NCAA Men's Tennis Tournament Time

It’s the best time of year again in the world of college tennis.  The NCAA tournament is right around the corner, and all eyes are on the festive conference tournaments taking place.  To this day, some of the best memories of my life are those that I had competing for Rutgers University in the Big East Championship at the University of Miami’s Neil Schiff Tennis Complex. 

With no further adieu, here are a few notable men’s tennis teams and conferences to look for during the NCAA madness. 

The dark horse conference has to be the Big 10.  It is conference stacked with depth and talent, and that should pay off for its teams in the NCAA Big Dance.  A Big 10 team with a winning record during regular season conference play is deserving of an at-large bid.  That puts programs such as Ohio State, Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois and Penn State into the draw.  Speaking of the OSU Buckeyes, they are clearly the best of the bunch.  Steven Moneke has complied an impressive 26-6 singles record, ultimately leading his team to an undefeated regular season conference record.  The only set back for OSU came back in February when they fell prey to top-ranked Virginia.  The Cavaliers may have won that dual 4-1, but expect to see the Buckeyes hungry for revenge at the Big Dance, and ready to return the favor to UVA.  The true conference sleeper has to be Penn State.  The Nittany Lions won their last 4 conference dual matches, only dropping one point (in their 6-1 victory over #74 Purdue).  Watch for the Big 10 to be battle tested, and extremely prepared for the NCAA tournament.

No surprise here, but the same can be said for the lethal PAC-10 Conference.  UCLA and USC represented the Los Angeles area in style, owning the top two spots in the regular season conference rankings; and those are two programs are heading for the NCAA Final Four if the draw permits.  Elsewhere, Stanford is playing inspired tennis.  The Cardinal dropped a heart-breaking 4-3 loss to Arizona State earlier in their season, but they have since picked up the pace with victories over Arizona, Washington and Oregon.  Call me old-fashioned, but Stanford is still the crown jewel of college tennis.  With veteran players like Matt Bruch and Blake Muller in the line-up, Coach John Whitlinger will have his team ready to go deep in the NCAA team competition. 

How about the all mighty SEC, ACC and Big 12 conferences? Of course they will be well represented with a slew of national title contenders.  Out of the SEC, you have the big guns: Georgia, Mississippi and Tennessee, all in the top 10, and all with a legitimate shot at making the elite eight or final four.  Of the three, you have to consider UGA the strongest contender.  In the Big 12, there are Texas, Texas Tech and Baylor hanging tough; I would consider them to be dark horses in the up coming national draw, especially the BU Bears.  They had a “suspect” conference regular season, but that can happen to any program in the Big 12.  With the senior leadership of Lars Poershke, the Bears will be in the hunt come tourney time.

As for the ACC, it speaks for itself.  UVA is the team to beat this season with a perfect record.  As I always like to say, “anything can happen in NCAA sports,” and the Cavaliers are anything but immune to a potential upset.  Just look at their record: they squeaked out 4-3 victories over UCLA, Kentucky and Illinois, and as I mentioned the OSU Buckeyes are hunting for revenge.  The potential Cinderella stories out of the ACC come in the form of Florida State and North Carolina.  On paper, they don’t have much of a chance against the top three teams (UVA, OSU, UGA), but the Noles and Tar Heels have survived a number of tough regular season conference dual matches, which could spark some momentum for a run deep into the NCAA Big Dance.

Another conference to keep an eye on is of course the Ivy League.  As of now, it appears that Brown, Harvard, UPenn and Princeton will be in a tightly contested race for the conference crown.  The Ivies don't play a conference tournament; usually the team that wins the regular season is competing at a top 25 national level.

And finally, would it be a “Cicma College Commentary” without a plug for the Big East?  Long-time South Florida Coach Don Barr said recently: “All the Big East teams are getting stronger and stronger,” and he couldn’t have said it better.  Don probably won’t remember this, but he coached me many years ago while training at Ed Krass’ college tennis camp in Tampa, and it’s good to see Don still hanging tough with the USF Bulls.  The bottom line is that Notre Dame, Louisville and USF are top 20 caliber teams that can do some serious damage come NCAA tourney time.  It’s also exciting to see that the conference expanded its tournament field to all 9 teams!  In a time when budget cuts/Athletics Directors are unfairly wiping out college tennis teams for no reason, I tip my hat to the Big East Conference for letting more athletes compete!  Speaking of which, good luck to the University of Rhode Island men's tennis team which is scheduled to be eliminated at the end of this season.  A program that needs less than $50,000 to run, it’s unfortunate to see.

FINAL THOUGHT 

In essence, there are a number of extremely talented programs ready to vie for a national NCAA team title.  The top conferences that can produce a champion are the SEC, BIG 10, ACC, BIG 12 and PAC 10.  But hey, “its college tennis and anything can happen!”