Alright, this preview has been a long time coming. For you Comet fans out there, don’t worry, I didn’t forget about you! I was just putting you off until the last minute because I don’t think your team is that interesting. Then, I got a ‘follow’ from your school’s Twitter account today, and I was feeling the warm fuzzies, so I went ahead and threw this little ditty together.
Head Coach: Bryan Whitt, 10th season
Location: I’ll give you three guesses
2010 Ranking: NR (region: NR)
2011 Ranking: NR (region: #15)
2012 Ranking: NR (region: #10)
2013 Ranking: #28 (region: #10)
Overview:
As you can see, there has been a pretty steady climb up the rankings the last four years for the UT-Dallas Comets. I had literally never heard of them before until they almost beat UT-Tyler in 2012, but then they lost 5-0 to the Patriots in the conference championship match, and filed them under ‘potentially relevant’ in my head.
Last fall, they registered another blip on the relevancy radar when the Clark/Foster doubles team went through a couple TU teams to get to the regional final. In the regular season, they held serve, so to speak, notching a nice win over Kalamazoo (and getting caught in a split squad against the University of the Ozarks in Arkansas – which, I checked, is an actual DIII tennis team that’s actually in the West region. Because, you know, Arkansas = West. I’m not making this up). Anyways, things got a little goofy in the post-season, when they took advantage of a Ybarra-less UT-Tyler team, won the conference championship, and popped CMU’s bubble. In the first round of NCAA’s, they got bounced 5-0 by Redlands without their #1 singles player, Matt Davis.
In last season’s “Best of the Rest” column, I said that the best UT-Dallas could do that season would be to hold on to #10 in the regional rankings. I had no idea at the time that my region was gonna pull a Peyton Manning and kick so much ass in the regular season that 10 teams would end up in the top 30, but with the help of that fluky win over the Pats, here they are. The question remains: will UT-Dallas be true to its mascot, show up in the rankings once every couple decades and vanish, or are they here to stay?
Lineup Analysis:
Key Losses: Matt Davis (#1 singles, #1 doubles), Dustin Foster (#3 singles, #2 doubles), Bryan Leib (#5 singles, #3 doubles)
Key Additions: Hruday Ravula
I don’t know much about this team, but I know this: they don’t have the depth to absorb the losses of those three players. Davis was a very effective place-holder at #1 singles. His crowning achievement of the year was probably his win at #1 doubles over UT-Tyler’s team of Brown and Spencer in the ASC championship match, but that wasn’t really his primary function on the team. By being a serviceable #1, UT-Dallas was able to bump Foster down to #3 singles and #2 doubles, where he didn’t lose a singles match all season and was similarly dominant at #2 doubles with teammate Casey Clark. Coach Whitt has obviously done a tremendous job developing his players, but there’s just no way to recover from losing those guys.
On the positive side of things, the Comets still have last year’s #2 singles player Casey Clark. Clark started off his season this fall by beating Ramon Martinez from UT-Tyler and winning the ASC fall singles championship, but he followed that up with a first round exit in the ITA Regional. Otherwise, the team of Iwata and Speissman made it to the quarterfinals of the ITA doubles regional, and that’s about it.
Bottom line, these guys don’t have the depth to compete with the top 30 this season, but they should be applauded for finishing last season the way they did. Coach Whitt has turned several “nobody” tennis players into the kind of guys that can win against Tyler or Trinity on the right day, and that’s more than a lot of coaches can say. This won’t be their year, but if he can parlay their year-end national ranking into a better-than-average recruiting class for 2014, we may be seeing this team back in the rankings in the near future.
Schedule Analysis
For the past several years, UT-Dallas has had a very weak schedule compared to its more elite brethren. This year is no different. They will have to beat their ASC foes, LeTorneau and Ozarks to keep their top 10 regional ranking, and they shouldn’t have much problem with that. There might be some shifting at the bottom of the rankings this year, but you won’t see anyone breaking into the top 9.
The only match that sticks out on their schedule to me is a mid-season tilt with Earlham. The Quakers lost some key players and their coach, but they still have at least one good player, giving their team a similar look to these Comets. It would be nice if UT-Dallas could win that one to maintain regional supremacy over the Central, but ultimately, these guys will lose to Tyler in the conference championship, and order will be restored.
Again, hats off to the Comets for getting that conference tournament championship last year, but, in my unprofessional opinion, they just don’t have it in them this year to make much noise.
That does it for my season previews this year. Pomona-Pitzer vs. UCSC starts the season off on Saturday. Let the rackets do the talking.
Snarkily yours,
D3West
two side notes:
1. For BatesFan: Ozarks def. UT-Dallas def. UT-Tyler def. Whitman def. BYU-Hawaii def. CMS def. Williams. WHY ARE WE NOT TALKING ABOUT OZARKS AS NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP CONTENDERS THIS YEAR!?!?!?!?! They didn’t lose anyone to graduation and have a senior-heavy roster
2. UT-Dallas already got its best recruiting class this past year, but they didn’t do well for ED 2014. We’ll see what they come up with.