The first big tournament has completed, so you know what that means! With a ton of action happening this weekend, we just had to bring the weekly power rankings back this week. This is one of our best articles in terms of interaction as it brings a lot of debate about what the bloggers are thinking. Some of them, like D3ASW, are totally off their rocker. Just kidding. Watch out for D3NE to bring his bias to the table and for D3Central to totally hate on some teams. See below for your power rankings, post-indoors. Also, make sure you check out our Indoors recaps as well as the Regional Roundup that went out yesterday! All good stuff. Power Rankings below!
Now those are some sexy power rankings. I’ve updated it so it looks a bit clearer for you guys and doesn’t get cut off the screen, given that we added two new writers this year. All Hail D3Regional. Okay, some thoughts!
Biggest Movers
Emory, Up 5 spots to #1 – Coming off a great weekend and an Indoors National Championship is Emory, who now take hold of the #1 spot in DIII. While only 2 writers ranked them #1, they had enough strength with their second place votes to take the top spot. I truly believe Emory has announced themselves as the favorite for national contention, but that could change as CMS and the NESCAC start playing. I love results and Emory has them. Don’t chastise me.
Case Western, Up 4 spots to #9 – Blame ASW for ranking Case Western so low in his rankings! Both ASW and I ranked CMU ahead of Case despite the latter beating the former this past weekend. Here’s my reasoning – if these are basically power rankings for the rest of the season, I believe the return of Wadwani as well as a neutral court make CMU a better bet moving forward. Feel free to argue in the comments, because that’s what they are there for!
Wash U, Down 3 spots to #12 – After their loss to Case, Wash U salvaged Indoors by beating Kenyon and playing decently close to Trinity TX. Wash U is another team that shouldn’t totally fall off a cliff after their loss to Case. They have Jason Haugen supposedly coming back from injury as well as a freshman at the bottom of the lineup who stands to improve. Coach Follmer will not have this team stop working throughout the year and that played into my rankings.
UW-Whitewater, Up 9 Spots to #18 – The biggest winner of these Power Rankings was actually UW-Whitewater. They took out Kenyon a week before Indoors and are reaping the benefits. I personally think the Warhawks are ranked a bit too high, but that’s simply because Kenyon is getting the benefit of the doubt at #20. Kenyon could honestly lose to a lot of the teams in the #18-24 range, so this seems appropriate. Again, results are what matters!
Kenyon, Down 6 Spots to #20 – See above.
Christopher Newport, Up 8 Spots to #32 – Upsets everywhere! CNU’s shellacking of NCW brings them to a higher spot in our power rankings, but they lost to W&L, preventing too much of a move up. CNU isn’t going to be the most consistent team this year, but they have their big win. Somewhere, Sonny Dearth is rejoicing. The Captains have a nice schedule rest of the way where they can improve on this ranking.
NCW, Down 11 Spots to #37 – See CNU as well as Coach Hale’s lack of twitter posts recently. OHHHHHHH!!!
There you have it peeps. Do your worst in the comments. ASouth, OUT.
If not this year it would be cool at some point to see stats of how D111 teams are doing against D-I, D-II and NAIA competition in some fashion. Perhaps there is a way to sort results from the ITA Tennis website. Given the increased talent level of recruits to D-III tennis in recent years it would be interesting to see if these competitions in non-conference play, pre-season or post season play, are getting more competitive.
perhaps measured by performance of the top 20 D-III teams
Although they had a rough weekend, I think you guys have Wash U a few spots too low. I think when they put Haugen back in, this team gets a lot better. Plus, they always come to play as the season turns up.
In NESCAC-land, Bowdoin seems a little high at 7 and Williams and Wesleyan both seem a little low at 13 and 16 respectively. Are there any thoughts you can offer given that we haven’t seen any of them play yet?
Why do you think they are too high or too low? Personally, I think Bowdoin would beat all the teams listed below them and lose to the six teams I have ranked above them. Williams and Wesleyan both had some losses last year that a team ranked 13 or 16 shouldn’t have. Williams lost to Tufts and went a combined 1-7 against teams listed above them (that being said I do have them at #10). Wesleyan lost to Bates and Trinity Ct in conference play last spring. So although I’ve been touting them for a while now, their ITA ranking is 23 for a reason. Unfortunately, until we see some results, the best we can give you is simply a mix of fall results, hype, and/or gut feeling. All three teams certainly have potential, but until we see something from them in a few weeks (1st matches are March 14, March 23, and March 9 respectively) I don’t expect their rankings to change much here.
Looks like Wesleyan was low….
And looks like Bowdoin was high…
I’m confused as to why you say this
Sorry – clearly wrong about Bowdoin. Williams still TBD.
OK, with the Williams win over P-P, I’m going to call it two out of three.
@d3Regional what are your thoughts behind ranking Chapman over Lewis and Clark and Pacific?
Sure, Chapman lost two matches to Brandeis and UCSC, but they are both around 30 nationally. Pacific lost 7-2 to Denison, a team that I don’t know too well but Central is not high on at all. Neither L&C nor Pacific have done anything this year to show that they are better than Chapman. Pacific was hit heavier by graduation than Chapman was as well. Even though Chapman has been a little disappointing so far, I definitely still have them over both of those schools. L&C does play Chapman on 3/23 so I guess we’ll see if I’m right or not 🙂
Cool, thanks. Looks like we’ll be rooting for all 3 of them and hoping for a big L & C win
I’m curious as to who on the Pioneers’ schedule you think is beatable. They just got trounced by Whitman (granted, they didn’t have two of their top 3). The big matches on their schedule are Cal Lu, Swat, Colby, Redlands, Chapman, Middlebury and one or two more against Whitman. I think it’s possible (likely even) that they’ll take out the Kingsmen, but that win might not have a lot of value. Who else can they beat and what is your reasoning?
Like you said, Cal lu is definitely winnable. I also think if they take a solid dubs lead against chapman they can win it. Last year when they played Chapman they were missing their top 3, and didn’t really lose anyone(except morgan i guess) to graduation. Seems like Chapman might be a bit down from last year while LC is a bit up. Obviously Chapman is still a good team though, so I wouldn’t bet on it, but i really think (and sincerely hope) that LC will surprise you!
Here’s the thing, though, with the way Chapman is playing right now, it might be tough for LC to get into the rankings even with wins over Chapman, Cal Lu, and Pacific. Some of the 30-50 teams out East seem to be playing pretty well. The West region might get shut out this year outside of the usual suspects.
Do you think a team like Chapman who just lost 6-3 to CNU will drop out of the rankings? Or only if they take a hit to a non-ranked opponent?
They will likely drop from the rankings as other teams accumulate victories unless they notch a big one for themselves. I’m not sure where they will end up in the next rankings, however.
I believe Pacific will end up getting the #40 spot once again. Sure Pacific didn’t beat Denison but they did play them in Ohio which Denison has strong wins at home due to their funky courts. They did have a nice win over Oberlin which is an up and coming team and will give Denison a run for their money. Pacific still has matches against Cal Lu, Lewis and Clark, George Fox ( Who use to be a force to be reckon with with Andy You), and Whitman. My prediction is that Pacific beats all of those teams except for Whitman. Remember Pacific did beat Chapman 2 years ago and Lewis and Clark lost to Chapman last year 4-5 and Pacific beat L&C 7-2, 6-3 last year. Keep in mind Lewis and Clark looks good on paper but when it comes down to matches they don’t finish well. Just keep an open mind about Pacific, they are an experienced team that knows what it takes to win.
Unforunately, even if Pacific does beat all of those teams besides Whitman, they will not finish in the top 40. Cal Lu is in freefall, and wins over George Fox and Lewis and Clark probably won’t be worth much. Basically, the only way back in the rankings for the Boxers is going to be a win over Whitman.