2018 Season Preview: #18 Johns Hopkins

It’s been a long while since I’ve done one of these fancy season previews, but after a few years of experience I probably haven’t lost my mojo. You know this because I’ve delayed my preview two days which sounds like a typical ASouth thing to do. But here I am, ready to start your weekend with a preview about one of my FOUR teams. That’s right, I get only four teams again this year and none of them are Swarthmore, so I’m happy. JK Swarthmore. Oh, and since it’s been so long, here are some of the things you should get hype for in your life outside of Season Previews.

ASouths Things to Get Hype For

  • Buying the dip (Coach Fried knows)
  • Black Mirror Season 4, Dec 29
  • Bloggers getting added to the group chat
  • Following any news about Eudice Chong
  • The Alvin Kamara Show
  • ASouth Winning the Blog Fantasy Football League
  • Our DIII Tennis Fantasy Draft

There you have it. Okay, season preview time. I’ll actually be starting my season preview slate with none other than Johns Hopkins, the perennial conference winner with the knack for posting crazy results, especially in the postseason. Before I start this preview I’d like to give a shoutout to the California homies regarding the recent wildfires. Crazy IG stories I’ve seen, that’s some scary sh*t. Stay safe. Onto the preview ladies and gents.

Overview

Oh, Johns Hopkins. The team that puts us on a roller coaster ride every year. It’s common knowledge that Hopkins takes a hell of a long time to warm up, like the Guru with Game of Thrones. There are times when you sit back and scratch your head and ask yourself, “wtf is going on here?” Hopkins is a team full of talent, but there have been questions about some of their leadership. Consistency is not in Hopkins vocabulary, unless we’re talking about NCAA performance. This is a team that surprised everyone and made three Elite 8s in a row, and made the Sweet 16 last year. This is also a team that struggles annually against Swarthmore in the regular season, gets scares from F&M on a bad day, and gives me ulcers. Hopkins is a fun team. They are the team that everyone wants to play in the regular season, and doesn’t want to play in the postseason. I love covering them. Shout-out to Mike Buxbaum and Nick Garcia. Jeremy Dubin, not so much. Just kidding.

Coach: Chuck Willenborg, 13th Year

Location: Baltimore, MD

Preseason Ranking: #18

Blog Power Ranking: #20

Twitter Handle: @HopkinsMensTennis

Team Hashtag: #HereWeGoHop, #ALLINFORMIKE

Key Additions

Vishnu Joshi (4 Star, #126), Eric Yoo (4 Star, #162), Alex Matisse (3 Star, #284), Robby Simon (3 Star, #279), Bryan Chu (NR, International), Other Various 2 Stars

Key Losses

Michael Buxbaum, (#1 Singles, #1 Doubles), Jeremy Dubin (#1/2 Singles, #1/2 Doubles), Emerson Walsh (#4 Singles, #1/2 Doubles)

Lineup Analysis

#1 Vishnu Joshi, Freshman, UTR 12.33

Joshi is the guy to take the top spot in Baltimore, mostly based on his pre-college play. Hopkins has a lot riding on this young freshman, because you will see that the rest of the lineup is a bit of an enigma. Joshi lost in the first round of the ITA Tournament to CMUs projected #5 player Kailas Shekar, who took a straight set loss to CNU’s #4 singles player in a dual match. This is not a good thing. However, I will chalk it up to a freshman thinking he’s the sh*t and coming into ITAs unprepared, because this guy has talent. If Joshi is not everything Hopkins expects to be, Swarthmore will be waiting in the wings.

#2 Cody Kim? Sophomore, UTR 11.79

Cody Kim is another enigma who has the third highest UTR on the team, and performed well in ITAs. This is a guy who played mainly at the bottom of the lineup last year, but looks like he took a decent step forward judging from his ITA performance. The most impressive win for him was over Matt Miles of UMW, who has really improved his game (we’ll get into that in UMW preview). Kim then fell to perennial CNU #1 David Reed in two close sets. Kim looks like he’s taken his game to the next level and could presumably take over the top spot given Joshi’s struggles in ITAs, and Willenborg’s notoriously quick lineup decisions. Do I think Kim would be able to handle the top spot? Not sure. But, he’s got a shot and that’s what counts.

#3 David Perez, Senior, UTR 11.53

Oh, David Perez. He will probably take a bit of offense to me listing him at #3, but the fact of the matter is that he hasn’t played any higher in the Hopkins lineup. Last year wasn’t the most successful for Perez, but he is the most senior member on the team and will be relied on like other captains to step his game up. Everyone remembers Perez for his tough loss against Bowdoin in the Elite 8 two years ago and this is his last chance to shake that as his lasting memory in DIII Tennis. Perez has a decent ITA but one that ended losing to unseeded Vernier from Swarthmore, which does not seem to me like he is a top two player on his team. Perez will have to improve his game even more than he already has to crack the top two. If not, he could be closer to a #4 player than a #2.

#4 Justin Kang, Senior, UTR 11.81

One of my favorite players is this man right here, who doesn’t follow me on twitter but sure as hell knows who I am. Kang has had a tumultuous career, one where he’s been pulled in and out of the lineup with 0 consistency, despite his talent. Kang will be using his senior year to finally get a full year in the lineup, and he’s off to a good start. He got a really rough draw in ITAs, where he drew Daniel Levine in the Round of 16, where he lost 7-5 6-3. A pretty solid result against far and away the best player in the tournament. I wish I had more results to judge Kang’s play, but at this point, I don’t have them. Kang will be a strong player if he plays down at #4 singles, where I think he should be placed. Hopkins doesn’t have many strong spots here and Kang could be one of them for sure.

#5 Eric Yoo, Freshman, UTR 11.28

Eric Yoo is Hopkins other 4 star freshman, who had a better result than Joshi in the ITA yet I list him at #5 singles. Maybe I’m preparing for the fantasy draft here and doing a little home cooking. Yoo finished the year ranked around where Joshi was ranked as well.  He lost in the ITA QF to Mark Fallati of Swarthmore in a close second set, and probably has the potential to move up to potentially #1/2 in the lineup. However, there’s a chance he’s all the way down here at #5. I think Hopkins can be very strong at the bottom of the lineup with their depth, but they will have to be pitch perfect (aye!) at the bottom to pull off wins. That’s going to be rough on some of these lower guys. Yoo is a guy that can take his juniors experience and pull some tough wins at the bottom, much like Sam Concannon did for Case Western did last year.

#6 Scott Thygesen, Aaron Carey, Some Others

#6 singles will almost definitely be a total crapshoot for Hopkins but the good news is that they have lots of talent down there. With the amount of recruits this team brings in, this spot should be competitive against literally anyone. However, the problem with a revolving door down here is that the players don’t get very much match experience. Let’s not forget that Thygesen was curiously playing very high in the lineup last year but did not play in ITAs. I believe he may still be injured or studying abroad, but he is another high potential guy that can really shake up the Hopkins lineup. No matter what, Hopkins has options here and should be able to take care of most sub 20 teams down here.

Doubles

A little bit of doubles here, but I expect Hopkins to totally shake this thing up given their performance in ITAs. They have no teams from last year that have built a ton of chemistry given the loss of Buxbaum, Dubin, and Walsh, so they will need to be training hard this winter (lol) to get these teams on point for the season. I expect doubles to be a weakness this season for Hop, which is unfortunate considering their singles isn’t looking the best either. As you can tell, I’m not the highest on the Jays this year. They may get upset by Swat, so we’ll get into that soon.

Schedule Analysis

http://www.hopkinssports.com/sports/m-tennis/sched/jhop-m-tennis-sched.html

There’s the Hopkins schedule above and as usual I’ll be doing a very quick laydown of what Hopkins needs to do to achieve their goals. They’ve put together a classic Hopkins schedule which basically means its really weak and barely has any out of region matches. The teams that we will need to watch on the schedule for Hopkins are as follows:

  • Bates
  • Emory
  • Carnegie Mellon
  • Swarthmore
  • Mary Washington

That’s basically it. Their first test will be against Bates, who have historically given them problems even playing on Hopkins home court. That will be the first time we will really see who Hopkins is and if they even have the goods to compete with the Emory and CMU’s of the world (even if CMU might be struggling) or if they will be fighting for their conference lives. I expect them to be more of the latter, which means those matches against Emory and CMU will be probable losses. Then comes the two normal foes in Swarthmore and UMW, which will obviously determine their season. They will go into the Swat match knowing that if they lose, it’s not that big of a deal considering they will play again in the Centennial championship, but it will be interesting to see what happens there. Two years ago, the Jays lost to Swat in this match and came back to smoke Swarthmore in the playoffs. This year will be a roller coaster for Hopkins and will culminate with two big matches at the end of the year against their main rivals.

ASouth’s 3 Keys to the Season

Finding a Consistent Lineup

As I mentioned in the lineup analysis, finding consistency with spots will be key for this Hopkins team. They have talent, but I literally don’t know who’s going to be where. If you’re shifting people from #1 to #4 match to match, there’s no way the players are going to be able to build any sort of confidence at their spots. I can say as a player that it was important for me to know where I stood and know exactly what to expect out of every match. This will be tough for players who are all sitting around the same level. Also, the doubles portion of that is obviously extremely important as well. Can Hopkins find a good formula for their matches?

Staying Motivated/Finding a Leader

Hopkins is notorious for the “tank and tree,” but a lot of that is media hype. The stories from previous years are that they took some time to find their focus and needed to adapt to their senior captains. Garcia from two years ago and Buxbaum/Dubin from last year came into their own at the end of the year. Well, Buxbaum got injured but he was still a huge motivating factor for the Jays. Hopkins needs to find that motivation and that leader earlier this year, because they don’t have the top dogs to get them through some early matches like Bates and CMU to throw a dud up there.

Depth, Depth, Depth

The strength of Hopkins will almost always be depth, given their recruiting classes. However, this is a team that has somehow struggled at the bottom of the lineup for a few years now. In their loss against CMU last year, they lost at #4 and #6. Against Wesleyan, they were down at all bottom spots after getting swept in doubles. This cannot happen against top teams if Hopkins will have any success. They no longer have Buxbaum and Dubin and have a gaping hole at the #1 spot. The season rests on the bottom of the lineup. Shivers.

Conclusion

Hopkins is looking like a team that could plummet this year based on the way their team is set up. The Jays have surprised me before (in both good and bad ways) and I’d really, really love a good surprise this year. While I expect the Jays to win their conference in a tight battle against Swarthmore, this year represents the best chance for the Jays to lose the Centennial in a long time. I will always go with the historically strong programs, as D3Tree knows, but man, this is scary.

Special Announcement

Today in the group chat, the bloggers were discussing their top 10 favorite TV Shows of all time. It was a pretty damn good chat, and I’ll be posting the top 10 shows of each blogger in a post sometime this weekend. It should be fun! Since it’s the offseason, we can be a bit of a cool blog sometimes. Anyways, I’ll see you all again for some other ASouth preview in the future. Until then, ASouth OUT.

Leave a Comment