Northwestern University Athletics
Murphy's Mark: Wildcats Stayed Busy During the Holidays
1/4/2005 12:00:00 AM | General
Jan. 4, 2005
Holiday Events
Our basketball and wrestling teams were busy over the holiday break and enjoyed much success. The men's basketball team had six games over the break (five at home), and went 5-1. As we head into Big Ten play Wednesday against Indiana at home, the team is 7-5. Although we have struggled offensively, the team has played great defense and Duke transfer Michael Thompson had a positive impact -- giving us a presence inside. It will be great to have the students back, as the games over the break don't have the same level of excitement and intensity without the students in attendance.
The women's basketball team traveled to Puerto Rico before Christmas to play in the San Juan Shootout. The team played very well, going 2-1 and finishing in third place (out of eight teams). Both Sarah Kwasinski and Ifeoma Okonkwo earned all-tournament honors. New head coach Beth Combs has a very challenging task in attempting to turn around the fortunes of a program that has been at the bottom of the Big Ten for years, but the team appears to be improving and playing with more confidence.
The annual Midlands wrestling tournament was again held at Welsh Ryan Arena between Christmas and New Year's Day. Attendance was good this year and the fans were treated to many great matches. Our team finished seventh, our best finish since 1992. Redshirt freshman Jake Herbert captured the championship at 174 pounds. The championship victory was the first by a Northwestern undergraduate since 1974. Congratulations, Jake, on this great accomplishment.
BCS
It seems every time you turn on a TV to watch college football, you hear commentators criticizing the BCS and calling for a playoff. Every year there seems to be some controversy and this year is no different -- with Auburn being left out of the championship game, Cal left out of the Rose Bowl, and the Associated Press announcing that they will not allow their poll to be used in determining the BCS rankings next year. While it may seem easy to go to a four- or an eight-team playoff, you will not see any form of a playoff in the near future. First, the presidents are strongly opposed to a playoff. Having been closely involved with the I-AA playoffs during my tenure at Colgate, I know that a playoff would not be a cure all. In I-AA, the teams that play in the championship game play four extra games and these really take a toll physically and mentally on the student-athletes. Moreover, the playoffs do tend to de-emphasize the regular season, and would certainly hurt the current bowl system. The BCS was designed to create a matchup of the top two teams in a bowl. It has done a good job of creating this matchup, although there has certainly been controversy over how the two teams are determined. I think this type of controversy is actually good for college football, as it keeps college football in the news and helps promote the bowls.
Instant Replay
Although it hasn't received a lot of publicity during this busy time of the year, the Big Ten announced recently that it will continue the instant replay experiment next year. I think everyone involved with Big Ten football would agree that it was a great success. It corrected the obvious mistakes without lengthening the games. The football coaches and ADs voted unanimously to continue replay and to petition the NCAA to allow all conferences to move to replay. I think the Big Ten's system is an improvement over the NFL's (no coaches' challenges) and predict you will see it used on all televised NCAA games within two years.
I hope that all of our fans and supporters had a relaxing holiday season. Have a Happy New Year.
