Winter Athletic Life at the USNWR Top 30 Nat'l Unis

College Search & Selection
1

<p>Football is now mostly over except for a few conference championship games and the bowl season. I hope you made it out to a few games and enjoyed the social gatherings, the spectacle, and the games. </p>

<p>Now it’s on to winter sports. During the winter months, basketball (mostly men, but also women’s on some campuses) is the most prominent sport on the national college sports scene and has the largest influence on the athletic/social life of a college during these months. In addition, in the country’s northernmost states from Maine to North Dakota, mens hockey is also popular and may be an important contributor to the winter athletic sports scene at certain colleges in those states. </p>

<p>The winter athletic scene, however, is not the same as the football season. For college football, the size of the fan gathering and the social opportunities created by this are nearly as important as the quality of play and the results on the field. But for college basketball, the scene and the buzz is much more affected by a team’s wins and losses. A winning basketball (or hockey) team can galvanize a college campus and create enormous excitement and fun for students and alumni. A losing team is usually pretty much ignored. </p>

<p>Many colleges in the USNWR Top 30 have nationally prominent basketball programs and a few have nationally ranked hockey teams. Here are the colleges that participate in these sports:</p>

<p>College , M Basketball , W Basketball , M Hockey</p>

<p>DIVISION I </p>

<p>Princeton , Yes , Yes , Yes
Harvard , Yes , Yes , Yes
Yale , Yes , Yes , Yes
Stanford , Yes , Yes , No
U Penn , Yes , Yes , No
Duke , Yes , Yes , No
Columbia , Yes , Yes , No
Dartmouth , Yes , Yes , Yes
Cornell , Yes , Yes , Yes
Brown , Yes , Yes , Yes
Northwestern , Yes , Yes , No
Rice , Yes , Yes , No
Vanderbilt , Yes , Yes , No
Notre Dame , Yes , Yes , Yes
UC Berkeley , Yes , Yes , No
Georgetown , Yes , Yes , No
U Virginia , Yes , Yes , No
UCLA , Yes , Yes , No
U Michigan , Yes , Yes , Yes
U North Carolina , Yes , Yes , No
USC , Yes , Yes , No
Wake Forest , Yes , Yes , No</p>

<p>DIVISION III </p>

<p>Caltech , Yes , Yes , No
MIT , Yes , Yes , Yes (Div I)
U Chicago , Yes , Yes , No
Wash U , Yes , Yes , No
Johns Hopkins , Yes , Yes , No
Emory , Yes , Yes , No
Carnegie Mellon , Yes , Yes , No
Tufts , Yes , Yes , Yes (Div I)</p>

2

<p>um, Tufts defintley does not have DI hockey, they play in the NESCAC which is most assuredly DIII</p>

3

<p>It's not on a NCAA Div 1 level but, Stanford, Cal, UCLA, USC, Arizona State, Washington, and Washington State do compete in ice hockey for the Pac8.</p>

<p>PAC-8</a> Ice Hockey</p>

4

<p>2 Patriot League schools-Holy Cross and Colgate field Div1 Mbasketball, Wbasketball, and Mhockey.</p>

5

<p>BigEast,
Thanks for the correction on Tufts. I had checked their website and made an incorrect assumption based on what I saw. Sorry for the error. Can you comment at all on the nature of the games at Tufts or elsewhere and what impact, if any, they have on student social life at the school(s)? </p>

<p>UCBChemEGrad,
I checked the websites for the Pac 10 colleges in the USNWR Top 30 (Stanford, UCB, UCLA, USC) and I did not see any listing for ice hockey as a varsity sport. Did I miss it or is this a club activity??</p>

<p>Any other corrections?</p>

6

<p>On to winter sports? Geez, poor Univ. of MO. They finally make it to the top of someone's list, but everyone else moves on before their season is over.</p>

7

<p>Hawkette, you're right. For the Pac-10 schools, hockey is not a varsity sport, it's a club sport.</p>

<p>From Pac-8 website:
"PAC-8 teams joined the ACHA Division II in order to compete with more university and colleges and vie for the ACHA National Tournament."</p>

8

<p>midmo,
LOL. The "Athletic Life in College: Football Scene" thread is still alive (although we've never mentioned U Missouri there before). Good luck to the Tigers this weekend as they play for the right to go to the National Championship Game. I think most college football fans would love to see some new colleges involved (not to mention not having to watch another demolition of the Big 10 in the NCG). </p>

<p>Also, isn't U Missouri pretty good in basketball?</p>

9

<p>^^^The basketball program has had some very troubled years in the recent past. We all hope for an upswing with a relatively new coaching staff and a new approach.</p>

<p>As for the football playoffs and championship game: I gather the advertisers are not too thrilled with the matchups. Small markets. Sort of a replay of the year the Royals and the Cardinals were in the World Series.</p>

10

<p>Why are you limiting this to the top 30 National Universities? What significance is that as it relates to sports? </p>

<p>What does sports have to do with academic rankings in USNWR? None as far as I am aware.</p>

<p>So this is sort of inane, if you ask me. Sorry.</p>

<p>And no, I am not anti sports. Quite the contrary.</p>

11

<p>and Fordham is in 1-AA football league: Patriot, but in the Div 1-A Atlantic 10 in basketball and many other sports as well. I think they play club hockey however, which is intercollegiate but not scholarship funded or ranked.</p>

12

<p><a href="not%20to%20mention%20not%20having%20to%20watch%20another%20demolition%20of%20the%20Big%2010%20in%20the%20NCG">quote</a>

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Ouch, Hawkette. </p>

<p>Either Mizzou and West Virginia have to lose their games on Saturday for that to happen.</p>

<p>If tOSU goes to the Rose Bowl and plays USC, those two teams will be seeing a lot of each other, since they have a home-home series scheduled for 2008/9 as well.</p>

13

<p>hawkette,</p>

<p>i am paying attention to the pac10 vs big12 bb games now. pac10 swept the 2 games played yesterday.</p>

<p>as for football, i am kinda ambivalent about the missouri game. i kinda want them to go to ncg for the same reason you wrote. on the other hand, i generally root for big10 though i am getting tired of ohio state (who did they beat?).</p>

14

<p>
[quote]
ohio state (who did they beat?)

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Their first 4 games were a YAWN:</p>

<p>Youngstown State
Akron
Washington (Pac-10 bottom feeder - 'cept my Bears lost to 'em)
Northwestern (lost to Duke!)</p>

15

<p>catfishin',
Thanks for your questions and the opportunity to explain this and other threads. </p>

<p>There is nothing magical about the USNWR Top 30 other than I am trying to include schools that are likely to see a large amount of cross applications. I am trying to help a prospective high achieving student contrast the experiences that a student will have at some of these colleges. </p>

<p>There can be great differences in the nature of the undergraduate experience among the USNWR Top 30 national universities (I would say that the differences are smaller among LACs). I also limited the number to 30 because there is a limit to how many schools I want to spend time collecting and organizing information on. But if you or anyone else wants to supplement my work with your own contributions, then please, please do so. </p>

<p>As for the relationship between athletics and academics, I am not drawing one (although some posters have IMO incorrectly posited an inverse relationship). I am a proponent of a student looking at prospective colleges holistically, ie, what will the entire experience be like, inside and outside of the classroom. I perceive the USWNR Top 30 National Universities as all being able to offer a superb academic experience, but there are great differences in the nature of that experience, both in and out of the classroom. Outside of the classroom, that includes social life and athletic life and this thread (and others) seeks to explore how this differs among these colleges.</p>

16

<p>During football season, it was pretty easy to figure out what numbers would have the largest impact on the "scene" at a school. If a school had 20,000 or more regular attendance, then one could plausibly argue that the college had a lively football scene that would have a marked impact on the social experience of the undergraduate student. </p>

<p>Now that we are in the winter months, I am trying to assemble information that can give the greatest insight into the nature and quality of the athletic experience at these colleges. I have some initial plans for this, but if you have any suggestions, then please post and/or pm me. Thanks.</p>

17

<p>Holy Cross also has some great Division 1 athletics. Holy Cross' men's basketball (which is currently 6-0 this season) has won at least 20 games in five of the last seven seasons, got to the NCAA tournament four times (2001, 2002, 2003, 2007) and NIT in 2005 (beating Notre Dame BTW). In the past 21 years, the HC women's team has sixteen 20-win seasons and has made 12 postseason appearances (11 NCAA Tournaments and one WNIT). Men's Division 1 hockey first earned an NCAA Tournament win with the 4-3 overtime victory over Minnesota in Grand Forks, N.D., on March 24, 2006, in one of the biggest NCAA hockey upsets ever.</p>

18

<p>Here is one way to evaluate what is going on for men's basketball; data drawn from USA Today. </p>

<p>MEN'S BASKETBALL (341 Division I Teams ranked and compete) </p>

<p>Sagarin Ranking (11/27/07), College</p>

<p>1st Duke
2nd U North Carolina
4th UCLA
18 Georgetown
24 Vanderbilt
26 U Virginia
30 Notre Dame
38 USC
41 Stanford
64 Wake Forest
65 UC Berkeley
83 U Michigan
185 Brown
187 U Penn
197 Yale
198 Cornell
203 Northwestern
215 Princeton
222 Harvard
247 Dartmouth
257 Columbia
272 Rice</p>

<p>MEN'S BASKETBALL (408 Division III Teams compete) </p>

<pre><code>Division III Teams in the USNWR Top 30

Caltech
MIT
U Chicago
Wash U
Johns Hopkins
Emory
Carnegie Mellon
Tufts
</code></pre>

<p>No rankings available that I know of-should be available beginning in January, 2008.</p>

19

<p>Let's be honest for a second. Very few care about Division 3 Basketball.</p>

<p>Here are Sagarin for te top 60 as of today 11/30</p>

<p>1 North Carolina<br>
2 Duke<br>
3 UCLA<br>
4 Kansas<br>
5 Memphis<br>
6 Texas<br>
7 Georgetown<br>
8 Wisconsin<br>
9 Louisville<br>
10 Texas A&M<br>
11 Pittsburgh<br>
12 Michigan State<br>
13 Tennessee<br>
14 Butler<br>
15 Xavier-Ohio<br>
16 West Virginia<br>
17 Gonzaga<br>
18 Clemson<br>
19 BYU<br>
20 Oregon<br>
21 Florida<br>
22 Vanderbilt<br>
23 Washington State<br>
24 Indiana<br>
25 Ohio State<br>
26 Marquette<br>
27 Villanova<br>
28 Virginia<br>
29 Southern California<br>
30 Illinois<br>
31 Notre Dame<br>
32 Connecticut<br>
33 Arkansas<br>
34 Southern Illinois<br>
35 Missouri State<br>
36 Providence<br>
37 Arizona<br>
38 Boston College<br>
39 Creighton<br>
40 Oklahoma<br>
41 Stanford<br>
42 Kentucky<br>
43 Missouri<br>
44 New Mexico<br>
45 Florida State<br>
46 Miami-Florida<br>
47 Mississippi<br>
48 George Mason<br>
49 California<br>
50 NC State<br>
51 Baylor<br>
52 Holy Cross<br>
53 Maryland<br>
54 Syracuse<br>
55 Georgia Tech<br>
56 Northern Iowa<br>
57 San Diego State<br>
58 Texas Tech<br>
59 Seton Hall<br>
60 Massachusetts</p>

20

<p>Caltech basketball? They haven't won a league game since 1985!</p>