Wild Card Wednesday: Blind Resumes

Happy Wild Card Wednesday, boys and girls. We have a brief pause from all the Regional previews to take a look at the Individuals side of NCAAs. The selections (but not the draw) for both singles and doubles should be coming out today, and the committee has a new wrinkle to deal with as a part of the selection process. Instead of the traditional selection process where each of the four regions (Atlantic South, Central, Northeast and West) receive eight singles bids and four doubles bids, each region will now receive seven singles bids and three doubles bids, and the last four spots in each draw become WILD CARDS! That means that conceivably one region could receive up to 11 singles bids or seven doubles bids. That scenario is very unlikely, but it is very likely that we will see a region get shut out of either the wild card singles or wild card doubles. Today we are going to play everyone’s favorite selection game, Blind Resumes! Friend of The Blog and underdog enthusiast D3Tree has put together resumes for the players ranked #8-#10 in each region by the NCAA as of their latest ranking (which came out before last weekend’s matches). Dr Tree has included last weekend’s matches and compiled the W-L results for each of the 12 players below. I will post the key detailing which player corresponds to which letter at the end of the article, so that you can play along and try to determine (in an unbiased fashion) who most deserves the wild card bids.

First thing’s first, let me remind you that the selection of wild cards has never been done before, so there is no precedent as to what we can expect from the selection process. There are a myriad of factors that could be used in the selection process, with everything from year in school to geography being a factor (my brain says neither of these should be factors, but my heart loves the idea of giving an edge to a senior). Remember, these are NCAA rankings, but since the NCAA only ranks regional players up to #12, Professor Tree went to the ITA rankings for any player ranked between #13 and #25. It’s also important to note that these DO NOT INCLUDE FALL RESULTS. In the past we have seen that selection committees weight recent results significantly more than fall results (and sometimes even early season results), so we are focusing solely on spring results. I will attempt to break these resumes down into different categories, but upon first glance I can tell you that it’s not going to be easy. All of these guys deserve a spot at NCAAs, but only four of them will get the nod. A lot of these resumes are similar, so I encourage you to try your hand at it as well. Leave us your selections and defense in the comments! Here we go…

DEFINITELY IN

Nobody. WOW, D3NE, there are no locks? Correct, strange inner monologue, I do not see any of these guys as “LOCKS” to make NCAAs. That’s just how close a lot of these guys are. It will depend on what criteria the selection committee weights most strongly.

LIKELY IN

To me, Players C, F and L have the best overall resumes. First of all, none of them have any bad losses. Secondly, Player C and Player L both have wins over a top-5 player in their region, and Player L has a win over a top-2 player from another region. In addition, Player L’s worst loss overall is to the #3 player from his region, c’mon son. Player F doesn’t have a win as highly rated as the other two, but has so many wins over the next best players in the region, without a bad loss, that I believe he has proven himself worthy.

COULD BE IN 

After the three aforementioned guys, there are a bunch that warrant a second look. For me, those guys are Player A, Player B, Player D, Player G and Player K. Player A is a tough call off the bat. He has a great win in a top-8 victory over an in region player, but he also lost to the #12 guy. What’s amazing is that Player A has not played any other ranked players this spring. If he had another top-20 win to back up his top-8 win, I think he would have a better chance. He is on the lower end of this pool for me. Player B is smack dab in the middle of the group, depending on what factors the selection committee favors. He doesn’t have that many wins, but he only really has one bad loss (an unranked out of region). That unranked loss is countered by a win over the #1 ranked player from another region. I’ve gone back and forth on Player B, never considering moving him from this “Could Be In” category, but just about where he fits within the category. Player D is the opposite of Player A. He has played more ranked matches than any other wild card competitor, but his best wins come from out of region. While that might have been an issue in the past, now all the wins should count for the same amount, so Player D’s two top-6 wins from out of region show that he can compete with the best in the country. His two losses to players ranked 24 & 25 are what kill Player D. If he only had one of those losses, he would be in the “Likely In” category. As it is, you could make a good argument either way for Player D. Player G was another tough call, as he also fit the bill for the “probably not in” category. Player G has two top-15 wins in-region, and a #6 win out of region, but he also has an unranked loss. In general with a schedule that light, an unranked loss can kill you, but I’m not sure it’s enough with Player G. Finally, Player K is another tough call. He has a top-4 win, which is more than almost any of his competition here can say, but he also a loss to #17 in the region and an unranked loss. His out of region results are what hurt him the most, as he has no ranked wins and took a loss to the #14 player in a different region.

PROBABLY NOT IN

Finally, there are the long shots. In my opinion, those are Player E, Player H, Player I and Player J. I want to reiterate that all of these guys are very close, and even the guys I list in this category all are very much alive for bids. Going in alphabetical order, Player E has no top-10 wins, only one top-20 win, and took an unranked loss. Player H has played a lot of top matches, and to me he simply doesn’t have enough wins to offset all those losses. It’s not like he didn’t have his opportunities, and if he had beaten the #12 in region or the #13 out of region I think he might fit in the “could be in” category, but given all his chances against the likely qualifiers from his region, I’m not sure his year will be quite good enough for NCAAs. Player I was the easiest guy to categorize for me. He has a good out of region win over a #6 player, but he also has TWO unranked losses out of region as well, so that more than nullifies the win. His only ranked matches in region are over the #24 player in his region, which will likely not be enough to boost his NCAA hopes over his Wild Card competitors. Player J is closer to the middle of these last two categories, but his out of region results probably drop him from consideration. He does have wins over a couple players just outside of wild card conversation, but his unranked out of region loss is probably damning.

THE REVEAL! 

FINAL PREDICTION

Now that we’ve made the reveal, let’s see who fits into which of my categories.

Likely In: Carl Reid (NE-Colby), Sebastian Sikh (AS-NCW) and David Liu (C-Chicago).

Could Be In: Courtney Murphy (AS-Wilkes), Chas Mayer (W-Trinity TX), Luke Tercek (NE-Bowdoin), Alberto De Mendiola (NE-Babson), Dan Rodefeld (C-DePauw).

Probably Not In: Spencer Watanabe (W-George Fox), Mark Fallati (AS-Swarthmore), Eric Kerrigan (C-Chicago) and Parker Wilson (W-Redlands)

This immediately presents us with an issue, as David Liu hasn’t played a match since the end of February. We don’t know if the Chicago #1 will be healthy for NCAAs, but he technically meets the NCAA qualification standards, so he could be selected, but if he is selected as a wild card and cannot play, the alternate wild card should get in (assuming there is an alternate Wild Card and not just a regional alternate). I think that Mayer and Tercek are the two guys from the “Could Be In” category who are most likely to be the 4th player selected, but as I’ve said about 367 times in this article, it’s a difficult exercise and I don’t envy the selection committee’s task. Good luck to all 12 guys, they’ve all had great seasons and deserve serious consideration for one of the four wild card spots!