Six years later, Davis, Northwestern “turning the corner” in Big Ten

Shane Davis has taken his lumps.

Not that he didn’t expect to, but … 

After winning back-to-back NCAA men’s championships, in 2014 and 2015 at Loyola Chicago, he made the move, 4.6 miles up the Lake Michigan shoreline, to coach the Northwestern women. 

So many questions followed, wondering why and how he would fare on the women’s side. His work was cut out for him.

It was a far cry from now, when the 2022 Wildcats are 17-7, 6-6 in the Big Ten, and holding the No. 30 spot in the NCAA RPI after winning four in a row. 

The good news for Northwestern is that this weekend, win, lose or draw, is that its RPI will likely improve. The bad news is No. 6 Ohio State comes to town on Friday and No. 4 Nebraska shows up Sunday.

But unlike previous years, those two matches are not gimmes for the powerful visitors. No, not in a year in which Northwestern has won at then-No. 7 Minnesota and last week beat then-No. 12 Purdue.

It’s enough for Davis to admit, after some reflection, “yeah, I feel like we’re kind of turning the corner.”

That corner seemed really far away six years ago.

In his first season, in 2016, the Wildcats finished 10-22, 3-17 in the unforgiving Big Ten.

In 2017, they went 14-18, 4-16. 

In early October 2018, we walked around the gorgeous Evanston, Illinois, campus, donning hard hats to examine the renovation progress of Welsh-Ryan Arena. It was obvious that when it was finished it would be one of the best venues anywhere.

And you had to wonder: 

Great arena. Really good coach. All the youth volleyball talent imaginable within a few hundred-miles radius. An academic institution on par with the very best.

It seemed like all the pieces were in place. Except that Northwestern, which last went to the NCAA Tournament in 2010, was in the Big Ten, where getting three times better might mean very little in terms of moving up the ranks.

On that October day in 2018 Northwestern was 10-6 at the time, 0-4 in the B1G. But the Wildcats would finish 16-16, 6-14 in the conference, and maybe the light at the end of the tunnel was not an oncoming train.

But baby steps. 

In 2019, Northwestern went 14-18, 5-15. Progress? No way to tell, because in the COVID-ravaged season of 2020-21, the Wildcats went 4-6, all in the B1G. 

Finally last year you could feel it. Northwestern went 12-19, 7-13 in the conference, It may not seem like much, but the Wildcats finished 10th in the 14-team league, comfortably ahead of the bottom…