ASouth Individuals Update + Swat/Hop Preview

Back from the Bieber concert and ready to rumble.  Can you believe that beers at a Justin Bieber concert are like $15? I guess I should believe it considering that they need to make some money off alcohol considering most of the teeny-boppers there are like 10 years old. Anyways, was a great time, JB was looking fine with his buzz-cut, but now it’s time to do some grunt work and take a look at some ASouth Individual action.  Also, there might be a little bonus preview at the back end of this that has probably been spoiled by the title of this article.  My colleagues and partners in crime have been coming out with individual articles and giving their takes on things and I am about to do the same.  With most of the ASouth pretty much complete, a lot of these individual choices are going to be set in stone.  I don’t want to just report to you that they are all set.  I am going to give you my unfiltered thoughts about who’s in, who’s out, and everything in between.  Just the way you would expect it from yours truly.  Let’s start with singles and move on to the doubles.

Singles

If you are looking for ITA Rankings, please see this link.  I tend to think that the ITA Rankings are a bit more indicative of what’s to come for the NCAA rankings, so that’s why I linked you to those.  However, the NCAA Rankings determine who’s going to get in, so I guess I’ll link those right here.  Let’s use the NCAA rankings for my thoughts.  I’ll give you the thoughts on every player, whether or not he deserves to get in, and what he has to do to make it into NCAAs if he has not yet solidified his spot.

1. Rafe Mosetick, Emory – Rafe is in. He has wins against pretty much everyone this year other than Noah Farrell and Sam Geier of Kenyon, who are the two front-runners for the top seed at Individuals. Wins over Alla x2, Buxbaum, Krimbill, Chua, Carswell, and others have Mosetick as the clear cut #1 player in the region. No one else has an argument to pass him.  Not even Jemison. Ha.
2. Abhishek Alla, CMU – Lookie here, folks. I spelt Abhishek’s name correctly! Unlike the NCAA crew that has finally figured out how to spell it, I’ve been following Alla closely for about 3-4 years now. He’s going to make the tournament, obviously, but I don’t think he should be ranked as high as #2 in the region. He has his Fall ITA Regional win but has losses to Buxbaum, Mosetick x2, and Schober.  However, he also has really strong out of region wins in Chua, Geier, and Skyler Butts.  If he was in the Central, he might be the #1 ranked player!
3. Jonathan Jemison, Emory – #3 is just too high for Jemison given his position in the lineup. His strongest win in the region is over Daniel Levine x2, who is ranked at #6! He has some nice out of region wins such as Glenn Hull, Johnny Wu, and others, but he also has losses to James Fojtasek and Graham Maassen. By the way, Levine beat both of those guys.  I understand getting Jemison into the tournament, but ranking him at #3 is way too high and shows a bit of bias for record instead of strength of competition.
4. CJ Antonio, Oglethorpe – Antonio comes in at #4 really based off the strength of one win – against Avery Schober of Sewanee. I would like to take this paragraph to also mention how off the previous NCAA rankings were. I wish I had screenshotted them.  I’ve heard through the grapevine that they were basically unfinished because the rankers got “tired.”  That’s unacceptable.  Anyways, Antonio has that one big win over Schober and a solid out of region win against Brady Anderson of Coe.  Antonio is definitely a solid player and has 0 bad losses on the year, putting him at #4 in the region.  He technically could be a bit higher given that he has an indirect win over Alla through Schober, but he has barely played any ranked matches so he sits at #4.  I’d say that’s fair.  It doesn’t matter as long as you’re in the draw anyways.
5. Avery Schober, Sewanee – Schober has had a pretty damn good year, beating Alla of CMU and Krasner of W&L on his way to the #5 ranked player in the region. He has less clout than Alla which is why he’s 3 spots behind him, but again, at this point it doesn’t matter. Schober has avoided any bad losses and should be a nice first round upset pick if he gets the right draw at NCAAs.
6. Daniel Levine, CMU – Interesting that Levine got hooked up with the #6 spot here in the NCAA Rankings. The NCAA puts a lot of value in out of region wins and that is where Levine really shines. With wins over Maassen (PP), Fojtasek x2 (Case), Hull (CMS), Liu (Kenyon), and David Liu (Chicago), there are bound to be some indirect wins in there. However, he has in-season losses to Roddy (Sewanee) and Dubin (Hopkins), so it’s pretty crazy that he’s ranked this high.  I would have expected him to be at the #8 spot sweating it out with the rest of the #2 singles players.  But, Levine has definitely got the goods and he’s one of those #2 singles players I really wouldn’t want to play in individuals.

#7 Mark Fallati, Swarthmore – The blog favorite Mark Fallati has had a great year as of late, despite against lower competition, which puts him at the #7 spot.  He has wins over Buxbaum (Hop) and Griffin (UMW), but his real big win was over Matt Heinrich of Stevens early in the year.  Without the strength of many regional wins, Fallati leans on that to get into the big dance.  He has the Centennial Conference tournament this weekend and I think other than a total blowup, Fallati is in.

#8 Mike Buxbaum, Hopkins – The man I nicknamed MVP has dropped a little bit this year, but he is still slated to make the tournament and will probably get in.  Considering that his only matches left are in the Centennial Conference tournament, he basically only needs to beat Luis Acaba of Haverford to make it into the tournament.  The final will most likely be against Fallati, so he won’t stand to lose any ground there.  There’s a distinct chance that Hopkins pulls against Haverford.  Anyways, Buxbaum has a big win over Alla this year and that basically keeps him afloat here in the ASouth.  Other than that, he doesn’t really have any huge wins, but he has beaten Brandon Griffin of UMW as well.  Buxbaum has losses against Reed of CNU (unranked), Holt of W&L (injured), and Fallati as well.  I’m not sure if Bux really deserves this last spot, but based on name I think he gets in.

#9 Eric Spangler, Salisbury – Spangler of Salisbury has had a great year and I think there are a lot of people out there that really want him in this tournament.  He has lost ONCE all year at #1 singles, in three sets to #5 player Avery Schober of Sewanee. Unfortunately for him, he has not really beaten anyone simply because a ton of people have ducked him.  He beat Cerny of CNU, Griffin of UMW, and Kaplan of F&M.  Buxbaum ducked him earlier in the year and Spangler torched Jeremy Dubin (who Levine has lost to, by the way).  He was leading Reed of CNU 6-2 before the match was unfinished.  Spangler deserves to make it.  He basically has all the wins of Buxbaum outside of Alla with no bad losses.  I don’t see how Spangler shouldn’t be in other than the fact that he plays for Salisbury.  #OperationSpangler has commenced.

That’s singles for you.  The only drama this weekend seems to be if Buxbaum loses to Haverford, giving him another bad loss and sending Spangler into the tournament.  Shame on Hopkins if they pull him, which knowing what happens around these parts, probably will happen.  Sigh.

Doubles

#1 Roddy/Gray, Sewanee – This team made waves in the Fall and have had a great season otherwise.  With wins over pretty much every team in the region other than a surprising Oglethorpe loss, Roddy and Gray are going to be a potential top seed in the doubles tournament.  Expect these two to be a quarterfinal team or later.  However, this is doubles, where anything can happen.

#2 Levine/Arora, CMU – The freshman team from CMU has had a hell of a year this year after starting out as a team I didn’t expect much of.  They’ve beaten the team from Emory twice and the UMW team in region.  I’m a bit surprised they are as high as #2 considering they have lost to Sewanee and Hopkins this year, but I guess I can’t really put anyone else ahead of them.  Levine/Arora’s regular season is over and they can expect to make it into nationals with ease.

#3 Spaulding/Rubinstein, Emory – Here are some more names that the NCAA loves to spell wrong, but I have spelt right because that’s what I do.  Spaulding and Rubinstein didn’t really have high expectations this year but here they are in the #3 spot.  They have losses to the top 2 teams in the region, but have basically been rock solid against anyone else.  Funny thing is they lost to the #4 team as well (Buxbaum/Dubin) but are still placed ahead of them.  This is due to their out of region wins.  They have wins over Krimbill/Stuerke (Case), Butts/Morkovine (CMS), and Geier/Kaye (Kenyon).  Those teams all have indirects over the #2 team in the region.  Crazy how doubles works out.  This is a solid team that deserves to be in nationals, especially since they’ve also beaten UMW and Oglethorpe this year.

#4 Buxbaum/Dubin, Hopkins – This is an interesting team.  Buxbaum/Dubin have the pedigree to make nationals and also have wins over two teams ranked ahead of them in the CMU and Emory teams.  That means they should absolutely be in, right?!  Well, they also have suffered losses to the UMW team (Miles/Griffin) and CNU team (Boslet/Shetty) that hurts them within region.  They basically saved their season with a win over the W&L team back in March.  If it were me, the #2-4 are all interchangeable given their many indirects over each other, creating a huge triangle for the 3.  Hard to put anyone else over them at this point.

#5 Spangler/Gunther, Salisbury – Wow.  Another where Spangler misses the tournament because he’s the last one out.  This time, Gunther has to live with it with him.  This time, the Salisbury team doesn’t really have an argument to make it into nationals.  They have losses against Buxbaum/Dubin, Roddy/Gray, and Boslet/Shetty of CNU.  What is keeping them in the #5 spot is their win over Miles/Griffin of UMW and a revenge win against Boslet/Shetty.  This team unfortunately does not have an argument to get into the doubles portion of the tournament and it looks like the ASouth has gotten it right for doubles.  The rest of the teams below this team all have losses that will keep them out and very few of them have enough top 4 wins to get them in.

Centennial Conference Preview

Hopkins vs. Swarthmore, potentially Sunday @ Swarthmore

For the boxscore of their last match, which was a 5-4 Swarthmore victory, please click here.

One thing that is happening this weekend is the Hopkins vs. Swarthmore potential final in the Centennial Conference Championship.  This is a really big match considering the winner moves on to NCAAs while the loser almost definitely goes home without anything to show for themselves.  Since these teams are both technically in my region outside of D3Regional territory, it falls on the hands of the mighty ASouth to get this preview done.  I could have saved this for a little later but I figured I might as well get it done now.  I would like to caveat that Hopkins has to beat Haverford to make it here and Swarthmore has to beat F&M.  If one of these teams does NOT do that, I don’t really know what to say.  Hopkins has lost to UMW who has lost to F&M this year, but whatever.  I just think this is going to happen.  If it doesn’t, we can just say this was something like a Madden simulation.

Swarthmore Recipe for Success

The last time these two teams played, Swarthmore actually went down in the doubles to Hopkins and I thought the match should have been over at that point.  Funny thing is, I believe Swarthmore is the better up and down doubles team out of the two.  Hopkins has changed their lineup since the first meeting, slotting down Walsh/Garcia into the #3 spot and placing Kang/Perez at the #2 spot.  I think Swarthmore has the advantage at #2 doubles now and both the #1 and #3 spots are toss-ups.  If Swarthmore is to win this match, just don’t get swept.  Swat has a 50/50 chance at least at all the singles spots and probably has a few advantages going their way.  If Swat is to take this match, they are going to look for wins at two doubles spots, a Fallati victory over Buxbaum, and one of the #2/3 singles matches.  That is where you can get Hopkins because they have a lot of guys that can play a solid #4 singles.  Hopkins has changed their lineup since the last time out against Swat, adding Perez at #4, Walsh at #5, and Eshan Dave at #6.  Swat has the advantage at #5 in this type of lineup.  I think Swarthmore realistically can take the top 3 singles spots in c lean sweep, but I never expect that in a rivalry match where one team has a former stud in Buxbaum.  In Swarthmore’s win, they win at #1, #2 doubles, and #2, #3, and #5 singles.  That’s my recipe for success for Swarthmore.

Hopkins Recipe for Success

Hopkins basically is hoping that their new lineup is going to take out Swat.  Hopkins is also banking on their tournament experience to take them to the NCAA tournament once again.  We forget that this team was an Elite 8 participant last year despite having a god awful year.  Now, this team doesn’t really have the senior leadership it did last year, but they still have some players.  A few teams that are already in are probably hoping that Hopkins just misses NCAAs altogether.  Hopkins is banking that their lineup change will strengthen them at #3 doubles where they struggled last time out.  They will rely on Buxbaum/Dubin to take the big #1 doubles match and send the Jays into a 2-1 lead.  I just don’t see anyone getting swept in this match.

In singles, the big matches for them are at #1 with Buxbaum/Fallati, #4 with Perez/Vernier, and #3 with Garcia/Cepelwicz.  The whole bottom 4 of the Hopkins lineup has changed.  I think the additions of Garcia and Perez to the #3 and #4 spots helps a ton with their middle of the lineup and they get to add some experience in there with Garcia.  Walsh at #5 is a weak spot, but the talented freshman Dave at #6 could go toe to toe with Josh Powell.  The more I think about this match, the more I think this will be a Hopkins win.  I am officially going to go with Hopkins with wins at #1  and #3 doubles, #1, #3, #4, and #6 singles.  That adds up to a 6-3 victory and Hopkins gets sent to the NCAA tournament once again!

Ah, it’s 2:20 AM and it is officially time to sleep.  Thanks for D3NE for setting up this article so I didn’t have to paste any pictures on this damn site.  Okay, time to sleep.  ASouth, OUT.