Guess what readers! You’re going to be reading a lot of articles this weekend as Blizzard Jonas has touched down in the East Coast, meaning I have nothing better to do than blog for all of you guys. Man, what a life. I told Coach Tee the other day that I was hitting the slopes on a Friday and he remarked “it must be tough being a blogger.” Real jobs, ha! Who needs those. Anyways, the women’s team has been really stepping it up lately and that means I need to hit y’all with a Men’s Preview right quick. D3NE has come out of his slumber at just the right time, but he’s only one measly person. I’ll help him pick up the slack with this Hopkins Men’s Preview.
Coach: Chuck WIllenborg, 11th Season
Location: Baltimore, Maryland
Preseason Ranking: #12
Blog Power Ranking: #10
Twitter Handle: @JHUTennis, pretty solid account but sporadic at times
Overview
I don’t know why I stopped using previous rankings in my previews, but just know that Hopkins has been a perennial top 15 team the past 7-8 years at the least, simply because they have begun bringing in some big time players on the recruiting trail. The allure of Johns Hopkins is still bringing in people year after year, and this team actually already has like 8 recruits committed for this upcoming year. However, I am not going to talk about them because it’s 2016, and we don’t care about them right now. Hopkins has always teased me as D3ASouth throughout my tenure on the blog, simply because they seem to underperform despite being set up for tons of success. There’s a lot of hate that goes around the Blue Jays performance, especially in NCAAs, and I must say that most of the time it is well deserved. Either way, I can’t really complain when my second best team is consistently within the top 12 and sometimes flirting with the top 5, but as you know I am a pretty big cynic. Hopkins year last year was defined by strange things, as they lost to NC Wesleyan in a blowout and almost lost to like F&M or something before taking out Kenyon in the Sweet 16 of the NCAA tournament. That got them to the Elite 8, which was a pretty big accomplishment considering their season to date. They then gave CMS a tough time as they always seem to do in NCAAs, but it simply wasn’t enough against the eventual champions. With a finish of #12 in the nation, the Blue Jays were able to salvage a season that pretty much went downhill until the very end. However, their regular season struggles cause them to miss out on Indoor Nationals this year by one spot, as they ended up placing behind Carnegie Mellon for the last non-host spot. While Indoors isn’t as important for this perennial conference winner, it’s still a great way to test your guys in high-pressure situations. I’m expecting a similar season this year in terms of ranking for Hopkins, finishing in the #11-#15 range depending on how some guys step up.
Key Additions – Eshan Dave (4 Star Freshman), Scott Thygesen (3 star freshman), Nakul Narendran (3 star freshman)
Key Losses – Tanner Brown (#3 Doubles, #6 singles lol), Ben Hwang (#2 Singles), Noah Joachim (#5 Singles), Erik Lim (#3 Doubles lol), Jensen Reiter (#3 Singles)
Lineup Analysis
#1 Singles, Michael “MVP” Buxbaum – MVP! MVP! MVP! One of my favorite players has to be Michael Buxbaum, who I’ve nicknamed MVP for his amazing two way contributions so far in his short career. The junior has played at the #1 spot for both of his years on the Jays, with great success. With big time ground strokes and an overall solid net game, Buxbaum has the goods to play with anyone in the country. He beat a ton of good players last year, made the semifinals of nationals before losing to Warren Wood, and only lost a handful of times to very top players. This year, he qualified for Fall Nationals in both singles and doubles, showing us all why he has earned the nickname MVP. Buxbaum is going to be a force all year and probably one of the top 5 players in the nation. Hopkins is all set with their top dog and I expect another big year from one of DIII’s top players.
#2 Singles, Jeremy Dubin – Hopkins will most likely be trotting out another junior at #2 singles this year, by the name of Jeremy Dubin. The big guy has a strange game despite his size, oftentimes grinding out opponents instead of overpowering them. Dubin to me is more of a #3-4 singles player, unless he made some incredible improvements in the winter offseason. Last year, he started off at the #2 spot, surprising us all by taking our Will Drougas of Case Western at Indoor Nationals. It was downhill from there at #2, as he suffered losses to Aaron Skinner, Ross Putterman, Heaney-Secord, Stratton Gilmore, and Sebastian Sikh. He was then moved down to #3 singles where he was way more comfortable. This year, Dubin was able to make the quarterfinals of his ITA before falling to CMU’s freshman Daniel Levine. While that is a solid result from the big guy, Dubin projects to be an average to maybe slightly above average #2 this year. Given the uncertainty around the rest of the Hopkins lineup, I want to see a lot more from Dubin this year.
#3 Singles, David Perez – Wow. Talk about really coming out of nowhere. When I saw David Perez made the quarterfinals of the ITA, I was pretty shocked. Perez had previously not been a contributor to the Hopkins team until this fall. He was recruited last year out of the Dominican Republic and I have admittedly never seen the man play. I will absolutely be looking out for this international player now as he took out Swarthmore #1 John Larkin in the ITA fairly handily, I may add. Due to the lack of options in the middle of the Hopkins lineup, we have Perez here to potentially grind it out. Perez is a true wild card this year and Hopkins would obviously greatly benefit from a star at the #3 spot.
#4 Singles, Eshan Dave – Dave is the most highly touted recruit for Hopkins this year, as the four star comes in and is projected to play #4 in the lineup for the Jays. Dave was seeded in the ITA tournament and had a good run to the Round of 16 before bowing out in a split set loss to Stratton Gilmore of Mary Washington. Gilmore projects to be the #2 player on UMW this year and was playing on his home courts, which bodes well for the Hopkins freshman. Dave’s ranking had improved all the way up to #132 on tennis recruiting in his class, so I would expect him to have an impact year at #4. He may go through some freshman jitters mid-season and probably won’t make an impact in doubles, but Dave can definitely be a top player at the #4 spot.
#5 Singles, Justin Kang – Here’s where things start to get dicey for the Jays. Justin Kang is my guy right now at #5 singles, but that could change in a heartbeat. Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if it changed this winter offseason. Last year, Kang played three dual matches all year, with one of them being a loss to F&M #4 player in that ridiculously weird win against their lesser conference opponent. Kang participated in ITA’s this year and ended up losing in a split set affair to David Lunding Johannson of Mary Washington, which isn’t a terrible result. You would like to see a win from the young sophomore but hey, take what you can get. Kang was a top 200 recruit coming out last year, but we’ve seen that really means nothing when it comes to those guys playing at the bottom of the lineup. I need to see more from Kang this year for me to consider him among above average #5 players. As of right now, I see this as a hole in the Jay lineup.
#6 Singles, Christopher Jou/Scott Thygesen /Nick Garcia/Emerson Walsh– Hopkins just has a ton of options at this spot (and the #5 spot, honestly) and I simply don’t know who to pick. Either Garcia or Walsh would have been my picks before the season started, but neither of those guys made a dent in the singles portion of the ITA. In fact, I don’t think Garcia even played despite being a somewhat effective bottom of the lineup player in previous years. Chris Jou is a four star senior who literally has never made the lineup, but got the chance in the A draw this year of ITAs and played an extremely close match against W&L #1 Michael Holt. Thygesen got routed by Alla, but it’s encouraging that he was in the A Draw. Whoever the Jays throw out here at #6 should be pretty solid when it comes down to it, and Coach Willenborg has the ability to play some matchups if he so chooses. This might be a strong spot for the Jays, but my guess would be it becomes a revolving door average spot. That’s just how these things work.
Doubles – Doubles has been a strong point for the Jays for the past few years, and it culminated in them taking a 2-1 lead on CMS last year in the Elite 8. That being said, they were throwing a previous All-American team in Buxbaum/Walsh at #2 doubles and a strong #2 doubles team at #3, but that’s besides the point. It seems to happen every year that Bux/Walsh end up in the middle of the lineup for some random reason, but hey – you play to win the game. Hopkins has used it’s great excess of talent to put together solid doubles lineups up and down the roster, and I don’t think this year will be much different. They had four teams in the quarterfinals of the ITA and two teams in the semifinals. Expect Buxbaum/Walsh to be the #1 team and then probably a team featuring Dubin to be the #2 team. From there, maybe a team like Garcia/Narendran takes #3. Overall, it’s a very solid doubles lineup for the Jays and one that they can count on being competitive at every single spot. They should be the favorites at #1 and potentially #3 in most matches out there. I like this lineup for Hop.
Schedule Analysis
Hopkins Schedule here:
http://www.hopkinssports.com/sports/m-tennis/sched/jhop-m-tennis-sched.html
Hopkins schedule really took a hit without Indoor Nationals and you can see that here. They will instead begin the season by taking on W&L, Bates, and Chris Newport. All these teams are way below the Hopkins talent level and I don’t think they should have any problem. The only potential problem would be getting down in doubles to Bates and then losing at the bottom of the lineup, but luckily that’s where Bates has trouble as well. Look for Hop to start the season strong.
The next two big matches will be against two ASouth rivals in CMU and Emory. These are two big, big matches for the Jays and I will especially be looking forward to the CMU one. CMU will have a lot to play for as a resume win for their Pool C bid, but Hopkins always brings their A game against these guys. Last year, CMU pretty much stomped Hopkins in this annual event after somehow sweeping doubles. Don’t expect the same this year and this might come down to a 5-4 or really close 6-3 match. It will be one of my matches to watch for sure. The match against Emory could get interesting and the Jay are lucky to not play them in Atlanta. I’m sneaky high on Emory this year in the ASouth, and I think they are the #1 team in the region for sure. I definitely expect an Emory victory here.
Hopkins will then finish with two more ASouth matches and a really interesting match against Case Western at home. The matches against UMW and NCW are hopefully not going to be interesting for the Jays, but we’ve seen how they play at the end of the year sometimes. Hopkins hasn’t lost to UMW in ages and I think that one will just be a routine win. The NCW match could get interesting because who knows what mindset they’ll be in at that point. But, I have to take Hopkins easily there. It just makes sense. The match against Case Western will be a big one for Case and they will come out really fiery. I’m not going to predict an outcome here but Hopkins will need to be up for this match to win it. They don’t have the experience they used to and Case will be battling for their Pool C bid. Luckily, it’s at home for the Jays which should benefit them. That being said, I’ve heard about some party habits for old Blue Jays so who knows if that’s even a good thing. At the end of the day, Hopkins will come out of their conference and be in the tournament, most likely a #2 seed somewhere (potentially Kenyon, CMU, or maybe even… Middlebury). From there, we can only guess.
D3ASouth’s 3 Keys to Success for Johns Hopkins
- Talent Doesn’t Win Championships – For too long, Hopkins has relied on talent to get far in the NCAA tournament. They’re like the really smart kid who didn’t study for finals, crams the day before, and somehow eeks out a 3.0 GPA despite doing 0 work all year. Sound familiar? Well, get your life together. All jokes aside, Hopkins is not talented enough this year to do that. If they breeze through their regular season and suffer a head-scratching loss to someone like UMW or NCW, they will be placed in the Middlebury region or something and get ousted by a team more talented than they. Gone are the days of Tanner Brown at #6 and Erik Lim yelling from the bench. They have to work this year, which might even be uncharted territory for them.
- MVP – Of course an MVP is going to be a key to the season. Buxbaum needs to be the big dog this year, for sure. Every other singles spot is going to be a question mark, whether that be because of youth, lack of success, or just figuring out who’s playing. Hopkins will rely heavily on their best player to get them two wins when they need it the most. That means beating guys like Krimbill, Mosetick, Alla, and whoever plays #1 doubles on a given day. That’s focus for like 3-4 hours in a match. If anyone can do it, it’s Mike Buxbaum. With what looks like no other really strong spots in the lineup, Hopkins is in trouble if Buxbaum has an off year.
- Beware the Panther – If there is one goal for the Jays this year, it is to stay out of the Middlebury regional for NCAAs. They need a few things to break their way of course, but Hopkins is going to need to keep a high 10s ranking if they are going to achieve this. That puts them as a high #2 seed in some other region (unless they get totally screwed). Hopkins has turned it on at NCAAs in recent years and that’s a testament to Coach Willenborg (kinda), so who knows. I’d feel way better about them vs. Kenyon or CMU or even another NESCAC team than Middlebury. You want the Elite 8? Fear the Panther.
Conclusion
Ah, another day, another dollar. Hopkins has always been one of my favorite teams to cover because they’re kind of like your wild card brother. Who knows if he’s going to come home totally blitzed out of his mind or with straight A’s from the last semester. He might invest all his money at the roulette table at Vegas and somehow hit the jackpot. Or, he’ll come back and ask you for his fair share of your allowance. Hopkins is going to need to work this year to be the Jays we’ve seen in the past. I’m excited to see what is probably 4 new singles players at the bottom of the lineup. That usually leads to great success or terrible disaster. Which one is it going to be? Find out on the next episode of Blue Jay tennis. Until then, ASouth, OUT.
Buxbam only made doubles in fall national.
good call. seems like i was living in the past… either way, he’s sick!