Funnily enough, the most surprising Northwestern field hockey news that came out of Sunday was not that it won the Big Ten Tournament title, but that it was named the No. 2 seed heading into the upcoming NCAA Tournament.
Yes, you heard that right. The team that is on an 18-game win streak spanning two months and has been the No. 1 team in the country since Oct. 10 is not the top seed in the NCAA tournament. That title belongs to North Carolina, the ACC regular season and tournament champions. While UNC has a worse record (14-3) compared to Northwestern (18-1), it does have a higher RPI (which ranks a team based on both win-loss record and strength of schedule), which likely explains why it took the No.