Another edition of Power Rankings is here! While there has been a lot of big news about the DIII Recruiting Hub, Power Rankings continues to be #1 in many reader’s hearts. With the total craziness that was the most recent ITA Rankings, it seems more and more like Power Rankings are our place to go when it comes to accurately ranking the top 40 DIII teams. Take Bates, for example, ranked at #40 in the ITA. They just beat the #29 and #32 schools pretty handily, but no biggie. Bates, you have been rewarded in your power rankings, even though we’ve had you appropriately ranked all year. And here we go.
I’ll see you folks in the comments. Please note that there were exactly 40 teams that received votes this week! That’s the first time that’s ever happened as the bloggers usually disagree with one or two teams that get us 42 ranked teams. This week, our friend “Blank Space” occupies the 41st and 42nd spots. Cause we’re young and we’re reckless! And we’ll take this way too far… ASouth, OUT.
Wesleyan is a great team top to bottom, and they were super tough on their home court. MIT did not have any of their normal doubles teams playing on Tuesday, so the margins were probably not predictive of future outcomes. Give a ton of credit to Steve Chen, as he played a near perfect match. Chen’s sportsmanship is also something to be noted and admired – this is a young man with a ton of game and an equal amount of class. All respect to Wesleyan for being a first class program in every way.
Where’s Mary Hardin Baylor ?? 😉 JK. Love your weekly rankings.
In the last 2 weeks, I’ve had a chance to watch GAC, a little bit of Middlebury, Trinity, CMS, Tyler & SW. Random Comments on your Rankings & on what I watched:
– CMS, Emory & probably Bowdoin will be ranked higher than Middlebury at the end of the year.
– Skidmore should move up 2 slots, and Santa Cruz down 3 slots, and Southwestern up 4 slots.
– Fagundes & Snovely (with SW) are freaking warriors. They were like Hagler and Sugar Ray out there. Fagundes is a little better, & Snovely lost, but they’re both studs.
– I haven’t seen a team play with more intensity than GAC (in the match after the MH Baylor fiasco). They played like it was an NCAA final. They were jacked to avenge the loss. Even the bench was jacked up.
– The line 3 at Tyler and the line 2 at SW (both freshman) are guys you haven’t talked about (at all)….but should. Rodriguez (Tyler) has a counter punching/defender/Djokovic type game (& can slap/flatten out green light balls to end points) Sweet strokes. Dimanche (SW) is a throwback. (think Connors/Rafter).
– Fischer’s Sr. leadership in dubs and singles was the difference in Tyler’s squeaker over SW.
– Gideon (with SW) is a sweet dubs player. Big (consistent) serves & hands like butter. He & the crafty (& fiesty) Snovely are a damn good Dubs team.
– SW’s three Freshmen ALL won their matches against Tyler. (& two of them won against GAC)
– Trinity vs. Tyler will be decided at line 2 or line 5. (line 2 featuring bashers & line 5 featuring Bucket Hat vrs. the wily Fisher – which I hope it comes down to.) & Rodriguez has the game to take out Pitts at 3.
– If CMS wins one (or two) dubs matches, I don’t see Middlebury (or anyone else) beating them (this year).
Love your comments every week! We love the feedback and banter from the readers.
We’ve heard a lot about the SW team and we’re hoping to talk a little bit more about them in the near future. We’ve heard a lot especailly about Dimanche, who seems to have been heavily recruited by a lot of other schools as well. Very interesting. Love the predictions for the Tyler/Trinity match, my gut goes with Trinity simply because they have the history behind them, but I agree this is definitely a tossup.
Re: CMS – they have to win a doubles match first, and I would say don’t underestimate the coaching of Bob Hansen and don’t underestimate Emory either. All three of those teams are going to be unbelievably tough. While I don’t think Bowdoin is going to be the champion this year, they are more than able to pull an upset over one of the top 3 teams as well.
“Significantly closer” might be a stretch. Look at the scores. In the 8 matches Wesleyan won, the closest set was 6-4, with a a bagel and 4 breadstick sets in the mix, too. It is a multi purpose surface, but it’s one that plays slightly slower than a normal court. While adjusting to a different surface isn’t always the easiest thing…it’s much easier to adjust to a slower surface where you have more time compared to a lightning fast facility. That excuse can explain a poor start in doubles…but by midway through the doubles and certainly into the singles if a team hasn’t adjusted, that’s not a physical issue, that’s a mental toughness issue.
This was a good old fashioned ass kicking.
I agree. We can argue about hypotheticals of being on a neutral court, but the fact of the matter is this is what happened. MIT needs to bounce back.
I think you guys are giving Wesleyan too much credit and taking away from MIT too much for that 8-1 result the other day. The match was played indoors at Wesleyan on what I assume was some sort of multi purpose surface. MIT has normal indoor hard courts on campus so they never get to play on a Wesleyan sort of surface whereas of course Wesleyan hits there all winter. I think Wesleyan would still win this match outdoors, but it would be significantly closer. I don’t think it’s fair to conclude that “shades of the old MIT” are coming back because of this result. I think MIT is going to surprise/scare a lot of top teams in the near future.