Wednesday, April 12, 2006

Slowly But Surely

The coaches are coming around to FITD's Best in Show. The latest coaches poll is out and the rankings are beginning to look more like mine. Granted, as the season progresses, we should both converge to almost the same ranking, but I think when we look back, Best in Show will be closer. Normally I wouldn't be so brazen about this, but since the coaches started out by voting for some crews that didn't exist (e.g. UCSB), I feel pretty good about it.

Our top five is now the same, but our biggest disagreement comes at 6. The coaches have Bucknell there while I have Bucknell at 9. I would guess that the coaches have them at 6 on the strength of their 9 second loss to Princeton. This was a great result for Bucknell, but I think the important point is that they lost by a fair amount, not that it was 9 seconds instead of 20. This was a dual race and Princeton wasn't pushed by another crew. I'm not sure the Bisons should be as low as 9th, but I have a bias against crews that fail to go toward the sound of gunfire (which in this case is the Knecht Cup).

I then have Buffalo at 10 instead of OSU, as the coaches do. Both Buffalo and OSU beat Marist, so 10 is probably a toss up, but there's that sound of gunfire thing again. Most peculiar though, is the fact that the coaches have Marist ahead of Buffalo when Buffalo just beat Marist in New Jersey. Villanova is at 15 and they didn't even race a lightweight eight in their own Knecht Cup regatta. I think that means they're not racing an eight. St. Joe's also received some votes, but I'm pretty sure they're only racing a light four now, not an eight.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Bucknell did not shy away from the gunfire, they simply competed elsewhere against fine openweight competition, since they compete against openweights (even though weigh ins are still conducted weekly) until Dad Vails. The Patriot League Championship does not include a scored lightweight event, so Bucknell needs two "openweight" 8's.

Anonymous said...

i agree with your ranking except i think i'd have bucknell at 8 and URI at 9. but otherwise i think yours is more accurate then row2k most of the time.

JW Burk said...

On Bucknell: Point taken. Speaking of the Patriot League, that seems to be a conference ripe for lightweight women. Navy has a strong lightweight men's program, Lehigh often rows lightweights, Holy Cross threatens to row lightweights from time to time (and had apparently planned to start a program a few years ago), and Bucknell is making serious progress in becoming a consistent national force. Only Colgate have I never heard or seen associated with lightweights, but as a Patriot League school they are probably ideal for the category. If the League announced a points earning lightweight event in say, two year's time, that would help.

As for Bucknell in the rankings, as I've said, that boat is a bit of a mystery to me right now. I may be way underestimating them (more than 8 to 9) but who knows? The boat has no doubt raced several times this year, but because it's been as a heavyweight boat, we don't know when or against whom. Well, time will tell and I have no doubt they'll make some waves at year end.