this year (barring a miracle against Kenyon in the conference tournament), but this win will keep them in the rankings for one more year unless they take a bad loss later this season. If they had fallen out completely, recruiting would have become much more difficult for them, and the whole program could have dropped off the map.
For Whitewater, this was their second disappointing loss after their big win over Chicago. Unfortunately for them, that win isn’t looking all that great these days, and they’ve gone from possibly going undefeated into the NCAA tournament to potentially dropping out of the rankings. They have another big match in a couple of weeks against GAC, but if they don’t win that one, they will probably be unranked going into NCAAs once again.
The match of day yesterday was obviously Middlebury’s dramatic win over Pomona-Pitzer. Sabel’s injury going into the third set was really just another in a series of unfortunate events for the hardluck Hens. They’ve now lost 5-4 matches to Trinity, Kenyon, Middlebury, and Cal Lu, as well as another excruciatingly close 6-3 loss to Trinity at Indoors. If they had won any of those matches, they would be a virtual lock for Pool C right now, but at the moment, they desperately need a win over Redlands, or they will definitely be on the outside looking in come Selection Sunday. Unfortunately, they might have to do it without one of their best clutch performers in Sabel.
This was a big win for Middlebury. It looks like Hansen still knows how to get his players to perform well in clutch situations. In a season when we’ve seen how fast a team can go from “locks” to potentially missing the tournament (Wash U), this is a win that the Panthers will be able to lean on for the rest of the season. They can’t exactly rest on their laurels, but this win was big. Still, it doesn’t look like they’re playing well enough to beat CMS, but they might play better today after shaking some of the rust off yesterday. I don’t think they can afford to fall down again in doubles against the Stags.
Obviously you have not seen the number 3 for Emory, he has been playing #2 while Goodwin was injured, and did very well. Plus him and Pottish at #3 doubs is another lock.
What do people think about a potential match between Williams and Emory? Obviously the rankings should remain as they are until something proves otherwise, but I feel like Williams can’t help but like their chances with Emory starting freshmen at #3-6. Then again, overcoming the auto-points from Pottish and Goodwin is no small task…
What’s up with Bruchmiller playing 6 for Midd? He played 2 for them last year didn’t he?
Sabel has a serious injury?????? Maybe he is Superman coming back today to win. Maybe he just lost yesterday 6-0 in the 3rd.
Somewhere in between the two. Sabel has one of the strongest wills in the country, Midd guy outplayed him in the end but he also couldn’t move. Not taking away from the Midd win at all but the fact that he played against Whittier is extremely impressive
sabel has also had a habit of losing very big matches for pomona, and while he is strong willed, there is some mental instability there that might have something to do with that
He clinched the 4 all match against redlands last year. He was cramping against midd. Against the same kid who rolled cms.
Sabel has lost in matches sure but who hasn’t? the man plays 3 against top competition nearly every match at a position he is probably overmatched at. To say he has a habit of losing big matches is a massive. He was a pretty sure thing last year for them in those situations and the Midd match was the first time he’d not come through in a situation like that with match on the line against a very good opponent in Brantner Jones. Looks like he didn’t have that habit today getting the clinch against Cruz.
Couldn’t agree more. If you’re gonna call someone a choke, you should probably have a pretty large body of evidence to back it up. I shouldn’t have let that one through.
Is it just me or is it absurd that NCW drops from #5 to #18 for losing to a solid team in CMU?
A little ridiculous, yes. Also didn’t trinity beat Bowdoin 7-2? How are they ranked right ahead of them, shouldn’t that be flipped?
Similar situation. Not defending the way it is because I don’t necessarily agree it, but clearly the theory is that Trinity lost to Skidmore and Bowdoin has no bad losses. Personally, I think the Kenyon-CLU order is easier to defend than this. Trinity has a win against #15, 2 wins vs. #12 and a win vs #10 and Bowdoin has a win against #13 and #17 plus a direct loss to TU.
This is significantly more important because the #10 spot is in line to be the last regional top seed. Without Trinity playing, something weird would have to happen for this to be flipped. Maybe a Bowdoin loss to Bates?
D3 tennis rankings need to be computerized period.
How is Cal Lu not ahead of Kenyon and UC Santa Cruz?
Because they lost to UMW, who has proceeded to lose to everyone. Kenyon doesn’t have any losses as bad as that, plus they have good wins. Cruz being ahead doesn’t matter because they play CLU in a few weeks anyway. Ultimately, who gets the 4th overall seed and who gets the 5th overall seed in NCAAs is irrelevant. 4 plays 5 and you avoid the top 3. Right now, Kenyon sits 4th and California sits 5th, and that’s likely not changing unless crazy stuff happens, so again, it doesn’t matter.
The best CLU can do is win out and host their regional. It doesn’t matter if they are ranked 1 in the country, their NCAA fate is decided. They need to focus their efforts on figuring out how to get out of their regional rather than if they’re ranked 4th or 6th.