The Northwestern men, in particular, are a team to watch. They're the defending UMAC champs and threw a scare into eventual national champion St. Thomas last spring, and now they've been anointed as the favorites to repeat in the UMAC.
Coaches Faves
Along with the Northwestern men, the University of Minnesota-Morris women and not one but two teams from St. Thomas also have been selected as favorites by the coaches in each of the leagues.
Defending national champs or not, the St. Thomas men got just 6 of 11 1st place votes. I mean, whaddya gotta do to get some respect around here? St. Olaf got 3 such votes and Augsburg a couple.
The St. Thomas women got 11 of 12 1st place votes; Gustavus Adolphus got the other.
Northwestern got 7 of 8 1st place votes in the UMAC, while Bethany Lutheran got the other. And UM-Morris got 4 of 6; Northland and Martin Luther got 1 each.
MIAC Men
The big story is of course the start of the Johnny Tauer era at St. Thomas. Designated as interim coach right now, it's inconceivable that he won't become the permanent coach next March or thereabouts. More inconceivable than the Tommies losing the MIAC. They lost a lot of talent including their 3-headed monster at the guard position--Teddy Archer, Alex Healy and Tyler Nicolai. And of course coach Steve Fritz is gone, as well.
Meanwhile St. Olaf can throw all-conference guards Bobby Fong and Stu Neville at 'em, while Augsburg will have the edge on a lot of MIAC opponents in the paint with Cory Polta leading the way.
The second tier would seem to consists of #4 Carleton, #5 Gustavus and #6 Hamline. The Pipers have everybody back except center Carl Hipp. So, in other words, they're rebuilding. Seriously, they'll shoot 3s with anybody. Gustavus guard Seth Anderson is another one to watch.
Then there's Bethel, St. John's, Concordia (Moorhead), Macalester and St. Mary's, all of whom figure to be building or rebuilding or treading water, but in any event watching the proceedings when playoffs roll around.
MIAC Women
The Tommies, with the likes of Taylor Young, Sarah Smith, Maggie Weiers and an awesome supporting case, will run and hide from the field, trust me. But from whom, exactly, will they run. Well, the coaches had Gustavus 2nd and that sounds right, what with Molly Geske and Abby Rothenbuhler leading the way.
The coaches have St. Ben's 3rd and Concordia 4th, and that would seem to be from habit. The 2 of them lost a vast amount of talent, though the Cobbers' sophomore center Alexandra Lippert could be the best individual player in the entire league.
But who will take advantage of the vacuum just below the top? The coaches have St. Olaf 5th, Bethel 6th, Macalester 7th and St. Mary's 8th, none of whom have a winning tradition to suggest that 2nd or 3rd would be a likely occurrence. And Hamline and St. Kate's, tied for 9th, and Carleton and Augsburg, would appear to have no change of upsetting the favorites, though Carleton seems to be rated a little low considering the talent they bring back. Granted they're lacking in depth, but Akemi Arzouman and Emma Purfeerst are quite a dynamic duo.
UMAC Men
Again, Northwestern (Roseveille) is the prohibitive favorite and I'm not going to argue the point. Bethany Lutheran is 2nd, UM-Morris 3rd, St. Scholastica 4th, Martin Luther 5th, Crown 6th, Presentation 7th and Northland 8th.
UMAC Women
After UM-Morris, Northland and Martin Luther, the coaches have Northwestern, Bethany Lutheran, St. Scholastica, Presentation and Crown following.
Morris brings back just 2 starters--Emily Mehr and Jenny Noordmans--so Northland, with just 1 conference loss the last 2 years and returning 5 seniors and 3 juniors, should be right there. Lulu Seelye, a guard, leads the way with 10 points per game.
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