THE SPICE OF LIFE: Take 7 – D3NE

THE SPICE OF LIFE: NE

It’s getting cold outside, boys and girls, so how about a little spice to heat up your life? We’ve gathered the blogger roundtable for one final time in 2018 to do a little crystal ball gazing and fiery hot take…ing for you. Each blogger has given a hot take about the upcoming spring season, and all of the other bloggers are here to sample the spice, and give their reviews. Was the take too spicy? Not spicy enough? Just right? This is our 7th edition of spice so far, so check out all of our recent hot takes as well. We’ll be heading into winter mode pretty shortly, but we’ll try to start hitting up season previews beginning later this month, and running a couple per week until teams are back from Winter Break. For our penultimate spice, you all have to deal with me and my Kool-Aid…

NE’s (aka Mr Spice Guy’s) take:
BRANDEIS WILL SNIFF NCAAS IN 2019, AND MAKE THE TOURNAMENT BY 2021!

AS: Not sure if I am doing this right but this is like atomic spicy. Reason being because you know it’s a bad idea to do it but you really want the T-Shirt in case you actually complete it. It’s a stupid play, but you do it for the experience. And that’s what this take is. When’s the last time that a non-traditional power came from virtually nowhere (Brandeis didn’t go much of anywhere last season) and pull off multiple upsets needed to make it via Pool C? I hyped Brandeis season last year because they overachieved, not because I thought they were a bonafide top 12 team. Y’all want a reminder? This team went 0-5 against Pool C competitors, including Pomona Pitzer, just last year. They are a team built primarily on freshmen and sophomores and have no postseason experience. They withered in the 5th place match against Case Western, a team that was battle tested. Do you think this team of freshmen is going to beat a CMU team led by seniors Levine and Downing at the end of the year? No? Okay, because that’s what they’ll have to do. And if you want to talk 2021, I’m not even sure if I’ll be around anymore.

DIIIWest: Some may say that this hot take is farfetched, but I do see this as absolutely attainable for the Judges. I will say this, however; if they want to make the National tournament, I think they have a better shot of capturing a spot through Pool C rather than winning UAA’s outright. At this stage in the game, the UAA conference is just too deep and talented right now for a team like Brandeis to make any sort of run. With that being said, matches against fellow UAA teams along with matchups against NESCAC and SCIAC teams are the highlighted matches for Deis and each of those will be huge for Pool C implications if they want to make a run to Nationals.

AVZ: This is like Sriracha spicy. In a sense, it tastes good and very enjoyable, but isn’t going to burn your tongue off. I actually considered this as my own and decided it wasn’t bold enough. Brandeis is on the rise and showed it this fall. They should take out a similarly talented team in Case in round 1 of UAAs, but would need a big upset in the semis or 3rd place match to make it happen this year. (AVZ Edit after reading RegNEC below…I’m old and forgot CMU #WeWantAlla). With that, Brandeis is good enough to beat a CMU which would be interesting.

RegNEC: Not sure how AVZ has Case and Brandeis playing in round 1 of UAAs this year, as they are likely to be the 5 & 6 seeds, but nonetheless Round 1 of UAAs will be very interesting for Deis. It’s going to be key for them to get seeded 4 or 5 to set up a first round match with CMU (I’m assuming….who knows). Deis could potentially finish top-4 in the UAA, which is maybe a little mini warm-take on its own. But back to the original hot take—I’d say it’s like the Smoked Tabasco at Chipotle. Hot, but in a good, comfortable way. I think we’d all love to see the Judges go dancing, but from where they are right now to take the next step(s) towards actually making the tournament, it’s a pretty big jump. Just look at a team like Tufts. They’ve been close-yet-not-that-close for years now. My lack of confidence in Brandeis making the tournament in the next three years has more to do with how absurdly hard it is to get in via Pool C than with Brandeis, a team steadily on the rise that has gotten really really good.

RegAS: I needed a second bite to figure out quite how spicy this take is. At first I thought this was pretty spicy, but after the second wing, I realized it’s not quite as spicy as I originally thought. Yes, Brandeis did finish ranked 21, which is pretty far outside of Pool C consideration, but they peaked at 14 at the end of April, which is only 5ish spots away from getting a bid. This Brandeis team got a major upgrade this year with their recruiting class and have been playing some pretty damn spicy doubles. The Judges have what it takes to sniff NCAA’s and I definitely think they will finish in the top 5 of the UAA. Whether they make it or not will depend on how deep the NESCAC is this year. If coach Lamanna keeps dropping dem gavels with a couple more top 10 recruiting classes, they will be in great shape to make the tournament by 2021.

NewRegional: You want some milk and bread around for this take. I’ve been as high as anyone on Deis this fall, but making the jump from top 25 team to top 12 team is a lot harder than the jump from 35 to 25. Brandeis is going to have no room for error this year if it wants to make the push to NCAAs. The thing keeping this from being a Blazin’ take is Deis’ doubles. You could talk me into a Deis sweep of just about any team in the country on a given day, and I think the team has enough singles depth to grab two wins in the singles lineup.

NewCentral:  This take is as mango-habanero as I’ve seen on this page – it starts off all sweet and inviting because we all love (well maybe not ASouth) to champion non-traditional contenders (and Brandeis sure isn’t a traditional UAA power) but then gets outrageously spicy when you start to think about what Brandeis would have to do in order to get through Pool C. Brandeis has all the making of a team you want to support – they compete well, incapable of general disdain, and actually have the talent to make things happen on the right side of top 20. Unfortunately, for Brandeis they could have a program year by all metrics, but still not get into the tournament simply due to its asinine and ill-suited structure. Brandeis would have to go at least 2-1 at UAAs (a first round upset is a must) and avoid any losses to other Pool C competitors (UAA 2,3, Nescac 2,3,4, and Pomona on a good day) to get a seat at the table, let alone walk out with a Pool C bid.

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