1. Penn State
2. Ohio State
3. St John's
4. Notre Dame
5. Air Force
6. UPenn
7. Princeton
8. Stanford
10. Temple
__________________
Epee is the Louis Vuitton bag of fencing: only the best can get it, and the rest of the masses must content themselves with cheap knockoffs (sabre, foil)
To not recognize the power of the French grip is to be in denial
no offense, but you guys are rather uninformed in terms of NCAA predictions. firstly, you all forgot a little team named columbia, who won both the men's and women's ivy league championships. granted, the men shared with upenn, but i think they asserted their dominance of the ivy league by winning IFA's. furthremore, you guys are silly to discount st. john's so much. granted, they won't qualify 12 without joe fisher, but they more than make for it in strength. they have potential champions in kfir in foil, horvath in epee, and both isayenko and lee in sabre. i do agree with you that penn state is gonna win, but no way ohio state or notre dame unseat st. john's just yet.
i reckon it'll look something like this:
penn state
st john's
notre dame
ohio state
columbia
princeton
but hey, that's just my opinion, i could be wrong
Harvard is a program that could really make a move up in the rankings over the course of the next few seasons. A majority of their A & B slot fencers are freshmen, including:
Tim Hagamen: 4th-ranked nationally in Senior Men's Sabre
David Jakus: 42nd-ranked nationally in Senior Men's Sabre
Julain Rose: 17th-ranked nationally in Senior Men's Epee
Anne Austin: 32nd-ranked nationally in Senior Women's Foil.
There's some real talent there, and when you consider the strides the Crimson have made in just a little over a year... that's a lot of time to get even better.
i'd pick harvard to come in behind princeton. honestly, of the folks you mentioned, only hagamen has the ability to win 15+ bouts, and since harvard most likely didn't qualify more than six or seven, you're gonna need a few more big guns to dent teams that have 10+ fencers. that's not to take anything away from the names you mentioned. but in epee there's also wiercoch, horvath, gurevich, soren, solomon, jan, that other foreign dude on penn state, and in women's foil there's leahy, zimmerman, rostal, petchnig, ament, the thompsons, them crazy foreign chicks from penn state, that other foreign chick from notre dame, and in sabre there's ivan, isayenko, weber, parker, rogers, among others. basically, the ncaas are crazy hard, and while harvard have made some serious leaps, they still lack what it takes to run top five, or even six, in my opinion. and on the subject of harvard, don't forget chloe steinetorf, she's pretty good too.
because a) isayenko and lee can finish 1 and 2, and weber only put 4th last year and i dont think marten zagunis is going to make top 8 or 10 for NCAAs.
b) penn state doesn't have as strong womens sabre as other schools
c) sobieraj and vivianni can both make first string all american for notre dame.
Originally posted by solomon hun i'd pick harvard to come in behind princeton. honestly, of the folks you mentioned, only hagamen has the ability to win 15+ bouts, and since harvard most likely didn't qualify more than six or seven, you're gonna need a few more big guns to dent teams that have 10+ fencers. that's not to take anything away from the names you mentioned. but in epee there's also wiercoch, horvath, gurevich, soren, solomon, jan, that other foreign dude on penn state, and in women's foil there's leahy, zimmerman, rostal, petchnig, ament, the thompsons, them crazy foreign chicks from penn state, that other foreign chick from notre dame, and in sabre there's ivan, isayenko, weber, parker, rogers, among others. basically, the ncaas are crazy hard, and while harvard have made some serious leaps, they still lack what it takes to run top five, or even six, in my opinion. and on the subject of harvard, don't forget chloe steinetorf, she's pretty good too.
Chloe's good, but she hasn't fenced competivitely for well over a year. All she's done are collegiate meets.
Ummmmm, just a quick point for all you St. John's fans out there....
They didn't get 12, in fact I think they only got 10, which really takes them out of the running. The teams to watch are Penn State, Ohio State and Notre Dame. They're the only teams that will probably have 12 at the tournament, and PSU and ND are still trying to get their 12th man in. Take those numbers into account when you're making you picks.
Also, there is only one foreigner on the PSU men's epee team, and one on the women's foil squad.
mmmmmm, yeah, i'm just gonna have to go ahead and disagree with you there....
while st. john's only has ten, all of them are incredibly high quality fencers, i'd say a good six of which have the potentiall to win their respective weapon. notre dame and penn state are both fairly weak in women's sabre, a weapon that st. john's is pretty strong at. furthermore, the penn state women have some weak points in women's foil as well. i dunno, it's gonna be a close one...i think it pretty much depends on everyone's performance on that particular day...
No team has ever won NCAAs with 11 fencers, let alone 10. No matter how strong a team is, it is nearly impossible to overcome the lack of 2 people's points. Even the worst fencer at the tournament is going to win 5 bouts, and the "weak" fencers on the PSU team are FAR from the bottom fencers in the tournament. Their women's sabre is strong enough to win 36 bouts, as is their women's foil. Besides it's not like ND and PSU have bad fencers. Each one of their weapons has some of the best fencers in the country, and in some cases, the world.
No matter what the rest of St John's does. They will not overcome a 36 point defecit.
So as I said: the teams to watch are PSU, ND and OSU
Considering the Westerns won't be held till the 23rd, I doubt they will post before then unless it is only a partial list. The fencers from the West won't be decided before than.
__________________
Donald Hollis Clinton, Jr. DHCJr@juno.com
To Teach is to Learn (Japanese Proverb)
Knowing the rule book by heart means nothing, if you don't understand the rules.
Linear Mode
