ASouth Stream of Consciousness – This Weekend

I must say, these stream of consciousness articles have really been a big hit overall, and it allows me to hit on any topic I want to, which has let me feel like I’ve been released from the shackles that are D3NE and his schedules. It’s kind of like walking around your house with just your boxers (or worse). It’s the little things, man. Anyways, there was a LOT that happened this past weekend, with a lot of drama, from small schools to big schools, and there’s a lot to talk about. I’m going to try and hit on every story from this past weekend without taking away too much from the regional writers, given that it’s their jurisdictions, but man, this is going to be great.

Thanks, Kanye. Now to turn on “Graduation” or “MBDTF” and get this thing done. By the way, 808s and Heartbreak is a great album. There’s your hot take part of this article. It’s probably one of his best. Okay, that’s enough. #REALTALK

What happened in the Haverford/Hopkins Match, and my thoughts.

First, you must take a look at these results:

http://www.haverfordathletics.com/sports/mten/2017-18/files/414hcjhm.htm

Something weird about that? Yes, it’s a bit weird what happened at #2 singles, right? Well, here’s some more information.

http://www.haverfordathletics.com/sports/mten/2017-18/releases/20180414pdhhoo

Still don’t know what the hell is going on? Kevin Yan of Haverford was up 6-2, 5-4 on Eric Yoo and “returned the ball for a serve and was called for an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty and disqualified.” What the hell!??!!?!?! Well, I can give you the blow-by-blow laydown of what supposedly happened, confirmed by a couple sources. Again, nothing can be confirmed without video, but here seems to be what went down.

At 5-4 with Eric Yoo serving, Yan and Yoo finished a point where both happened to be at the net. Yan “returned” the ball to Yoo, probably a little bit too forcefully, on accident, and the ball hits Eric Yoo in the glasses. His glasses hit against his face, and he suffers a cut right below the eye. Seeing this, Coach Willenborg of Hopkins explodes, demanding that the ref DQ Yan because Yoo can no longer continue his match. Yoo is then disqualified, despite being up 6-2, 5-4. Yoo returns for doubles later on (the teams played singles first in this match). Eventually, Hopkins defeats Haverford, 5-4, in what is probably one of the worst ways to lose a match of the year.

Alright, so I’ve been asked if this type of “behavior” has a place in DIII Tennis. While I know it feels pretty slimy for a coach to demand a default of an opposing player, can I say that there aren’t a ton of people that wouldn’t have done the same in that situation? Not sure. If we’re playing by the rules, I mean it seems like there’s not much we can do about that. I’m no expert on the rules, but it’s really the referee’s decision on whether or not Yan should have been defaulted. It doesn’t seem like there was intent to injure, and it seems like an actual mistake, but, yea. It’s a tough decision with a lot of ambiguity involved. I think I know where I lean on the whole matter, but would love to hear people’s thoughts in the comments if they care about it.

Coach Tee, I see you there.

Chicago had a mixed bag of a weekend. I’ve been doing a lot of talking about how everyone was overlooking Chicago, despite them being #3 in the country with multiple wins over top 10 teams, and then they went out and lost to GAC on a neutral court. This, of course, led to more “Chicago being Chicago” type comments that never seem to fail to come up this time of year. GAC is a good team, guys. We’re talking about a team that took the #1 team in the nation to 5-4, that has beaten Wash U and crushed CMU, and beat Chicago with the same team last year. While this was a disappointing loss for Chicago, they came out and beat Wash U 7-2 on the next day, with abbreviated scoring. Chicago is still a force to be reckoned with. Coach Tee will be happy that I am saying this. He’s also happy about something else:

If you read the fine print there (as AVZ did and showed us in the group chat), there’s some guy playing exhibition that formerly was the best player on a top 5 team in the nation. That person, is David Liu. While Nick Chua may think that David Liu is not a good player (per his sarcastic tweets), David Liu is, in fact, a very good player. So, with David Liu’s imminent return, what will the Chicago lineup look like? Remember, Chicago can only bring 9 people to nationals, so it will be interesting given their always changing lineups. What we’ve speculated in the group chat is something like this:

Kerrigan/Tsai/Chua/Liu/Yuan/Pei – which would be a murderer’s row of players. This team would be virtually unbeatable at 4-6, with Pei really the key point there. You’d have to beat this team at the top of the lineup and in doubles, which obviously is possible, but would be extremely hard. Anyways, Chicago suffered a tough loss this weekend, but they are going into UAAs and NCAAs with even more momentum. Comment below for what you think the Chicago lineup should be, how far they can go, and anything else about Chicago.

DOWN WITH THE ESTABLISHMENT

One thing I told D3Tree last year was that it was quite stupid to bet against perennially strong conference powers until they actually slipped from the top. This year is the year that many have made that slip. Just this weekend, we saw the following results:

  • Kalamazoo defeats Case Western, 5-4
  • Southwestern defeats Trinity TX, 5-4
  • Grinnell defeats Coe, 5-3

Prior to this weekend, we saw Johns Hopkins lose to NCW and UT-Tyler get challenged by basically any team with enough players to reach the top 50. It seems to me that there is a shift occurring in some of these smaller conferences, where lesser known teams are threatening and even beating those teams that used to be shoe-ins for the NCAA Tournament. Kenyon seems to be the only “conference power” that fits the above criteria that is still playing really well (along with UMW, who lost the conference last year). Why is this happening? Well, these conference powers used to build their programs on developing little known recruits to compete with the best in the business. For whatever reason, all of these teams have seen a dip in their development OR, quite frankly, the rest of the nation is catching up to them. DIII Tennis continues to get deeper from top to bottom, and we’re seeing that way more now. I personally am a huge fan of this and it keeps things way more exciting when it comes to the conference play. I’m particularly interested in a few conferences where some teams can truly win their conferences for the first time. As far as the results from this weekend, I’ll let the regional writers hit on what some of these things mean for their respective teams, because I want to move onto my next point.

Team SLUGS visited the confines of Whitman

I mentioned both these teams in my first stream of consciousness article, and they ended up meeting this weekend in an extremely important match for both teams regarding seeding in their prospective NCAA Regions. The home court advantage of Whitman is well-known across the country, and despite the two teams playing outside for the doubles portion of the match, I still feel like there is a story here. Whitman is just darn tough in Walla Walla, indoors and out. The Blues eventually won this thing 7-2 and I now have to drop the Slugs in my Power Rankings. Damn you, Walla Walla. Other notorious home court advantages (especially indoors) are as follows – Indoors @ Bates, Indoors @ Brandeis, Indoors at Grinnell, Whitman (of course), Kenyon (crowd), really any indoor facility in the NE, the desert of Redlands

Not to take anything away from the Blues, by the way. They really turned their season around a little bit with this win, and CHB did mention something in the group chat that is interesting. With Trinity TX’s loss to Southwestern, Whitman is now the highest #2 seed to be flying somewhere. That means that Whitman should be flown out to probably GAC instead of CMS. For bracketology geeks, check back later this week for my updated bracketology.

A Conversation about Headwear

Once again, I will not listen to my elder D3Central, and that is a decision that has gotten me into a lot of trouble in the past. Why does he have so much wisdom? Anyways, one of the most talked about parts of my stream of consciousness in the group setting were my comments on Brian Grodecki’s choice to wear a hat off the court and a visor on the court. Well, Williams got me back in a big way.

Game, set, and match folks. I’ve agreed that I will now wear visors for my athletic competitions, and replace that visor with a hat post-exercise. Catch me at your next Tough Mudder race. Shoutout to the Williams team and Grodecki for keeping it light and real. Psychin’.

I’m not going to say “I told you so…”

After my ASouth State of the Region, a particular commenter decided to take me to task that Hayden Cassone was a lock for the NCAA Tournament. Cassone was ranked #12 in the region at the time (don’t know why). Next rankings, and look where he is! He’s ranked at #8 in the region, right on the cusp of getting in! With a win against Andres Carro this weekend, and a couple of future matches in the ASouth to go, with the UAA Tournament also coming up, Cassone has a ton of chances to improve his resume and get two Emory players in once again. Chaz Downing of CMU better watch out because who knows who’s going to be dropped to make room for Cassone. All it takes now is one guy ahead of him to drop a match he shouldn’t. Interesting how that works out, right? Lock in Cassone for the NCAA Tournament, I’ll double down on it. Also, I called this out in POTW, but Jonathan Jemison went out and crushed Jack Gray of Sewanee this weekend. Bruh.

Wesleyan hits back, finally

Division III Tennis has used Wesleyan as their personal punching bag this year, as Wesleyan has lost to a ton of Pool C contenders and dealt with a ton of injuries. This weekend, Wesleyan went all Rampage on Tufts and Swarthmore, taking matches against both teams in convincing fashion. Tufts/Wesleyan was marked as the best and most important match of the weekend, and we were greeted with a snoozer that I am sure Coach Fried didn’t have to have ulcers for. Tougher than Wall Street? Maybe. Either way, Wesleyan lives another weekend and Tufts season is hanging by a thread. When Amherst plays Wesleyan, be sure to check back because that one will probably determine Wesleyan’s season given that CMU was able to hold court and beat Kenyon this past weekend.

Final Thoughts

One match I didn’t hit on was the Kenyon/CMU barn burner this past weekend, which marked the first time CMU won a ranked match without winning 2 of the top 3 singles. If Shekar and Levin start coming into their own at the bottom of the lineup, you got a potential team on your hands right there. Also, for those of you that submitted highlights to me, we are going to have a MASSIVE Highlight reelin’, swag feelin’, drug dealin’, even keelin’ Highlights post tomorrow. It’s about to get poppin in the club. ASouth, OUT.

11 thoughts on “ASouth Stream of Consciousness – This Weekend

  1. D3 Analyst

    There is a mistake in the second Haverford paragraph starting with “At 5-4”, it describes the sequence of events but goes on to say that Yoo was DQ’d instead of **Yan.

  2. Matt

    Really enjoy this new article format. Your ‘down with the establishment’ comment is well-taken, although I think the kzoo postseason ban obscures the fact that they’ve enjoyed a renaissance these past 2 seasons. And I feel like Kenyon was underrated entering the season, and their ranking feels commensurate with their talent level.

    As for the Hopkins-Haverford match, why the binary outcome between defaulting and doing nothing? Couldn’t something between these 2 outcomes, such as a point or game penalty, have been applied?

  3. Blue But Not Blue Jay

    Without a videotape to see the ball “return” at Yoo’s face, it is impossible to determine whether or not Yan had either a negative intent or not. Regardless, it is clear that the ball must have been hit at close range according to the description and with too much pace, since blood was drawn. Any neutral party would acknowledge that Yan was wrong, even if it might not have been with bad intent. I undertand completely that coach Willenborg would have been highly upset. What coach would not be upset seeing his player smacked in the face at close range? To the people who are criticizing coach Willenborg, what would you think that he should do? Should he have accepted this quietly? Or should he have asked the referee for something insignificant, a warning? Coach Willenborg stood up for his player and at the same time, helped to demonstrate a valuable lesson to everyone who now knows about this event – don’t smack a ball at your opponent’s face. The referee made the decision for the DQ. The commentors should accept that the bad behavior was a ball flying into a player’s face and not a coach standing up for his player.

    1. Squirrel Observer

      One answer your questions; I think he probably should have gone to check on his player before running to the net to yell at Yan and the official. He also should have taken Yoo out of doubles if he believed he was truly hurt, instead of giving him a bag of ice to use on changeovers.

      There’s nothing inherently wrong with Willenborg being upset, or even asking for the default. The way he went about this, however, indicates that he was a lot more focused on avoiding a loss to Haverford than he was about the well-being of his player.

    2. D3 Observer

      As another observer of the match, it was clear (to me at least) that there was not negative intent. Yan hit the ball into the ground first, so aiming precisely enough to hit someone in the head would be very difficult. He was also up match point at the time and about to record a fairly routine win against a very tough opponent. Why would he intentionally risk that?
      I do think the ball was hit with too much pace, and it just turned into an unfortunate situation overall. I believe the referee actually did give Yan a warning and say play on at first, until the Hopkins coach intervened. To be clear, I feel very bad for Yoo and hope that he’s fully recovered. But it’s unfortunate that an accident like that had to deprive Haverford of what (likely) would have been one of their best wins in recent memory.

  4. D3 follower

    What a slimy coach. Very classy.

  5. D3Fan

    The fact that Yoo came back and played doubles makes it seem pretty slimy. If he couldn’t finish his singles match then it seems like he shouldn’t have been allowed to play doubles.

    Separately, a coach going berserk on a ref shouldn’t be allowed to influence the ref’s decision. Did the ref get a chance to speak with Yan and evaluate his condition before making his decision? How much was he influenced by the coach intimidating him?

    Seems very questionable and borderline unethical based on the description given.

    1. Black Squirrel Teammate

      From the Haverford perspective, the doubles part of this was the most frustrating. Regarding singles, if Yoo really couldn’t continue then it’s a rough way to lose for Kevin (because of a pure accident right before match point), but the rules seem clear that a default was appropriate.

      I think the most notable aspect of the situation was that Yoo repeatedly complained about his eye during his doubles match, and was icing it on changeovers. This somewhat legitimizes his injury, but in my eyes also makes their coach look worse. Much of the Hop coach’s rant to the official was based on player safety. If he actually cared about the safety of his players then it would follow he should have taken Yoo off the court for doubles, not just when it was convenient for him to do so in singles.

      1. Blue But Not Blue Jay

        Dang you, Black Squirrel Teammate! I hate when someone writes such a well conceived and articulated response. I must admit, you are on point and I think that was an extremely polite blog beat down. Fine. Black Squirrel Teammate 1, Blue But Not Blue Jay 0. But let me finish by saying that coach Chuck is a good guy. I’m not yielding on that.

  6. Yooohoo

    Yan wasn’t also up match point in the hop van hav match.

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