It’s getting to that time of year when teams either separate themselves as clear tournament teams or fall below expectations. Not only is this a crucial time for teams but also for the people coaching them.
The Tufts swimming and diving program returned to competition after winter break with back-to-back meets against Bates College on Friday and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on Saturday. Both the men’s and women’s teams won decisive victories over the Bates Bobcats; the men’s team also defeated the MIT Engineers.
MLB’s TV policy is asinine. For a league that ostensibly wants (and actually needs) to grow the game of baseball, they sure do enjoy making it hard for fans to watch it. Right now, the money MLB makes from regional sports networks is more important to them than making the game more accessible.
For the Tufts men’s hockey team, the weekend was defined by an essential before-and-after with their third-period comeback on Saturday. The Jumbos were shut out 2–0 against Williams College on Friday, and when they were down 1–0 after the first two periods against Middlebury College on Saturday, there was a real concern that the same outcome would happen again.
On Saturday, Tufts women’s basketball traveled to play the Bates Bobcats, where the Jumbos lost on a heartbreaking buzzer beater. The game ended 62–60.
Men’s basketball returned to Cousens Gymnasium in triumphant fashion on Saturday, notching a commanding win in their third consecutive conference matchup. Coming off of a disappointing road stint that saw two losses in the opening games of NESCAC play, the Tufts Jumbos burst onto their home court reinvigorated and proceeded to flatten the Bates Bobcats in front of a robust crowd of spectators.
From sprinting through the sprinklers at Camp Nou during the 2010 Champions League semifinals to conquering Pep Guardiola’s Messi-inspired Barcelona dynasty, José Mourinho has nearly done it all. The self-proclaimed “Special One,” who once entered his dressing room hidden in a laundry basket due to a stadium ban has come a long way from translating in press conferences and is regarded as one of the greatest managers ever.
Exactly one year ago, the Jumbos men’s hockey team’s weekend slate consisted of the same two opponents, the Trinity Bantams and the Wesleyan Cardinals, as it did this year. On Jan. 20 and Jan. 21, 2023, the Jumbos fell 6–0 to the Bantams and 5–4 to the Cardinals. But it’s a new year, and the Jumbos, who went into the weekend undefeated since Nov. 26, are a new team. So, expectations and excitement for their road trip to Connecticut were sky-high.
With just under two months left until March Madness, college basketball is heating up with news. Here are my favorite storylines from this week.
After years of stability, life is moving pretty fast at One Patriot Place. The immutable Bill Belichick is gone, replaced by a fresh face, Jerod Mayo, who represents the dawning of a new era for the franchise without quite relinquishing all ties to the Patriot Way. Suddenly, with a new head coach for the first time since 2000, an apparent opening in the front office and the disappointment of a 4–13 season behind them, uncertainty seems to be the new status quo.
While most of the school was enjoying their last weekend of winter break, the women’s basketball team played in two NESCAC games against Amherst on Friday and Hamilton on Saturday. Tufts split the weekend, winning against Hamilton but losing to Amherst in two close games.
Now that we are just over halfway through the regular season, it’s fitting to start predicting who will grace the 2023-24 All-America First Team in college hoops. While a lot could change, here are my picks for the time being, along with an honorable mention.
The Tufts men’s basketball team was in a winning mood after its win at home against Clark University, knowing its next six games were away. The first three against UMass Dartmouth, University of Saint Joseph and No. 5-ranked Keene State were all wins. The squad then headed to the Kingsmen Classic just after Christmas to Thousand Oaks, Calif., where they were scheduled to take on California Lutheran University and UT Dallas. Tufts took its first loss of the season, losing to Cal Lutheran 70–66, before bouncing back to beat UT Dallas 84–72.
I am so unbelievably sick of watching the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers sign or trade for every big name in baseball. It’s just not fair, and it needs to stop.
Typically, fire and ice don’t mix. After all, in the presence of fire, solid ice becomes dripping, liquid water. This contradiction has not stopped the Tufts men’s ice hockey team from setting the NESCAC on fire in recent weeks. After starting the season 0–4–1, the Jumbos rattled off seven consecutive wins, starting with a 7–4 win over Williams College on Dec. 1. So, a Friday night trip to take on the Amherst Mammoths presented another opportunity for the Jumbos to make their mark at the top of the NESCAC standings.
Alejandro Garnacho might have scored the goal of the season against Everton, but the jitters from Argentina’s magical strike would soon fade on the back of a potentially season-defining draw in Turkey. Before Manchester United’s trip to Istanbul on Nov. 29, qualification for the knockout stage was in their hands.
I will be studying abroad in Germany next semester, so with the semester coming to a close, this will be the last Sports and Society column for at least a really long time and potentially ever. However, instead of writing some sappy introspective summation of all we’ve learned, I’m just going to keep things like they usually are and send the column out just like it came into this world: by overthinking relatively simple concepts.
The Tufts men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams had strong starts to their season at the MIT Winter Invitational over the weekend. The men’s team came in first place out of five teams, and the women’s team came in second place out of seven teams. The men’s team ended with 1,875 points, beating runner-up MIT’s 1,567.5 points. The women’s team ended with 1,348.5 points, losing to MIT by 591 points but beating third-place team Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute by 512.5 points.
Five weeks into the season, we’ve had three different teams at the top of the AP poll. The University of Kansas held its own for three weeks but lost handily to Marquette University in the Maui Invitational. Purdue University held the No. 1 spot for one week, losing to an unranked Northwestern University team on Dec. 1. Now, the University of Arizona sits atop the rankings. While it has only been about a month and teams are still working out their kinks, there have been no signs of a single dominant squad in the sport.
The 2023 NFL season has been one of the most unpredictable and volatile in years, for individual players and for entire organizations. This puts many of the NFL’s major awards up in the air, so I’d like to offer my own predictions for these awards to close out the regular season columns.
