Women’s Pool C Update

After the results of the UAA tournament last weekend, the Pool C picture  became murkier than before. To recap, the Chicago Maroons, who were on the outside looking in, defeated Case and Carnegie Mellon. Meanwhile, Wash U also upended the Tartans. Ultimately, Emory secured its spot in the tournament with an automatic bid while Wash U came in 2nd, Chicago 3rd, and Carnegie Mellon 4th.

Despite the season being over for the UAA teams in contention for Pool C bids, there’s a lot of tennis to be played, especially in the NESCAC. Let’s take a look at this weekend’s schedule for Pool C hopefuls:

Amherst vs. Middlebury

Tufts vs. Bowdoin

Tufts vs. Williams

Wesleyan at Brandeis

So, despite the huge weekend in the NESCAC and next weekend’s NESCAC tournament, D3NEW and I wanted to give you a look at the Pool C picture as it stands today. Please keep in mind that at the time this article was written, none of the NESCAC Saturday, April 30th matches occurred. The picture may change after those matches.

D3NEW, take it away.

D3NEW: Thursday was an exciting day, as both the ITA and NCAA rankings came out on the same day, almost at the same time.  For our readers out there, typically the committee members (coaches) are different for each committee, although there may be some crossover.  For this ranking period, only the ITA had national rankings. I’ll talk a little bit about the NESCACs and Pool C.

Looking at the ITA national rankings, the biggest surprise to me comes in the non-movement of Tufts.  Sure, they lost to MIT but they beat Chicago (8-1!), who moved all the way up to #9.  I understand there are a lot of triangles, and the UAA tournament kind of dominated the week, but I think Tufts should have moved up at least a couple of spots considering that win.  The reason why I’m making such a big deal of the Tufts situation, as you’ll see below, is that regarding Pool C, they are on the outside looking in.

In any case, it looks like a lot is going to ride on the upcoming NESCAC tournament.  HIGH STAKES, gotta love that.  Not only does Tufts have their NCAA Pool C hopes riding on the tournament, Middlebury, Bowdoin, Amherst, and Wesleyan have NCAA seeding riding on it.

Speaking of Pool C, the way it looks now, these 8 teams would be in (this is assuming that #1 Emory, #2 Williams, and #3 Pomona grab the Pool A spots):

#4 CMS

#5 Middlebury

#6 Bowdoin

#7 Amherst

#8 Wesleyan

#9 Chicago

#10 Wash U St. Louis

#11 Carnegie Mellon

Tufts will be a dangerous team to play, although, if they were to pull off an upset, I don’t think the team that got upset would pay the price.  CMU would probably be first one out.  Oh the excitement!

The dates of the NESCACs are 5/6-5/8, with selections on Monday 5/9.  They have one more weekend of regular season play this weekend.  Matchups include:

Bowdoin at Tufts

Middlebury at Amherst

Williams at Tufts

All are big matches, with another set of rankings published by the NCAA on Thursday 5/5, right before NESCAC Tournament.

I can’t even guess as to what the NESCAC seedings will be, but you can bet that the 6 teams will leave everything they’ve got on the court.  They have to.

D3TennisGreek: Just like the men’s side, I have created a table outlining ranked wins and ranked losses for every team fighting for a Pool C bid. Before I jump into the race for the final spots, let me run through the locks. Remember, there are 8 spots available.

RANKED WINS

RANKED LOSSES

CMS or Pomona-Pitzer (depending on who doesn’t receive the automatic bid), Middlebury, Bowdoin, and Amherst are completely locked in, at least in my eyes. They all have multiple big top-10 wins and no losses outside the top 5. Even if Bowdoin or Middlebury take the NESCAC automatic bid, it won’t matter at all.

Wesleyan appears to be in a very good spot. Not having any losses outside the top 10 is big, but the reason I see them as a virtual lock as well is because they have beaten both Wash U and Tufts, two teams fighting for the last spot. Although I’m not sure about NESCAC tournament seeding, Wesleyan will need to have the worst possible tournament in order not to receive a bid. They also play Brandeis today.

Alright, now that we have the first 5 spots settled, who takes the final 3? This is honestly just as tough, if not tougher, than the men’s side.

First, let’s consider head-to-head results. Chicago has defeated both Wash U and Carnegie Mellon, Wash U has defeated Carnegie Mellon but lost to Chicago, and Tufts beat Chicago. So against each other, Chicago is 2-1, Wash U is 1-1, CMU is 0-2, and Tufts is 1-0.

Looking at schedules, Wash U’s strength is probably at the top of these four teams. The Bears have played 17 ranked teams and taken down 11 of them. Meanwhile, CMU has competed against 12 ranked teams, Chicago 11, and Tufts 9 (that will be 14, I believe, when the season ends).

There are many factors to consider when deciding which are the last teams in, and it’s way too hard to make a prediction without seeing Tufts’ final results. That said, I’m pretty certain Chicago is locked in the tournament. Despite strength of schedule not being on their side, the Maroons are undefeated against Wash U and Carnegie Mellon. Also, the committee looks at late season wins favorably, which doesn’t hurt Chicago’s case. Most importantly, Chicago is the No. 1 ranked team in the region, in front of Wash U, and because there aren’t any more matches left, the Maroons should retain the top spot, securing a Pool C bid. The rebuttal to these points is that Tufts defeated Chicago 8-1 and Chicago also lost to Case. To address the latter, the Maroons avenged their loss to the Spartans, so I view that as a wash. While the loss to the Jumbos was bad, I think the Ws over the Bears and Tartans make up for it.

Pitting Wash U and CMU up against each another, I think Wash U has the edge, not only because of their recent victory over CMU. Wash U’s one bad loss this season was to UW-Whitewater, which they later avenged. Carnegie Mellon has no bad losses this season. The Bears also have 3 top 15 wins, compared to CMU’s 4, but 6 top-20 wins compared to CMU’s 4.

So, I think the final spot will come down to CMU and Tufts. Unfortunately, I can’t provide opinions or predictions without knowing what Tufts does this or next weekend.

I guess we’ll just have to wait and see!