Northwestern University Athletics
Murphy's Mark: Time For Big Ten Winter Championships
2/20/2007 12:00:00 AM | General
Feb. 20, 2007
Big Ten Men's Swimming Championships
Our men's swimming team dominated the Big Ten Championships this past weekend in Columbus, winning an impressive 10 titles out of the meet's 21 events, and finishing second in two other events. Although we only finished fifth overall in the meet due to our lack of depth, Mike Alexandrov was named Big Ten Swimmer of the Meet (he scored 60 points more than any other swimmer), Matt Grevers was named Big Ten Swimmer of the Year and Bob Groseth was named Big Ten Co-Coach of the Year. In addition, Kyle Bubolz and Bruno Barbic won individual titles, and we won three titles in three relays. Congratulations to all the members of the team for a great season thus far (we were undefeated in dual meets) and best of luck in the NCAA Championships next month.
Big Ten Basketball Tournaments
The Big Ten men's and women's basketball tournaments are coming up soon. The women's tournament starts March 1 in Indianapolis, while the men's tournament begins March 8 in Chicago. Please check our web site for information on when our teams will be playing. Last year, the Big Ten entered into negotiations with both Chicago and Indianapolis about extending the agreements to host our tournaments. The men's tournament has rotated annually the past six years between Chicago and Indianapolis, while the women's tournament has been in Indianapolis for several years. The Big Ten ended up entering into a five-year agreement with Indianapolis to host both tournaments in Conseco Fieldhouse. Indianapolis does a great job hosting the tournaments, Consecco is a first-class facility and the men's tournament will benefit greatly by being in the same location for five years. The biggest problem with the current women's tournament is that we cannot play on Saturday because the Indiana high school girls' basketball tournament is held on that Saturday. As a result, our tournament is held on Thursday, Friday, Sunday and Monday. This format hurts attendance, as Saturday is usually the best day for the attendance. Starting next year, the women's tournament will be held Thursday through Sunday.
Signing Day
Earlier this month, our football program held a special event on national signing day to introduce our latest recruiting class. The event was held at the ESPN Zone in Chicago, and was sold out. In recent years, national signing day has become a huge event across the country, similar to the hoopla surrounding the NFL draft. I try not to put too much weight on these events, or the ratings of recruiting classes, because recruiting is far from an exact science, and the real measure of a recruiting class is in three to four years when we see what kind of players the recruits have developed into. By all indications, though, we had one of our best recruiting classes ever and this bodes well for the future. Pat Fitzgerald and his staff deserve credit for bringing in such a strong class, particularly in light of all the changes the program has endured in the last year.
