Power rankings
Power rankings will be taking a short vacation after this week, but will be back in spring stronger than ever. For the final week of this cold, miserable quarter, the rankings don’t see much shake-up: a few slight shifts but the top spots still belong to the top sports at NU. See you in the slightly warmer spring everyone.
1. Women’s Tennis - In a rankings first, the Women’s Tennis team didn’t play a single game, but remains the best squad at NU. That’s because the team ascended to number one in the country for the first time in the program’s history. The ‘Cats take the clay again March 7 against Wisconsin.
2. Lacrosse - More domination by Women’s Lacrosse. Northwestern beat down Hofstra this week, 22-4. No wonder they are the top-ranked team in the country. See them take on Duquesne March 7.
3. Softball - One tough upset to Bradley doesn’t erase all the good the team did at the Coach B Classic this weekend. They downed Kansas, Western Illinois and Southern Illinois at the event. The ‘Cats still remain one of the best teams in the nation.
4. Fencing - Another strong showing, this time at the NCAA Midwest Regional held in Detroit this past weekend. Sophomore Christa French placed highest of all ‘Cats, finishing second in the epee. Sam Nemececk finished highest for NU in the foil, while Adrienne Shon (a junior and, full disclosure, a former NBN staffer) was the top Northwestern performer in sabre.
5. Men’s Basketball - Forget the loss to Purdue, everyone saw that one coming. Northwestern won their first Big Ten game of the season by squeaking out a victory over the Michigan Wolverines, 62-60 in Ann Arbor nonetheless. Even though this has been a season to forget for the ‘Cats, they at least won’t lose every conference game this season.
6. Men’s Swimming - The Wildcats finished sixth at the Big Ten championships this week, including a few strong singles performances. Senior Kyle Bubolz won the silver medal in the 100 free stroke.
7. Baseball - After a few tough losses (including a rough one-contest decision against South Florida), the team pulled off a nice upset of #21 Oklahoma State earlier this week. The ‘Cats mustered up 20 hits to defeat the Cowboys in 10 innings.
8. Men’s Tennis - Northwestern got trounced by the Penn State Nittany Lions, being swept 7-0 Sunday in their only contest of the week. Better luck next week, gang.
9. Wrestling - No activity this week, but the Big Ten championships go down March 8.
10. Women’s Swimming - Also idle. Well, not everything can be thrilling all the time.
11. Women’s Basketball - The bottom-dweller of the quarter ends at the lowest position, how appropriate. Despite winning in the last rankings, the ‘Cats returned to their losing ways. Iowa and Ohio State beat them down this week. And that’s all, folks!
Don't let our sports teams get you down, NU is not that bad after all. Or you can return home.
Come on Patrick. First, the tennis team does not play on clay. Women’s swimming was not idle. Andrea Hupman won two Big Ten titles and the ‘Cats had their best finish ever at the Big Ten Championships. The baseball team lost to OK State, then beat them, then lost to South Florida. You have the order of those last two games wrong. And Men’s swimming should be higher than men’s basketball, 6th at the Big Ten Championships is really really good because the Big Ten is one of the strongest conferences in the country for swimming.
Aaron
March 3, 2008 at 8:30 pm
Quick correction of myself: I just saw that you mentioned women’s swimming in last week’s power rankings. Time is flying by..
Aaron
March 3, 2008 at 8:32 pm
In regards to the baseball stuff, I played around with the timeline: I focused on the major happenings, primarily the loss to South Florida since it was so close (9-8) and the win over OK State (an upset). I condensed the week into the two biggest highlights in my opinion, for the sake of better writing. Plus, I wanted to end the blurb on something positive. So, I apologize for any order-of-event confusion, I was experimenting with my writing, but I can see my sequencing can come off as confusing, so apologies. To sum it up, NU lost to OK State on Friday, beat OK State Saturday but then lost to South Florida the same day.
As for the tennis thing…I honestly thought that, if they don’t play on grass, tennis was played on a clay court. But, to be fair, I don’t know much about surfaces. I’m being told NU either plays on concrete or something similar, and I just imagine that would be weird. So…my bad, I honestly don’t know what substance they play on, I just assumed clay. My bad. I’ll study up on my surface areas.
Patrick St. Michel
March 3, 2008 at 8:46 pm