05-23-2018, 10:04 AM
(This post was last modified: 05-23-2018, 10:26 AM by ColoradoTree.)
I am legit delighted by the fact that a thread about Stanford sports has turned into a debate on word choice, syntax, and linguistics. You are truly my people.
(For the record, I meant "every couple years or so" in the sense of "roughly every other year" with the "or so" included to give me wiggle room to address the fact that in recent years, it's sometimes been two years in between titles rather than just one--quelle horreur!--as it was 2010, then two years off, then 2013, then two years off, then 2016, then one year off, then 2018.)
Here's another statistic. Since Stanford won in 1997, the longest gap between NCAA titles for Stanford women's tennis is 3 years, so every single class since then has won a national championship. (The longest gap between titles ever was in the '90s, as Stanford won in '91 but didn't win again until '97.)
FYI, I tied for first in the slam.tennis women's NCAA bracket challenge--a lot of folks went with chalk, or picked Stanford to get an upset or two but eventually fall--and the prize was a year's membership at tennisrecruiting.net (if Arbuthnott hadn't lost, it would've been two years due to the final match score tiebreaker), so I should be able to pick up some more insights into who's considering Stanford over the next year. (Only 69 entries, though--college tennis fandom is certainly a niche fandom--so it's not like winning a basketball bracket challenge.)
It's academic at this point, but Stanford finishes #1 in the final USTA poll, #1 in slam.tennis's ELO-type rankings, and is required by rule to finish #1 in the final ITA ranking, regardless of how the calculation actually turns out (though adding wins over the #1, #2, #3, #7, and #17 teams in the last rankings might get our total there anyway).
And one thing I didn't mention about Lord earlier--this is her third straight year on the All-Tournament team. She made it at #6 singles her freshman year, at #2 singles last year, and at #2 singles again this year. Lampl's honor is her second, as she made the team at #5 singles her freshman year. Of the current lineup, 5 of 6 singles players have been named to the All-Tournament Team at least once, as Lord, Lampl, Shin, and Higuchi were honored this year, Lord and Arbuthnott (at #5 singles) last year, and Lord and Lampl the year before.
(FYI, and you likely already know this, but the All-Tournament Team isn't just the top six singles players; to reflect the team nature of the sport, the NCAA honors the top player at each singles position. Doubles, too, but we haven't been honored in that way the last three seasons.)
(For the record, I meant "every couple years or so" in the sense of "roughly every other year" with the "or so" included to give me wiggle room to address the fact that in recent years, it's sometimes been two years in between titles rather than just one--quelle horreur!--as it was 2010, then two years off, then 2013, then two years off, then 2016, then one year off, then 2018.)
Here's another statistic. Since Stanford won in 1997, the longest gap between NCAA titles for Stanford women's tennis is 3 years, so every single class since then has won a national championship. (The longest gap between titles ever was in the '90s, as Stanford won in '91 but didn't win again until '97.)
FYI, I tied for first in the slam.tennis women's NCAA bracket challenge--a lot of folks went with chalk, or picked Stanford to get an upset or two but eventually fall--and the prize was a year's membership at tennisrecruiting.net (if Arbuthnott hadn't lost, it would've been two years due to the final match score tiebreaker), so I should be able to pick up some more insights into who's considering Stanford over the next year. (Only 69 entries, though--college tennis fandom is certainly a niche fandom--so it's not like winning a basketball bracket challenge.)
It's academic at this point, but Stanford finishes #1 in the final USTA poll, #1 in slam.tennis's ELO-type rankings, and is required by rule to finish #1 in the final ITA ranking, regardless of how the calculation actually turns out (though adding wins over the #1, #2, #3, #7, and #17 teams in the last rankings might get our total there anyway).
And one thing I didn't mention about Lord earlier--this is her third straight year on the All-Tournament team. She made it at #6 singles her freshman year, at #2 singles last year, and at #2 singles again this year. Lampl's honor is her second, as she made the team at #5 singles her freshman year. Of the current lineup, 5 of 6 singles players have been named to the All-Tournament Team at least once, as Lord, Lampl, Shin, and Higuchi were honored this year, Lord and Arbuthnott (at #5 singles) last year, and Lord and Lampl the year before.
(FYI, and you likely already know this, but the All-Tournament Team isn't just the top six singles players; to reflect the team nature of the sport, the NCAA honors the top player at each singles position. Doubles, too, but we haven't been honored in that way the last three seasons.)