2016 Season Preview: NC Wesleyan Bishops

Remember me? I was the first to get out two season previews, and I even promised a 3^rd (Sorry, Sewanee), but a flurry of things hit me (vacation, work, general apathy) and I was unable to resurface until then.  Since my last season preview, here are some things that happened:

• It became 2016.
• Making a Murderer became the hit show of America.
• Justin Bieber got a girlfriend, Leonardo Dicaprio lost one.
• Star Wars came out and beat Avatar in the box offices.
• I went on a European vacation. I also live tweeted dinner and drinks with D3Central and The Guru.
• D3Northeast actually wrote a Season Preview Article and stopped failing at life.
• D3Regional’s carcass was found and resurrected.
• The man hunt for D3ASW commenced (still ongoing).
• D3Central turned 40.
• D3West… he’s not interesting.
• D3TennisGreek joined our team.
• The Women’s team stepped up.
• Okay, enough of this BS let’s get to the NC Wesleyan preview.

Coach: Dustin Hale, 1^st Season

Location: Rocky Mount, NC

Preseason Ranking: #22

Blog Power Ranking: #26

Twitter Handle: @NCWBishopTennis (highly suggest following this account for outlandish tweets)

Overview

Last year I got a reprieve from previewing the NCW Bishops, which was a great thing considering it’s always unbelievably hard to preview them.  This lineup analysis is going to be atrocious. However, I do have a few fun facts about the Bishops that will catch your eye, as well as a few tweets from Head Coach Dustin Hale, who is a longtime reader of the blog. Let’s start with Hale, who tweeted this during the offseason that caught my eye (you will get more tweets from Hale later as well):

https://twitter.com/NCWBishoptennis/status/677246349608284160

You want publicity, Coach Hale? Well, you got it.  Time to back up your bluster during the season.

NCW really has had a couple of good years over the years, both of them coming under the fierce reign of Dominic Modise.  Modise had a knack for recruiting great international players, and that has become the NCW calling card ever since.  This year is no different as basically all starting lineup players will be international and I probably won’t know half of them.  I personally have set the goal for the Bishops this year as a top 20 finish, simply because you can’t tweet that much about your players without setting a high goal.  If you aren’t in the top 20 in DIII you are an afterthought until you prove something.  Just ask Coach Fried and Wesleyan.  NCW had a solid showing at ITA, but as a reminder, they are the only team that somehow gets recruits in January.  This makes 0 sense at all but I just have to roll with it.  We’ll get a little more clarity in the Lineup Overview, which we will get into… right now.

Lineup Overview

#1 Sebastian Sikh – The beast of a man that is Sebastian Sikh will almost certainly play #1 or #2, no matter what recruits from El Salvador show up to play on the Rocky Mount campus.  Sikh is really the Bishops only proven player this year, and that makes me put him at #1.  Sikh is blessed with mountain like height, which translates to a lot of power, a strong serve, and a generally intimidating presence on the court. He took out Goodman (Emory projected #5) and Andrew Harrington (Emory projected #4) in the ITA this year, both in split set affairs.  He then lost to the ASW-proclaimed best player in the country in Rafe Mosetick, 6-2, 6-4.  Sikh is a guy that can be boom or bust at his position, and I’m looking at a little more bust from him this year to be honest.  A tough out, but can he really be considered a top 15 player in the nation?  No.

#2 Ioannis Brokakis – One of the best names in DIII tennis belongs to Ioannis “The Greek Freak” Brokakkis and he can maybe back it up with some game too.  Coach Hale tweeted from the account that the NCW #1 and #2 would be interchangeable, the #3 and #4 set in stone, and #5 and #6 would be a variation of 8 different international transfers.  Awesome.  Brokakkis made the round of 16 in his ITA this year, eventually losing to the Emory #2, Jonathan Jemison.  He beat no one of note other than an Emory bench warmer in 3 sets, so his stay at #2 could be shaky.  Jemison handled him pretty routinely, which is bad news.  Jemison is good from what I hear, but a top 2? Only in ASW’s world right now.  The Bishops will be challengers at the top of the lineup but I don’t think they’ll be consistent winners.

#3 Random International (Sokolov) – I have no idea who the hell is going to play at #3.  I’ve been trying to read tweets to get a decent idea of what’s happening, but yea, that’s not happening.  Will it be… THIS GUY?

https://twitter.com/NCWBishoptennis/status/684584002498498560

I hope so because I’ve had enough of hearing about him on twitter.  Let me say this – I don’t have much faith that the top recruit from El Salvador is that good.  But, who knows, he might surprise me.  I hope he does, to save some people from embarrassment.

#4 Random International (Gende) – It may seem boring but this is the only way to do this preview.  Will it be the friend of the #1 RECRUIT FROM EL SALVADOR?  I see here that the Bishops have TWO (count em, TWO) recruits from El Salvador.  Maybe they came in a package deal.  The #3 and #4 spots are probably going to be some of the stronger spots for the Bishops actually, because most of their guys are in the #3-4 range (including Brokakkis).  Going off Coach Hale’s thoughts that they are definitely locked in at #3 and #4, I expect these guys to be some solid performers.  Then again, I expect a coin to land on heads every time it gets flipped.

#5 Peter Hviid (or someone else) – Ah, a familiar face! Kind of.  Peter Hviid has been on this team for the better part of four years and will assumedly be one of the captains for this year.  I still have never seen Hviid play, but he was a bad #4 his freshman year, compiling a 4-10 record.  He was moved up to the #3 position the year after, and you can probably tell how that went.  He went 0-7 against schools that were in the top 40, so yea.  Hviid is more suited to play #5 or #6, where I expect Coach Hale to put him.  Let’s see if he has more success here, but after taking a year off last year, I don’t really know what to expect.

#6 Mikhail Konnov (or someone else) – Another familiar face here as Konnov has made his return to the Bishops in 2016.  He was the Bishops #1 player just two years ago! But in that time, he went 0-9 at #1 singles against top 40 teams.  The year before, he went 3-9 at #5 singles against top 40 teams in the country. Good thing this year he is slated at #6 in my lineups.  It looks like he quit the team after the first few matches last year, something that doesn’t bode well for this year.  Ex-USA South POTY or not, quitting is something I always look down on.  A year off from tennis from your bottom two players might be a bit of a stretch.  Let’s hope that Hale doesn’t have these guys slotted in at #3 and #4….

Doubles – NCW has always struggled with doubles.  I do think that’s because of the weird way that recruiting happens in NCW, where recruits randomly come in January.  It just doesn’t provide good chemistry for the teams unless they’ve been playing year over year.  I can’t even fathom what the teams for NCW are going to be this year, but expect to see Sikh in at #1 doubles for sure, with contributors from all over the lineup at random positions.  NCW will not be a doubles powerhouse.  If Hale focuses attention on this part of the game, they could improve, but this team has always struggled here.  I remember when they would get swept by random teams, leaving them vulnerable for upsets.

The Schedule – Key Matches and More

Schedule – http://ncwcsports.com/sports/mten/2015-16/schedule

NCW has always played a strong ASouth schedule.  They really don’t travel too far but get the competition that they need to stay within the top 25 and potentially move into the top 20.  Again, there’s the top 20.  Their first weekend is pretty big for them, as they get their first shots at teams within the top 25 in Stevens and Mary Washington.  Actually, now that I look at the schedule, this seriously is the most important weekend for the Bishops.  These are their most realistic chances of breaking into the top 20 without pulling a top 15 upset.  Mary Washington is currently ranked #16 and is prime for an upset on the right day.  Do I expect it to be the Bishops on the road a day after potentially battling with Stevens? No, I don’t.  A solid weekend for NCW here would be splitting (taking out Stevens) and getting out of Fredericksburg with a win.

The second section of NCW’s schedule features two top Ohio teams in Case Western and Kenyon, who are currently more talented, disciplined, and experienced than the Bishops.  Not to mention it is again on the road, which is something that NCW obviously has to deal with all the time.  I don’t expect the Bishops to have much of a chance with upsets here.  They will then play the cupcake part of the USA South schedule where they will rock opponents that shouldn’t really be considered challenges at all.

The last part of their schedule is made up of Hopkins and Washington and Lee, which they surprisingly did well in last year.  This is NCW’s calling card to being relevant last year.  They destroyed an Elite 8 team in Hopkins.  That probably said more about Hopkins than NCW, but it’s still something to hang their hat on.  I don’t see the upset happening this year, but weirder things have happened and this might be NCW’s final shot at the top 20.  Hopkins will probably not bring the fire in this match considering their conference is so weak, so who knows what will happen.  I hope they don’t let us down.  NCW will then finish in the NCAA tournament, which will almost definitely be at Mary Washington or Emory for them as a #2 or #3 seed (maybe even a #4!)

D3 Atlantic South’s Key to NCW’s Season

1. Team Chemistry – As I briefly mentioned in the Doubles portion of analysis, one of the problems I have with so many international players is team chemistry. This reared its ugly head when a ton of people quit the team last year or transferred.  Right now, it seems like NCW is a stop for international players to get some experience and then transfer out to greener paths.  How will Coach Hale deal with this problem/stigma during the season?  Can he create a team bond like this team had back in 2009-10 when they made the Elite 8?  It’s a very interesting team because NCW is just a wild card in DIII.  They can be good, bad, or everything in between.

Conclusion

I may have been somewhat harsh in this preview, but it simply is tough for a twitter presence to be this big and in-your-face without me getting on them a little bit.  I expect NCW to finish around #24-26 and get to the Emory region as a #3 seed in NCAAs.  There, they will have the expected ending of a Round of 16 ouster and another year of transfers and strange things happening in their offseason.  I will also leave you with this.

https://twitter.com/NCWBishoptennis/status/671686734225145856

ASouth, OUT.