March Madness 2004

[edew]

My picks:

1. PSU
2. SJU
3. NDU
4. OSU
5. Columbia
6. Harvard
7. UPenn
8. Princeton
9. USAFA
10. Rutgers
11. Brandeis
12. NYU
13. UCSD
14. NWU

[esskreemr]

Cool, how 'bout a fantasy fencing league?

[The0ne]

I don't know much more than Men's foil, but St. Johns looks very strong. . . Notre Dame, not so strong in men's foil, Penn. State is also really strong. . . But I say the winner will be St. Johns!

[edew]

Each of the top-4 schools (PSU, OSU, ND, and SJU) all have one top fencer:
Nonpatat, Boaz, Derek Snyder, Nitai Kfir. Of these, Derek is the weakest. I'll pick Boaz beating Nitai with Non winning the most for the team.

Their second man is much weaker with PSU having the strongest second man: Chris Miller or Ian Schlaepfer (depending on who makes it...I'm guessing Chris).

Columbia has a pretty good men's foil with Scott Sugimoto and whoever else (Meade Anderson's done for, AFAIK). Scott will be good in the 5-touch bouts because his weird actions will get to 5 before others. He won't survive a 15-point bout against any of the top fencers.

OSU has one strong epee and two strong saber (in the men's). Their women's foil, the Thompson twins, and saber are pretty good as well.

[afc fencer]

I thought nonpatat redshirt this season.

[edew]

If so, then PSU might not do as well. Still, PSU fencers have this ability to really get roused up and do particularly well at NCAAs. They really have a strong team spirit.

[whtouche]

Yeah, at the San Jose NAC I picked up all the available literature including from Penn state. Non is redshirt this season.
Training for the olympics, I believe.

Who are OSU's sabre fencers? I thought they had at least 3 strong ones(Colin Parker, Jason Rogers, adam crompton)?

[edew]

Yeah, at the San Jose NAC I picked up all the available literature including from Penn state. Non is redshirt this season.
Training for the olympics, I believe.

Who are OSU's sabre fencers? I thought they had at least 3 strong ones(Colin Parker, Jason Rogers, adam crompton)?

Jason Rogers is redshirting for the big O. They have Crompton, Parker, and Jason Paul. Only two get to go, BTW.

[whtouche]

ooh yes, I should have remembered that.
Thanks.

[solomon hun]

nohn is redshirting, and chris miller is ineligible through academic probation, whoops. whichever crompton fences for OSU (i get em confused) is also not competing this season for a similarly cockamamie reason (although i do not know the specifics). also, neither meade anderson nor scot sugimoto will be qualifying for ncaas because neither of them qualified for regionals. their three foilists that have the opportunity to qualify are jeremy sinkin, calvin chen, and joseph nord, out of which at most two can go. most likely sinkin and chen will qualify and both will finish middle of the table. furthermore, i'm a little iffy on st. john's. their women's team lost all sorts of matches this year (princeton, upenn, columbia to name a few) and they are missing such big names as ira khouade, ilene (irene?) stevens, and emisce takacs. furthermore, although their women's sabre is pretty strong, yuri's daughter has only been getting fatter and slower (inconsiderate but true) and the women's sabre field is only getting tougher with the likes of psu and upenn's freshmen squads. also, overall i think princeton has a better squad than harvard. true harvard has enoch, julian, and jasmine, but pton has a much deeper more even squad with standouts like ben solomon and jacky leahy. lastly, i think columbia just might have a chance to sneak into the top four this year. they now have big names like alex krul, lexi rubin, billy verigan, emma barratta, and cassidy luitjen to go with their stable of of traditionally solid qualifiers like jeremy sinkin, paul reyfman, mike yablon etc. but hey, on any given sunday, or should i say, on any give wednesday through sunday, anything can happen...

[solomon hun]

yesterday at norhteast regionals St. John's qualifed 10 fencers for NCAAs
MF
Kennard
Kfir

WF
Delahanty
Garay

MS
Isayenko
whitmer

WS
Gelman
Crane

ME
Horvath
Guevara (NOT Bratton)

Columbia qualifed 11

MF
sinkin
chen (calvin)

WF
Luitjen
Reckling

MS
Krul
Reyfman

WS
Baratta
Robinson

ME
Verigan
Yablon

WE
Rubin

No other team present qualified nearly as many. Anyone wanna rethink their predictions?

[Army Fencer]

yesterday at norhteast regionals St. John's qualifed 10 fencers for NCAAs

ME
Horvath
Guevara (NOT Bratton)

I'm shocked that Bratton didn't make it.

[prototoast]

No one has to rethink their predictions because PSU, Notre Dame and OSU are all in different divisions. Columbia and St John's were already predicted to finish atop the northeast.

[edew]

Yeah, but how many did PSU, ND, and OSU qualify? That information would be greatly appreciated.

Between Columbia and SJU, I'd say Kfir will definitely help SJU more than Sinkin and Chen. Sinkin will finish middling, with maybe 11 victories. Kennard might get 8 and Kfir should get as many as possible, 19 or more.

Isayenko will definitely be a great help while both Krul and Reyfman will both provide a solid 12-16 victories.

Horvath for SJU and Verigan for Columbia are both good shots with Horvath holding the upper hand.

In women's events, Luitjen will provide a bigger bang than Delahanty. Reckling will provide reasonable support. Maybe 5-8 victories. Luitjen should bring in 13-16 victories. Delahanty should bring in a similar number. Have no clue who Garay is. (What happened to Khuade? Graduated?)

Gelman plus Crane will be more than Barratta plus Robinson. And Columbia has a free Rubin to get perhaps 10 victories, maybe 12.

I might now put Columbia higher and SJU lower (than 2nd place). Maybe the order might be:

PSU
ND
OSU
CU
SJU
...

[solomon hun]

i'm gonna have to go ahead and disagree with you about gelman and crane being stronger than baratta and robinson, although it's reasonably close either way...
i also have to say that SJU WF is stronger than CU's. Cassidy has been fencing like the crap and barely qualified for NCAAs, she didn't make the last round and only made it by dint of her high seed. Garay used to be on the hungarian junior team, so she's really really strong. delahanty's not bad either, and she actually won the qualifier, and might be someone to watch. i'm still gonna put sju over columbia, but i think maybe columbia will edge out ohio state, maybe it'll look something like this:
(psu or nd, i can't call it)
sju
columbia
osu
pton
who cares....

[rustica]

We'll know the rest by the end of next weekend. Midwest qualifiers are Sunday at Northwestern, and I believe the south will fence on Saturday. Don't know when the west will choose....but the NCAA site has that information. Do know that Ohio won the Midwest Fencing Conference title this past weekend. What happened, ND? Also, will Emma be at NCAA? Isn't there a senior sabre world cup in Italy that weekend? I thought she was going to those this year. Also, I wonder if Louise Bond-Williams (OSU and one talented fencer) would go to a WC over NCAA's.

[edew]

I don't think Louise has a reasonable chance of making the Olympics, so there's no reason for her to travel for a WC. She has to compete in the European zone and that's tough as nails to plow through.

[solomon hun]

same with emma. she was going to a bunch of world cups in the hopes of making the junior team. but now that selections have been made, the honus isn't there. and the o-team is pretty much out of reach for her, at least this year.

[Army Fencer]

What about JHU?

[edew]

Johns Hopkins? What about them? Maybe break top-20 (of 24 or so schools).