RECAP: This week in Northwestern athletics, June 12-June 19

The first week after Northwestern's academic year ended was one of the busiest for the athletic programs. Here's your Sunday link dump, which we will be making a regular post going forward.

Northwestern announces renovations to Welsh-Ryan Arena

The week started out with a bang, as about $110 million was pledged to a massive overhaul of Welsh-Ryan Arena.

• Here's the news as it broke, detailing what in specific will be upgraded.
• Ben Goren explained how important the renovations are and what they mean for the men's basketball team in particular.
• Martin Oppegaard discussed positives and negatives of the options for stadiums for the 2017-2018 season.
• Martin and Sam Brief attended the press conference and took notes.
• They also gave us their biggest takeaways.

Northwestern adds four (!!!) recruits to the class of 2017

You can never have too many 'croots.

• Jace James, a local prospect, committed a week ago today.
• A day later, kicker Charlie Kuhbander committed.
• The same day Kuhbander committed, offensive tackle Ethan Wiederkehr did the same.
• On Saturday, the Wildcats added their second wide receiver of the class: Berkeley Holman.

Most Important Player series

• Every writer voted on his Top 10.
• Tristan Jung and Ian McCafferty debated No. 10 Blake Hance.
• Zach Wingrove and Will Ragatz took on No. 9 Austin Carr.
• Zach Pereles and Ben Goren discussed No. 8 Jordan Thompson.

Miscellaneous

• Game times and TV information for Northwestern's first three games were released.
• Clayton Thorson caught (and released) a shark.
• Seven Wildcats made Athlon Sports' preseason All-B1G teams.
• Danny Rapaport wrote a feature on new volleyball coach Shane Davis.
• We wrapped up our This Is Inside NU series; there were 10 episodes.