Happy weekend, boys and girls! We’ll be mixing in Fantasy Draft recaps with 2017 Season Previews over the next couple weeks, and I’m here to bring you a closer look at the 2017 Tufts Jumbos. With a couple of MAJOR upsets over Amherst and Bowdoin last spring, Tufts shot up the rankings and ended the year all they way up at #13. Had it not been for a late season loss to MIT, Tufts would have had a real shot at NCAAs entering the NESCAC tournament (where they lost to Wesleyan in the quarterfinals). Ever since Coach Gregor took over, Tufts has become a much more dangerous squad, and believe me when I tell you that you don’t want to play them on their lightning-fast indoor courts. This year the Jumbos are going to have to overcome a couple extra hurdles, as they graduated four out of six singles and doubles starters from last year’s team. Tufts’ depth makes its lineup one of the more difficult to predict, but this year is even more difficult given that 2/3 of the starters are not returning. And away…we…go
Location: Medfahd, Massachusetts
Coach: Karl Gregor, 3rd season as head coach (7th year at Tufts)
ITA National Ranking: 13th
ITA Regional Ranking: 5th
Blog Power Ranking: 19th
Twitter Handle: @TuftsMensTennis. Very good score updates, but can go dark for a whole match.
Key Losses: Jay Glickman (#1-3 singles, #1-2 doubles) Nik Telkedzhiev (#1-2 singles, #1-2 doubles), Rob Jacobson (#3-5 singles, #2 doubles) Nick Cary (#4-6 singles, #1 doubles).
Key Additions: Nathan Niemiec (4-star from Arizona), Ben Biswas (3-star from Mass), Willy Gold (3-star from Colorado), Zach Schaff (3-star from Pennsylvania), Jason Scanlon (2-star from Rhode Island).
Realistic Best Case Scenario: Freshmen click. Coach Gregor matches up his guys effectively against vulnerable teams and gets two wins over Williams, Amherst, or Wesleyan and heads into NESCACs as the #4 team in the conference. They again sneak out a win over the #5 team and earn the new and improved final Pool C spot, heading into NCAAs as the #2 seed in Bowdoin’s region where they bow out in the Sweet 16 (a program best).
Realistic Worst Case Scenario: Freshman don’t click. The bottom of the lineup becomes a rotating door of sorts. Tufts loses to Bates, Brandeis, and gets upset by either Colby or Trinity CT. The Jumbos not only miss NESCACs but finish 9th in the conference, their worst finish since Coach Gregor was associated with the program.
Scenario Review: Shocker, neither of these scenarios is VERY realistic. While Tufts has a lot of wiggle room with its lineup, I think they are clearly below the top five in the conference, while remaining a step above the bottom four. While Colby is a team on the rise, I think the winner of the Tufts/Bates match will get the 6th and final spot at NESCACs this May, and it would take a run to the tournament finals to even get into consideration for an NCAA spot.
Lineup Prediction:
#1 Rohan Gupte, junior, UTR=11.62, range #1-1. After a very successful freshman year, Gupte has been up and down over the last 18 months. As a freshman, he had wins over guys like Noah Farrell and Rohan Shastri and Vlad Murad, while rocketing up the lineup from #6 all the way to #2. Last year, he did notch wins over Kyle Wolfe (projected Bowdoin #2-3) and Michael Liu (projected Wesleyan #2), but he went just 2-5 against guys who are projected to play for top #20 teams this year. This fall a 1st round loss at the ITA to Alex Taylor (Williams freshman projected #2-4), and losses at MIT to Sean Ko (projected MIT #3) and Brian Granoff (projected Brandeis #2-3), were disappointing. The losses themselves aren’t unfathomable, they all came against good players, but it not ONE of those three matches did Gupte win more than 3 total games. Rohan’s bright spot from the fall was the Bates tournament, where he made the finals of the A-draw, beating Murad (projected Colby #2) and Bunis (projected Brandeis #2-3) along the way. There hasn’t been a ton of stability in Tufts’ lineup in these past few years, and the Jumbos need their ace to deal all year long.
#2 Zain Ali, junior, UTR=11.28, range #2-5. Nobody moved around last year more than Mista Zain. Ali literally played ALL 6 SINGLES SPOTS, in NESCAC-play no less. Some might call this out for a stack, but Ali’s results don’t really back that up. Against ranked teams, he was 1-0 at #1, 2-0 at #2, 1-3 at #3, 0-2 at #4, 1-2 at #5, and 1-0 at #6. Maybe he just needs to stay out of the middle of the lineup? Look, Ali is a tough competitor and when he wants to can get to just about everything. He’ll take his lumps, but he also has the potential to go out and beat people who are more talented than him. Case in point, this year he lost to Grodecki (projected Williams #1) in straight sets at the ITA, but when they played again at MIT later in the fall Zain returned the favor (in straight sets). Look for Ali to have a real shot to win (or lose) at whatever spot he plays this year.
#3 Danny Coran, junior, UTR=11.57, range #2-5. After Rohan and Zain, there aren’t a whole lot of established players. Coran is the best best to take #3, after playing mainly #5 and #6 last year, but winning about as much as any other Jumbo. This fall, he made the semis at Bates before losing in a super, and beat Shastri (projected Williams #3-4) in straight sets at MIT before losing to Marchalik (projected Amherst #3) 6-4 in the 3rd set. Albeit limited to one year and the bottom of the starting lineup, Coran has more experience than most of his challengers, and I think he’ll hold down the middle of the lineup.
#4 Ethan Chen, sophomore, UTR=10.93, range #3-7. Chen’s position in the lineup is almost entirely based of his fall performance. He didn’t get many matches last year as a freshman, and doesn’t appear to be as much of a doubles player, but his 2016 fall was probably better than any other Jumbo’s. Wins over Allen Jackson (Midd projected #4-7), David Alzenberg (Brandeis projected #5-7), Eliot Rozovsky (Bowdoin projected #6-7), coupled with 3-set losses to Van der Geest (Midd projected #4-7), and Michael Liu (Wesleyan projected #2), show that Chen might have made the coveted sophomore jump. However, with many talented underclassmen also knocking on the door, his spot is nowhere near safe.
#5 Nathan Niemiec, freshman, UTR=11.61, range #3-7. Tufts’ most highly touted recruit, Niemiec had a mediocre fall. He started out in higher flights than most of his teammates, but didn’t produce any consistent results. He lost to Schlanger (Midd projected #4-6), Urken (Bowdoin projected #2-3) and Ng (Brandeis projected #4-5) all in straight sets. However, he did take down Gil Roddy (Bowdoin projected #5) 6-0, 6-1 at the Bates tournament. That’s an impressive result, especially considering the freshman hadn’t done much earlier in the fall, so the pressure was mounting. His doubles results weren’t anything to get excited about, going 1-4 with 4 different partners at 4 different tournaments. However, the fact that he played in all 4 tournaments means that Coach Gregor is hopeful that he can contribute in the doubles as well.
#6 Zach Shaff, freshman, UTR=11.27 (34% reliability), range #3-7. Like Niemiec, Schaff had an OK fall. His best win came over Rosovsky (Bowdoin projected #6), but his best match might have come in a 10-8 superbreaker loss to Pickering (projected Skidmore #2-3). He also suffered losses against Cheng (MIT projected #4), and Brach (Midd projected #6-9) this fall. Even more so than #4 or #5, this spot is up for grabs. If Battle is healthy, I fully expect him to start the year in the middle of the lineup, but as you’ll see below it could also be any one of a number of contenders.
Other contenders: Ben Battle (senior), Kevin Kelley (senior), Benjamin Biswas (freshman), William Gold (freshman), Jason Scanlon (freshman). As in the past couple years the hunt for the bottom spot in Tufts’ lineup is going to be a total chaos (and that’s the kind way of describing it). I’m not even including more established guys like Griffin Brockmon or Ross Kamin in here, as I think they have a better shot at starting in the doubles lineup and the freshmen just seem more promising. Battle is somebody who could play as high as #2, but is recovering from major injury (missed the entire year of 2016) and I just have no idea how fit he is, either physically or mentally. Kelley doesn’t have Battle’s ceiling, but he did play at the bottom of the Tufts lineup last year at different points of the year and beat more than just the guys he was supposed to (Trinity Ct, MIT, Bates). Neither Biswas, Gold, nor Scanlon did anything this fall to assure them of a lineup spot. Gold and Scanlon made runs in the D-Flight at Midd, but both ended up falling short. While I think all three freshmen could get their shots at some point this year, they all appear to be on the outside looking in for now.
Schedule Analysis: http://www.gotuftsjumbos.com/sports/mten/2016-17/schedule
Tufts starts the year with a few matches that will not affect their season (exhibitions and non-DIII matches), and their first real test will come on spring break out in Cali. Their third, fourth, and fifth matches will be played in consecutive days against UW-Whitewater, Chicago and Colby. Each match there is interesting. UWW always plays good dubs, and has even more of a chip on their shoulder this year, Chicago is Chicago, and Colby is a conference foe on the rise. Tufts should be able to go 2-1 in those matches, but an upset loss to either UWW or Colby has the potential to derail their entire season. After that, Tufts finishes its trip to West World with a match against PP. As you all know by now, every match between an NE team and either PP or Redlands has enormous implications for Pool-C. PP will be favored, but if Tufts comes out of spring break with their only DIII loss to Chicago, they will be sitting pretty and on the verge of what I have to imagine is their first-ever top-10 ranking.
As with any NESCAC team, after spring break things don’t get any easier. Tufts has a home dates with Amherst, Wesleyan, Williams and Bates and goes to Trinity CT, Midd, Brandeis and Bowdoin. If Tufts really is close to a top-10 team, they will get wins over Bates, Trinity, Brandeis and at least one of their other NESCAC foes, possibly two. All of their home matches are winnable, even if they could end up as underdogs in all four. If Tufts regresses somewhat, their match with Bates becomes the most important of the season, as it might well end up determining who finishes 6th in the conference and secures the final spot at NESCACs.
No NESCAC team plays an easy schedule, but I really like what Coach Gregor has done this year. Getting a few non-crucial matches in to start the year, including a few out west to get their Cali-legs, should be extremely beneficial. Getting the PP match is key, and combine that with the possibility of playing your three or four toughest conference matches at home, and Tufts schedule is one of the better designed ones I’ve seen so far this year. Now the Jumbos just have to go make Coach Gregor look good.
Keys to Success:
- Young guns stepping up. Tufts was hit as hard by graduation as any team in the NESCAC (and possibly in the country). Losing four singles and doubles starters is beyond brutal. However, we’ve known Tufts was deep for a long time, it was just a question of if any of the depth would stick. This is one of the best recruiting class in Tufts’ history, and the Jumbos need at least one (hopefully two) of the freshmen to step up. However, it’s not just the freshmen. There are multiple others with limited playing experience who also will be counted on this year. Coran, Chen and Kamin are a mix of sophomores and juniors who have never been “established” singles starters, but all will be in the mix in 2017. Some combination of the inexperienced players MUST step up if the Jumbos are going to keep their top 15 national ranking.
King Theoden! - Doubling down on Rohan. I haven’t talked much about Tufts’ clear-cut #1 yet, but a lot of the Jumbo’s success (or lack there of) in 2017 will come down to the Las Vegas native. I gave you his fall results in the predicted lineup section, but without Telkedzhiev or Glickman around this year, Gupte is pretty clearly the most talented established guy on the Tufts roster. He needs to show it and bring home wins this spring. He didn’t go abroad in the fall of his junior year, which hopefully says something about his commitment, but if Tufts fans see lots of two point performances from their #1 this spring, their younger guys will have an easier time following suit.
- Buying into the system. I used this key with Amherst, and while it might be to a lesser degree I believe it also applies in Medford. Coach Gregor switched his lineup around more than any other team in the region last year. There could be any number of reasons as to why he did that (injury, quitting, academics, etc.) but I believe matchups play at least a small role in those decisions. As AVZ (D3Central) has spelled out in his “Vault” series (highly recommended reading!) one of the things for a coach to consider when setting his or her lineup is potential matchups. Maybe a player is better indoors vs outdoors, maybe a player has experience beating somebody in the juniors, or maybe a senior grinder can ware down a fiery freshman. For these and many other reasons, Coach Gregor made changes to his lineup with almost every match. The new guys must buy into that system. I’m not sure every one of the seniors on last year’s squads did that, and that hurt the Jumbos. This year must be different. It’s not easy, but if it’s done right, it has the potential to be extremely effective!
Season Prediction: I try to keep my previews upbeat, but when it comes time for a disappointing season prediction it’s hard to maintain that theme.With the exception of Battle and Kelly, neither of whom is a certainty to start this spring, Tufts isn’t losing any impact players after this year, so there is reason to stay optimistic. However, I believe graduation has hit the Bo’s too hard, and they will not only drop in national ranking, but finish 7th in the conference and miss NESCACs for the first time since 2010. Let’s hope they make me look like the fool I truly am.