Basketball isn't the only NCAA championship

As I'm sure you know, the NCAA championships in fencing began yesterday and continue through Sunday. The format is a round robin, so each athlete within a weapon (epee, sabre, and foil are the three weapons) will fence against every other athlete in that weapon, within his or her gender. That is, the men only fence against men, and women against women. The men's competition takes place on Thu and Fri, and the women compete Sat and Sun; every year it flips, so in 2012 the women will fence first.

However, the format of determining the national champion in fencing is unique in that the men's and women's scores are combined. By aggregating the scores, it means that schools must have a strong men's and women's team in order to win.

This seems like great system to encourage equity between male and female student-athletes. Concerns about Title IX can be partially alleviated when performance by both sexes is required to achieve success. The women are just as important as the men in terms of winning a national championship. On the other hand, a school like Northwestern will never win a title: it has a very strong women's team, but its men's program is only club level and thus does not compete at NCAAs.

Is this a good system? Is it fair to Northwestern? Are there any other NCAA sports that operate in this fashion?

By the way, to follow scores live, go to http://www.prisedefer.com/NCAA. Halfway through the competition, the Notre Dame men have a 6 bout lead over Penn State, as well as an individual champion (Ariel DeSmet in foil). It should be an exciting two-day finish in Columbus.