Northwestern Power Rankings comes a day late this week, after the author took Sunday off to travel north to Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wis., for the NFC Championship game between the New York Giants and Green Bay Packers. Even though I went without tickets, the place on gameday was great, with tons of Packer fans braving the third coldest game in NFL history to root on their team. And…then the Pack blew it, sending me and a million other fans home depressed. Sigh.
Enough whining from this Cheesehead, let’s get to the power rankings. It was a solid week for NU sports, with most squads pulling off some sort of win. Even the men’s basketball team got a “W,” although not the one they’re looking for. Without further ado…..
1. Fencing - Shame on NUsports.com for not updating the fencing page at the same rate as the other sports, especially since the team looks darn good. At the Philadelphia Invitational, the ‘Cats went 6-0, a super impressive mark. If only we heard more about them.
2. Women’s Tennis - A lighter week for the Wildcats, but impressive nonetheless. The tennis team trounced #15 College of William & Mary, blanking them 7-0. Another dominating performance this week.
3. Men’s Swimming - The Wildcats hosted and defeated the #21 Notre Dame Fighting Irish this past weekend, a big victory for the #17-ranked squad. Extra splash of glory – they beat the Irish on NU’s Senior Day.
4. Men’s Basketball - The good news: the ‘Cats broke a four-game losing streak with a win over Chicago State this past Wednesday. The bad news: NU still seeks a Big Ten win, and the drubbing they took at the hands of Wisconsin this Saturday didn’t help them get any closer to that elusive first conference win. But hey, let’s celebrate what we’ve got!
5. Men’s Tennis - Bye bye, birdies. Northwestern squared off against two sets of Cardinals this week, falling to Louisville but rebounding against Ball State. In late March the ‘Cats face one more field of Cardinals from Lamar University.
6. Wrestling - No activity, so this seems like a safe enough place to put this team.
7. Women’s Swimming - They traveled to Ann Arbor this weekend to face Michigan, but the Wolverines beat the ‘Cats 152-134. This loss was the team’s only contest this week, landing a tough blow to a solid team.
8. Willie the Wildcat - Didn’t see much of the big fuzzball around campus this week, so I’ve got to dock him some points here. Still, he didn’t do anything bad, so good for him.
9. Women’s Basketball - These Wildcats return to the bottom of the rankings after another winless week, falling to three more Big Ten teams and remaining the conference’s weakest squad.