DIII Discussion: Best Team of the Past 5 Years

We at the blog refuse to take any rest.  Given the state of the week (a lot of Northeast stuff, and who wants to read all D3Northeast?) we’ve decided to reach out on twitter to get a gauge of what kind of articles you guys wanted to see.  Well, one of the suggestions via e-mail was really taking a look back into the archives and debating over which team was the best of the past 5 years.  We’ve decided to take this suggestion up to task and we’ll be debating, google doc style, who the best team of the past 5 years is.  I fully expect D3Central to pick someone from the 1980’s just as much as I expect D3Northeast to pick the 2014 Wesleyan team.  Who knows, maybe D3West will just pick the 2014 DivisionIIITennis blogging team because that’s how he rolls.  We’d love to get some feedback and some SHORT (I repeat, SHORT) arguments in the comments regarding who you think is best! We’ll also have a poll so all of you that don’t know how type can place your votes.  Will you go with the current powerhouse that is 2014 CMS?  Or how about the senior laden team that was 2010 Middlebury, led by then Coach Schwarz, one of the best coaches in recent memory?  Or of course, the 2009 UC Santa Cruz team that had Vartebedian at #6 singles and Coach Hansen at the helm? Don’t sleep on the 2011 Amherst team, which was like an Amherst version of the 2010 Midd team.  And who knows, maybe you’ll underestimate the 2012 Emory team (Pottish and Goodwin, oh my) or the senior-led 2013 Williams team (CHOW). Let’s get to the writers and their thoughts.

D3AS Pick – 2011 Amherst

Sup, playas. I really wish I could pick this year’s blogging team as the best team of the past 5 years but I guess we really need to prove ourselves when there is some real competition… HA. This one is really a tough one for me.  I actually think there is a big difference between the “best” team top to bottom and the team that I think would win in a championship match.  We all know that matchups play a huge part in DIII Tennis, so there can definitely be a discrepancy between the two.  Personally, I’m a fan of the 2011 Amherst Squad.  Why? Well, they certainly meet the criteria to be the best team – they won the championship fairly easily (5-2 over Emory) and only had one loss on the year.  That loss happened to be against CMS, but they benched like 3 of their starters in a classic Amherst move.  Let’s take a look at their lineup first:

1) Luis Rattenhuber, International Transfer Type

2) Mark Kahan, 4 Star Sophomore

3) Austin Chafetz, 4 Star Junior

4) Joey Fritz, 5 Star Freshman

5) Wesley Waterman, 4 Star Junior

6) Andrew Jung, 4 Star Junior

Amherst played most of the year without potentially their second best player in Austin Chafetz, yet only had one 5-4 match against Williams.  A lot of people will probably argue for the 2009 UC Santa Cruz team (I know D3West will) especially considering they swept through the NCAAs like it was a hot knife through butter.  That’s a great argument and they certainly were my second choice (w/ Midd being a close 3rd) but… I do want to show you something.  Amherst played Cruz in the finals of 2009.  They got beaten 5-0.  I took a look at the boxscore and a few things popped out to me.  First, Austin Chafetz played…. #2 singles.  In that match, he was TOE-TO-TOE with Kamel of Cruz by the score of 7-6. 4-2.  Kamel went 12-3 that year at #2 singles.  Chafetz played #3 Singles for this Amherst team, 2 years later.  While he was losing, Chafetz was clearly a strong #2 caliber player against one of the best #2’s in DIII that year.  Secondly, Andrew Jung played #3 singles in this match, and was down 2-1 in the third set over Ortiz of Cruz.  Andrew Jung played #6 Singles for this Amherst team. #6 SINGLES?!!! Seriously, this Amherst team was dope.  Cruz dominated at a time when DIII tennis was still growing.  Amherst dominated at a time when DIII was grown.  Look at that Amherst lineup. All 4 stars or higher, all highly touted recruits, playing positions they shouldn’t be playing.  That’s a great team right there.  The best part about Amherst was that they had clear strong spots and their “weak” spots weren’t all that weak anyways.  Chafetz and Jung were super sick at their positions, Fritz at 4 is kinda ridiculous.  Rattenhuber could be considered fairly weak (and unclutch sometimes) but Kahan made up for that by being one of the more clutch players we’ve ever seen.  Oh by the way, their #7 player (Moritz Koenig) played #3 for them the year before on a finalist team.  I repeat, he played #3 singles on the finalist team the year before.  So we’ve come to the conclusion that the Amherst singles lineup was pretty sick.  One might argue that their doubles wasn’t all that great. Well, they had doubles leads against Emory, Williams (twice, one was a sweep), Trinity TX, Bowdoin (sweep), Middlebury, along with basically everyone else in DIII.  In fact, they didn’t go down in doubles all year.  That’s right, all year.  Someone PLEASE tell me that isn’t dominance.  This was a team that went wire-to-wire expecting to be a national champion and got it done without any bumps along the way.  They didn’t even need the senior leadership boost they were so talented.  Oh yea, their #1 team from the year before when they were finalists was Waterman/Koenig.  They were the #2 team this year.  That’s like an auto win.  I think I’ve made my case that the 2011 Amherst squad is either the best or second best team we’ve had in the past 5 years.  Oh and by the way, Amherst lost only 6 sets in the 18 singles matches that they played in the Elite 8 that year.  That’s 6 of a potential 36 sets, or 17%.  Usually, that means your team is dominating. D3AS and 2011 Amherst, OUT.

D3Central’s Pick – 2014 CMS

D3ASouth has been talking a lot of shit when it comes to this article so I feel it is my personal duty to prove his argument terribly wrong. While I really wanted to pick an in region school of the 2008 Wash U Bears led by the third best player in D3 history (behind Seabarger and Butorac), I simply can’t get past this season. I’m pretty sure I have started the conversation this season of the 2014 Claremont Mudd Scripps team as the greatest of all time. Yes it’s well before they can claim this for good as it is a must for them to win the national championship to be considered, but I just don’t see how this won’t happen on paper anyways. Since ASouth loves stats so much, I figured I would run down a few from this season up until this point. CMS is currently the undisputed #1 team in the country. Their overall record currently is 23-1 with the only loss coming to Division 1 powerhouse UCLA. I won’t even get into the fact that they competed at all positions against their A squad. Against D-III opponents, they are a combined 152-10 combining singles and doubles results. That’s not saying much until you mention they have played the 2, 3, 5, 12, 13, 14, 18, 19, 21, and 22 ranked teams in the most recent national polls. Cake walk schedule right? They have only lost four doubles pro-sets all season which says a lot considering doubles sometimes can be a crap shoot. So if the team stats aren’t enough, let’s run down the lineup just for the fun of it.

1) Warren Wood 5 star Junior (52)

2) Joe Dorn 4 star junior (42)

3) Nik Marino 4 star junior (112)

4) Skyler Butts 3 star junior (226)

5) Dan Morkovine 4 star freshman (77)

6) Zhenya Pereverzin 4 star senior (34)

Just for your reading pleasure, the number in the parenthesis next to these players names is their highest ranking in their recruiting class in their final three years of high school. I can’t say I’ve gone back 100 years in my research, but this team likely has the most ever All-Americans on one team. They have 5! Count them; Wood is a 3-time AA with singles in ’12 and ’13 and doubles in ’13, Dorn has doubles in ’13, Butts is guaranteed AA honors this year with winning his ITA and coming in 2nd nationally, Pereverzin in doubles in 2011, and my favorite of them all Neel Kotrappa. Wait who? Yes Neel Kotrappa the senior who doesn’t even play in the singles lineup was a singles AA in 2013. Someone could argue that these fall AA are weak, but the Cali ITA is ridiculous so that point stops there. This isn’t Whitman vs Whitman in the PNW region. I’m going to go on a limb and say Dorn and Wood will add All-American honors this spring and Marino even has an outside shot. I mean the guy has to feel left out right? Warren Wood is probably the best player in the country right now. His resume shows that and although he has one loss to a D3 opponent, he has beaten the best of the best. I think he gets bored and enjoys player third set breakers and hasn’t lost one yet. oh yeah and he lost 4 and 5 to Clay Thompson from UCLA. Is he any good? Joe Dorn is probably the second best #2 in the country behind Carswell from Wash U who we all know should be playing 1. Nik Marino hasn’t lost a set this year so I guess that means he is alright. Skyler Butts is terrible because he’s dropped one set, but I think we can give him a pass considering he was ranked #2 in the country nationally heading into the spring. Yes he lost in the finals at the fall nationals to Alla. Pretty solid guy to have at four singles. If there is a weakness to the team it’s Morkovine at the five spot. He’s lost twice (shame on you), but considering the kid is a freshman and both those losses came in his second and third dual match of his career, that’s ok in my book. He hasn’t lost since. And finally the senior Pereverzin at six. One loss to Amherst this season (shame shame). My favorite player Kotrappa probably is #8 on the depth chart. The senior captain puts his ego aside and is a part of the most dominant three doubles team maybe ever. So let’s talk doubles then. As I mentioned previously, they have lost four pro-sets between the three spots. Three of those losses have come from Wood/Dorn at one doubles. I dare you to try and convince someone that this shows weakness. This team will be a threat to win the individual doubles championship. The other lone loss that CMS has suffered was at two with Marino/Pereverzin. I’m running out of superlatives to talk about this team and I want to save them for three doubles, so let’s just say, these guys are good too. And finally, pulling up the rear in the combo of Kotrappa and Butts. They have surrendered more than 5 games just twice this season. Are you kidding? Get a couple of guys who can pound serves and you should be able to get broken just once. Pomona Pitzers two doubles team (they played up a spot) should get a medal for at least losing in a tiebreaker. Its unfathomable to think how this computes on a national scale. They would play one doubles for most Top 30 teams so playing opponents should seriously surrender and save energy for singles as if they had a chance there. So there you have it: the greatest team of all time! This designation will only stick if they follow it up with a national championship this May. They lost last season in the final, but in case you need reminding, they were missing Wood due to injury. A team that makes it to the final without their best player and makes the champion sweat is impressive in itself. Just add a little Wood and the night turns into a party. See what I did there? Jokes aside, this team is nasty and the scary part is they only graduate Pereverzin and Kotrappa. Next year’s team may be even better.

D3West’s Pick – 2007 Cruz (2009 Cruz Runner Up)

Since D3Central totally stole my West region swag, and D3AS pretty much won the 2009 Cruz argument before it even started (though I do have something to say about that), I’m going to cheat a little bit and  jump into the WAY back machine for my “Best DIII Tennis Team of All Time.” That’s right, I’m going all the way back to the 2007 UC Santa Cruz Banana Slugs.

To all of your TRN-based appeals: http://i.lvme.me/xmeh35.jpg. The freshmen, sophomores, and juniors on this team are from a time before star inflation took over. Also, they played for UC Santa Cruz, meaning they basically had three years of full-time tennis training by the time this season rolled around. High school results be damned. Moreover, the seniors on this team are from a time before TRN even existed, so there’s a big middle finger to you guys and your stars. Enough smack talk, let’s take a look at this UC Santa Cruz lineup:

#3 Doubles. Mark Vartabedian. Here’s a name you people might recognize. Multiple all-American. ATP points in doubles. Yeah, he wasn’t even in the God damn singles lineup.

#6: Colin Mark-Griffin. This name means nothing to most of you, but just know that he was one of the most clutch players in DIII history. Him at #6 singles was not fair in the slightest.

#5 Bryan Pybas. Pybas? That’s right. This guy played #5 singles his freshman year. The dude could smoke 12 pounds of pot and play with his right hand behind his back and beat the second best #5 singles player in the country, which he did pretty frequently.

#4 Max Ortiz. Another singles player, another dude with ATP points and multiple national championships. Next.

#3 Jeffrey Fong. Everything you need to know about Fong is in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfWCoB2XF7s. This guy was one of the all-time biggest characters in DIII tennis, and he would beat you in every way possible short of cheating (which he may have stretched a bit here and there). He would fake full body cramps after every point he lost then start breakdancing after every point he won. An absolute nightmare to play against, but you really wanted him on your team.

# 2 Jared Kamel. Another 2-time national champion that none of you have ever heard of. He and Varta at #3 doubles was absolutely nasty. I don’t think there’s any way to explain it except to say that I would take them over Butts/Kotrappa.

#1 Matt Seeburger. Here’s the trump card. You can’t have a best DIII tennis team of all time without the best DIII tennis player of all time. For those of you that don’t know, this guy won the DIII tennis triple crown… twice. That is, he won the team national championship, the singles national championship, and the doubles national championship in the same year, then he turned around and fucking did it again. Nobody will ever do that again. Though he lost at doubles a couple times during the season, at the end of the season, the opposing team was basically going into the match knowing that they were already down 2-0, and that wasn’t like, “oh, you’re going against Goowin and Pottish, you’re already down 2-0,” which was only true in the regular season. Seeburger literally (and I mean literally) never lost a big match for his team.

Last but not least, this team featured Coach Hansen in his peak Zen Master form. The dude won 7 national championships for a reason. He knew how to get his teams to care about each other, and, more importantly, he knew how to turn total head cases into the most clutch players in the country. (Here’s a representative box score of their clutchness. The 2007 Indoors Championship: https://gustavus.edu/athletics/mt/archives/2007/2007_ITA/ucsccms.htm). By the end of the season, you knew these guys were going to peak. Their 5-1 win over Emory in the national championship was more of a formality than anything else, and that Emory team was good.

2011 Amherst? You lost a DIII match and almost didn’t even win your conference. You’re #1 singles player was obviously weak. Get out of here.

2010 Middlebury? Yeah, your national championship felt more inevitable than any other national championship in the last 5 years, but you still almost lost a couple matches. The dominance just isn’t the same as it was with these guys.

2014 CMS? Talk to me when you win that national championship.

You wanna talk about stars? 4 or 5 of these guys ended up getting ATP points, so you can take your stars and shove them up your…

*drops mic*

P.S – 2009 Cruz, Anyone?

*picks up mic*

Since I totally cheated to win, I’m going to spend a little time to talk about the 2009 Cruz team, which I think has a totally legitimate argument for the best DIII team of the past five years. The arguments against them are pretty clear:

1) They actually lost two DIII matches during the season to Kenyon and GAC

2) Everyone expected Emory to win the national championship with Goodwin, Goodwin, Boren, and Egan (Egan at #4 is nasty). They weren’t nearly as dominant as 2007 Cruz or 2010 Middlebury.

The argument for 2009 UC Santa Cruz rests entirely on the “Pickup Game Theory.” If you had to pick a team to win a tennis match for you and your life depended on it, who would you pick? I might pick the 2009 UC Santa Cruz team at the end of that season, and here’s why:

1. Their top 5 singles players were all seniors. Let me repeat that for you. Their top 5 singles players were all seniors. That’s right, their lineup was: Liberty-Point, Kamel, Ortiz, Gendelman, Mark-Griffin. If you needed a team who could handle the pressure of a life-or-death scenario, you would want these guys. I wrote about a lot of those guys a second ago, so you know they have national championship experience. They may have lost during the season, but they were not about to lose when the pressure was on.

2. Their #6 singles player was Marc Vartabedian. For reference. Varta was an excellent #2 player the following year, and you know about his ATP history. As a junior amongst 5 seniors, he clinched the semifinal match against Goodwin/Goodwin Emory, so it’s not like his relative lack of experience is a handicap here.

3. Coach Hansen. Hansen was in peak Zen Master mode between 2005-2009 when he won 3 national championships. Oftentimes during those seasons, it would seem that his teams were totally outmatched on paper, but they always seemed to win the clutch matches. Never was that more evident during their national championship run this year, which I’m getting to…

4. Clutchtown: Population UC Santa Cruz. During their national championship run, they swept every team they played in doubles in succession: Whitman, CMS, Williams, Emory, Amherst. Holy shit. Watts and Greenberg were still around this season, but it didn’t matter. No team has ever caught fire quite like these guys did during those two weeks in May, and that’s why I might take them in a Pickup Game for my life. Hopefully it never comes down to that.

Like I said, I can’t endorse these guys as the GOAT because the 2007 team was so much better, but imagine if this team had Pybas…

*drops mic again*

D3Northeast’s Pick – 2010 Middlebury

Before I begin, I’d like to raise my hand and say that I wouldn’t mind reading some D3NE on the blog. That guy really seems to know where it’s at. For the few of you foolish enough to enjoy my stuff, I’ll be previewing Amherst/Williams later this week, along with sending out a weekend preview on Friday. As I’m late to this GOAT game I have both the pros and cons and reading everyone else’s opinion before writing my own. So before I hop on the Middlebury bandwagon (as if I’ve ever left) let me try and shoot down the arguments that were laid out before me. All I have to do is point out that each of their picks have flaws which my GOLFY does not.

1) D3AS’s 2011 Amherst team

-They lost a match. DUHHHHHHHH! How is this not a clincher? The 2011 Jeffs didn’t go undefeated! I don’t care if they split-squaded or whatever the hell they did that day. They lost, they were not perfect. In order to be the best, you have to be as close to perfect as possible. The 2011 Jeffs were most decidedly not.

-Moving on from this decidedly shortsighted view on a CMS match where Amherst only played their top 4 guys, I do have to give credit where credit is due. In terms of this discussion, the 2011 Amherst squad is the 2nd best team of the last 5 years. They had one 5-4 win all year and it was without Chafitz. In that match, the “clutch” Williams team that went on to win 2 years later were only sophomores, and it showed. Amherst took 1-3 in 3 sets (against Sun, Micheli, and Meyer) and all went to at least 6-4 in the 3rd. My GOLFY never needed 3 3-set wins, to edge a rival. However, the Jeffs did sweep NESCACs, and go undefeated until they met up with Williams again in the semis (5-1 win). This team definitely deserves some major props, but I still see them as a close 2nd to the 2009-2010 Midd team.

2) D3Central’s 2014 CMS team

-IRRELEVANT ARGUMENT! This team has not won a National Championship yet. Hell, they haven’t even won their conference tournament yet. It is absurd to me that they are in this conversation. Projections are all fine and good, but (especially with this Stag team) until the team actually hoists the trophy, they physically cannot be considered in the GOAT (or even the GOLFY) conversation. If we just hand the Stags the trophy, then this team could and should absolutely be in the conversation. But until the Stags get the 800-lb gorilla off their backs and win the damn thing this year, I’m not going to humor this argument.

3a) D3West’s 2007 Santa Cruz Team

-Not in the past 5 years…

3b) D3West’s 2009 Santa Cruz Team

-You best pick up that mic son. Rabbit hasn’t had his turn. Forget losing one match. This team actually lost 7 matches in their supposed “best season of the past 5 years”. To be fair, they only lost twice to D3 opponents. OH WAIT! That’s twice as many losses as Amherst had in their 2011 season, and so many more losses than my choice that it can’t even be quantifiably measured. I don’t care that they lost both matches 5-4. People might say that “they weren’t conference matches”, but that’s not valid bc Cruz doesn’t play any conference matches. The two loses to GAC and Kenyon stand out because those two loses showcased the 2009 Slug’s biggest weakness, their top singles and doubles guys.

-Let’s take a look at their season. Of the 13 DIII teams that Cruz played, their #1 went 8-6, their #2 went 11-3, and their #3 went 7-7. While those numbers are ok (Kamel’s numbers are better than ok) that’s nowhere near the numbers of any of the other 3 teams. Even Rattenhuber (clearly the worst of the other #1’s, Luis, Wood & Peters) had a better record than that. As for Cruz’s doubles teams, they all have a very respectable record against DIII opponents. #1’s went 10-4, and #2/#3 each went 11-3. Those records are cute, but nothing near GOLFY status.

-In comparison to the 2009 Slug Squad, I would give Amherst the edge in dubs and at 2&3 singles. I would give CMS the dubs edge and the edge at 2-4 singles. I don’t care how good Gendelmen was, Butts is on my all-time #4 list (along with Thomson). As for Midd, I’d give them a doubles edge, and an edge at the top singles spots as well. Of course it is impossible to know for sure, which is what makes this argument worthwhile! I will give D3West’s “pickup game theory” a bit of credit, the 2009 team did absolutely crush Nattys, I mean Nationals. There is something to be said for winning NCAAs without dropping a point. Maybe those Cruz guys could really turn it on when it counted? Hence D3West’s “pickup game theory”. Even after all that analysis, let me quote what D3West said in his GOLFY take “they [Cruz] weren’t nearly as dominant as 2007 Cruz or 2010 Middlebury”. HE GAVE ME THE WIN! He can have his pickup game theory all he wants. He can be Bill Simmons and I’ll be Michael Smith (never thought I would want to be Michael Smith in this comparison). He can have his theory with the catchy name and questionable relevance. I’ll take the dead sexy voice and the numbers that never lie. What if I told you, pickup game theory didnt equal GOAT? That’s a great idea, they should make a 30 for 30 about the blog, but I digress

Why 2009-2010 MIDD is the GOLFY

When ASouth first told us about the idea for this article, my mind IMMEDIATELY jumped to 2009-2010 Midd. The Panthers were the most dominant team that year, and it wasn’t even close. Looking back on some of these other dominant runs, I am impressed with all the teams mentioned. HOWEVER, at no point in my tennis career have I ever been more in awe of a team than the 2009-2010 Panthers. This team simply did not lose. I don’t mean that in a figurative “oh hey that team only lost once or twice” sort of way. I mean they literally went the entire season without losing a DIII match. Just like D3AS’s Amherst team, Midd took a doubles lead in every single match. Again like Amherst, MIdd didn’t play their full lineup when they squared off with CMS on their spring break. However, unlike Amherst, Midd came out of that matchup unscathed in dominating fashion, 7-2. Just like D3West’s 2009 Cruz team, well actually there aren’t a ton of similarities there. BUT, unlike D3West’s Slugs no singles player or doubles team on the Panthers registered more than 3 losses all season. Let me spin that for you in a different way. Because I know AS will want the individual stats, I did the research (even though these guys don’t show up on the ITA website anymore). Here’s Midd’s lineup. The records in parenthesis are their overall singles record, no matter what position they played (which makes them even more impressive).

1) Andrew Peters (11-3) (losses to Erani, Chafitz, and Watts all at #1 singles)

2) Andrew Lee (16-0) (so many good wins: Kahan x2, Vertabedian, Lim, Lebidoff X2, McCook)

3) Conrad Olson (10-0) (wins over A. Putterman, Koenig, and MacColl)

4) Andrew Thomson (11-1) (loss to Max Woods at #4 singles)

5) Elliot Jia (11-1) (loss to Steven Milo at #6 singles)

6) Peter O’Dell (13-2) (losses to Waterman at #4 singles and Kareem Farah at #6 singles)

D3AS said that 2011 Amherst only lost 6 sets from the Elite 8 onwards, how about the fact that those 6 Midd Kids went a combined 72-7 ON THE YEAR! Middlebury singles players finished with an overall record of 104-12. Their doubles teams, finished with an overall record of 59-7. Combining the singles and doubles records yields us with a total record of 163-19. That means that Midd won their matches by an average by more than 8-1. Awesome doubles, incredible singles, and I feel that I’ve convincingly made my point without having to even touch on the Coach Schwarz factor. (Schwarz always struck me as an odd duck so I’ll just let that sleeping dog lie). Dominance thy name is Middlebury, 2009-2010.

D3AS Conclusion: Well, what’s your verdict? I think I may have been convinced by 2010 Middlebury and obviously 2007 Cruz is sick nasty.  No matter what, these are the some the greatest teams we’ve ever seen and it’s a pleasure that I have gotten to see 3 of them in person.  2014 CMS, I’m coming for you.  Let us know your thoughts and I hope this was a fun read for all of you!