Comedy Hour

I apologize for any tangent in this post, but I’m going to try to get a week’s worth of thoughts in one post and a heck of a lot happened this week. First, for comedic purposes, I’m going to attempt to rank the top 25 teams right now. Frankly, the rankings for the next couple weeks are irrelevant because everything is such a mess. One can do these rankings numerous ways, this is just how I would do them, and we’ll go from there. You can pick these apart, we both know they don’t make sense.

1. Amherst 2. Emory 3. Williams 4. NC Wesleyan 5. Middlebury 6. Whitman 7. Kenyon 8. UC Santa Cruz 9. Wash U 10. Cal Lutheran 11. Trinity (TX) 12. Pomona-Pitzer 13. Mary Washington 14. Johns Hopkins 15. Bowdoin 16. Carnegie Mellon 17. Case Western 18.Trinity (CT) 19. Redlands 20. Whittier 21. Swarthmore 22. CMS 23. Gustavus 24. Chicago 25. Kalamazoo

To begin the analysis, let’s start with the biggest story at the moment. We have serious issues in Claremont. The Stags were just beaten comfortably by Cruz, days after losing to…SWARTHMORE?!?! If you’re a program like Emory, Amherst, Cruz or Middlebury, you hit tough times and you say “we’ve won national championships, we are clutch and we are going to turn things around.” If you’re CMS, you say “we’ve choked away NCAAs two years in a row and are known for folding in crunch time.” This is not good. Robbie Erani was a legitimate #1 on a team that got 3rd in NCAAs two years ago. He’s now playing #4 so you are not going to tell me the problems with CMS right now are talent or tennis-related. This team is loaded top to bottom and no one can even argue with the fact they have one of the top 3 rosters in the country. They are still a heavy favorite to win the SCIAC and everyone knows it, including their rivals, but they have to get their heads on straight or they can lose to anyone. They have national championship aspirations and they train a ton, but they just got beaten by a Cruz team that was beaten comfortably by Kenyon yesterday. Cruz is good, but they are nothing special, and they took it to CMS because the Stags are not confident. The good news is they have 2 full months to turn things around and it starts Friday with a Stag-Hen quarterfinal against Hopkins. The winner gets Wash U or Bowdoin in the next round, so basically that CMS-Hopkins winner has a golden opportunity to make the final. I’m not going to make any predictions, but I think it’s safe to say CMS will be traveling again for NCAA regionals. At this point, they have to get their act together as soon as possible and focus on making NCAAs, because if they take a few more bad losses and then lose in the conference tournament, they can realistically miss Pool C with all the great competition out there. At the moment, CMS’ best win is W&L, and that’s not going to get it done.

Kudos to Cruz for rebounding extremely well from the initial Whitman loss. Their coaching staff has done a fantastic job. However, I’d be feeling a lot more confident in the Slugs if they didn’t lose to Kenyon yesterday. I’ll be praising Kenyon a little later in the post, but national championship caliber teams beat Kenyon, no disrespect to the Lords. I haven’t been able to get the pulse of Cruz since 2009 and it’s frustrating. I feel like they can lose to anyone or beat anyone on any given day and obviously they will be dangerous in NCAAs especially if they are hosting. They’ve got matches against Williams, Redlands and Cal Lutheran left on their schedule, and if they beat the California teams, I think it’s safe to say they will be hosting regionals once again. Nerenberg is a perfect replacement for Pybas and this team is the just as good as they were last year. I don’t know exactly what happened against Whitman, but I do know they’ve improved drastically since that match and will continue to improve.

Staying in California, we have Pomona-Pitzer and Cal Lutheran with good, but not consistent results. The week began with Cal Lutheran establishing themselves as a serious contender in Pool C with a win over Pomona-Pitzer and they did well in a brutal 4-day stretch this week. Trinity (TX) is very tough as always and they have been playing in California without one of their top players. I think the Tigers could make their way back to the Elite 8 for the third year in a row if they find themselves in a decent NCAA region. The interesting thing about their schedule is that after next Tuesday against Bowdoin, they don’t have a tough D3 match until their conference tournament final which will most likely be Rhodes. Trinity has a tendency to really get good between mid-March and late April, so I feel as though we haven’t seen their true colors yet and they could be a serious force in NCAAs. That was a great win for Cal Lu, but the highlight of the week is definitely the win over Kenyon. I really like this Kenyon team and I think they have Final 4 potential, their freshmen are unbelievable and if they get that doubles lineup in order they could be VERY good. They rebounded well with a win over Cruz yesterday on the road and they still have another week in California which is concluded with the all-important Stag-Hen. A rematch with Pomona-Pitzer in the first round of the Stag-Hen will be a serious test and a win would give Kenyon a second crack at an Emory team that looks very tough and the top contender for Amherst at the moment after CMS’ train wreck of a week.

A match I’ve been looking forward to for a while is Hopkins-NC Wesleyan, happening tomorrow. I’m slightly less impressed with the Bishops win against Kenyon a month ago after Kenyon also lost to Cal Lu by the same score, but a win against Hopkins would cement NC Wesleyan’s place in the top 5 in the country right now. This is a potentially huge match for NCAA seeding and hosting due to the proximity of the schools. This is a big confidence match for Hopkins, because if they win, they know they just beat a top 5 team and they go to California to take on an incredibly vulnerable CMS. If they lose, you’ve got 2 teams playing on Friday who are questioning themselves. It’s a very interesting dynamic, but I have a feeling NC Wes is going to pull it out tomorrow. I think the Bishops are focused and very tough this year as well as being in Hopkins head. Both teams focus on their singles, so whoever takes the lead in doubles could end up with the win. I want to talk about 2 more Atlantic South teams, Mary Washington and Carnegie Mellon. I don’t have a good feel for Mary Wash yet, but they are playing Redlands right now which will give me a better idea about them. Obviously, I think they’re stronger than they have been the past 3 seasons and that great win over Cal Lutheran could get them a top 15 ranking if they knock off Redlands. Speaking of Redlands, typical performance from them, starting strong and getting everyone’s hopes up only to lose to a Trinity (TX) that was playing a man down, with Redlands acting like jerks while losing. If you’re going to get into a heated battle with someone, don’t do it against Trinity (TX) because their energy will be better than yours and you will lose the match. Anyway, Mary Wash will head back East and they have a tough schedule coming up with Case, Carnegie and NCW over the next couple weekends, not to mention a tricky W&L team. The Eagles could be a top 15 team this year, but I think top 20 is more likely and frankly I have no confidence in them being able to string together several good matches in a row. The Cal Lu win was a confidence boost and the 8-1 win against Kalamazoo certainly looks good now after Zoo’s drubbing of Whitewater. Carnegie is in California this week and they have two matches that I see as must wins if they want to make NCAAs this year. The Bowdoin match is probably slightly more important, but both are huge. I said before the season started that I have a good feeling about CMU this year because no one is paying attention to them. They’ve traditionally been known as the talented underachievers, but this year people are questioning whether they have the personnel to be top 15. They were so impressive against DePauw and I wonder if they are relishing this underdog role. We will find out a lot more about them in the next few days as they take on fellow desperate Pool C teams that need every win they can get. I like their chances against Bowdoin but I’m not too sure if they can beat P-P on the road in a tough environment. If they do, I think they most likely find themselves in the top 12 and in an excellent spot going forward.

I want to conclude by saying this has been a roller coaster first month of the season and I hope it continues because the crazy results provide a lot of drama. This is the best Stag-Hen field we’ve ever had, so I’m looking forward to some great tennis next weekend. Apologies to the teams I didn’t cover in this post, but they will get more attention after they play more matches. At the moment, this season is shaping up to be crazier than 2008 so let’s see if the trend continues.