ASouth ITA Recaps: ASwizz Drops In

Promises. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZMfhtKa-wo

I have certainly made my promises over the past few weeks and not delivered. It’s actually incredible that I am able to keep steady relationships with anyone these days given that track record. Thankfully, my blog life is totally separate from my real life. Let’s keep it that way. But, for those of you that have figured out who I am, shoot me a connect on social media. I don’t really care. If you hate me, maybe just hit me with a LinkedIn request. Everyone else, all bets are off. It’s been a slow day at work (for once), so I have some time to hit y’all with some thoughts over the past couple of weeks. Maybe even another article for this week! We shall certainly see. D3NE is spamming the group chat for content when everyone just wants to talk about Fantasy Football. By the way, I totally skipped this year’s Blog Fantasy Draft and I currently sit in 2nd place with probably the best team. I’ve also won this league 2 years running. So, there’s that. #SUCCESS

So, what has been going on in the DIII Tennis World these past few weeks? Well, in my region, that would be ITAs. That’s every region actually. Shit. It’s my job to give some writer’s love to these players. Let’s start by going back almost a month or so to the Emory ITA…

The Emory ITA

First off, this ITA site is the freaking worst piece of sh*t site I’ve ever seen, other than our own. How come it is so damn confusing to get to a simple results page? Like seriously, do you people even test the site out before you let it go live? My god. Okay, enough of that. I’ve already spent way too much time talking about a crappy site. 

Emory Down Year?

FIrst things first (I’m the realest), is Emory going to struggle this year?! One of my burning questions in my kickoff article was how they were going to handle the departures of Jemison, Bouchet, and Spaulding all in one year. Early indications seem to tell me, not very well. Let’s focus on the good things first, however. Emory’s two stud sophomores, Antonio Mora and Andrew Esses, made the finals of the singles bracket with Mora taking home the crown. That’s good, right! Yes, it is. Judging from their performances last year, both these guys are probably ready to hold their own at the top of the lineup. Also, it is important to note that Hayden Cassone was not in the draw. He is presumably going to be ready for the Spring Season. Maybe he is studying abroad in North Korea or something. With those three, Emory will definitely be a threat to any top team. But, when has “being a threat” ever been what Emory is looking for in a year?

The answer to that question is never. And that is where we get a little bit dicey. Looking into the draw, it certainly seems like the NC Wesleyan Battling Bishops (not my team, so don’t ask) out-”depthed” the Eagles in the ITA. Now, Emory certainly did well in the doubles portion, so let’s be clear about that. It’s just worrisome to me that I have no confidence in any of their #4-6. This was just one tournament and we saw from last year that guys like Sahil Raina (Indoors DK beast) and maybe one of their freshmen can take hold of some spots, so the jury is still out. But, the last time we’ve ever said the “jury is out” on the Eagles was probably one of their worst years. So I guess… we’ll see?

Hopefully, old friends like Rafe Mosetick and Ian Wagner don’t come out of the woodwork to crush me on these paragraphs. Those guys are scary. I’m not down on Emory just yet. We’ll see come Spring when Cassone is back and the Eagles are swagging around at Indoor Nationals.

The Mary Wash ITA

Yep, Emory is my only team in the Emory ITA! How lucky of me to only need to write about one team. Such good luck. It’s almost like I set up the teams that way. Good job, whoever did  that. Anyways, this is by far the more interesting of the two ITAs for me, considering I actually have like 3 teams that participate in them. Also, these three teams seem to go up and down in how they want to perform year after year. Let’s take a look at how some of my teams performed in this one and the key storylines.

Plaid is Bad

CMU did not have a good performance here. I will preface my next paragraph by saying that they were clearly missing some players – notably Robert Levin (#4 last year), Clark Safran (#5 last year), Nick Calzolano (#7 last year), and Wang (freshman recruit). Now, while those three guys played lower in the lineup, they are potentially some of the better players on this team right now. Especially based on the ITA performance that their squad just put up. CMU has been hyped about an incoming recruit, Raahil Doshi, who hails from Singapore. Well, this fall has basically extinguished all hype about this guy that anyone could have had. He has had a nightmare fall, losing to multiple players and finishing it off by losing to Joseph Cartledge (Hopkins like #4 at best) in the first round of ITAs. Now, it takes some people a little bit to get used to the rigors of college tennis – so the jury is out here as well. But, it’s not a good start. Good thing for all of these kids is that usually their careers are solely in their hands. What are you going to do about it?

Other than that, Ray Boppanna put in a decent tournament for the projected #1 player. However, up 5-1 in the second against Angradi, he pulled a 2018 Boppana and lost 6 games in a row, late. This can’t happen to the top player on a team. So, guess there’s that that CMU needs to work on. I really only have one thought for this young team – is there anyone on the team that can step up and truly lead these guys? They have a lot of young talent, but young talent is oftentimes lacking direction and in need of one. A coach can only do so much (and there is obviously work that Coach Belmonte needs to do), but having a true leader that is a player really helps things. This season could go like Wesleyan’s last year (great coaching staff) or can well, go like CMU’s did last year. We’ll see.

Hopkins Doing Their Thing

Hopkins is so hilarious to me. They have become a team that just does their thing in the background and they are kinda content with that. Hey, all the power to you. I’ve learned that some people have different goals than I do. Hopkins is very clear in their goals. They want to win their conference and have an outside shot of making the Elite 8. There is power in knowing who you are. 

In this sense, Hopkins did what they needed to do. Vishnu Joshi made the finals of the tournament again and lost in three sets to a very solid player in Alex Angradi of Salisbury. Joshi may not have the potential of a truly top #1, but he’s a guy that is going to get the job done at #1 about 50% of the time. And that’s okay! Austin Gu had another good ITA, where he took Boppana to three sets, which I believe he did last year as well. Gu will be a quality #2 player. From there, Hopkins is going to put some quality depth together that will not wow anyone but will be pretty status quo. Cartledge, Carey, and Lurie went the furthest in the tournament and they’ll have some other dude that steps up into the #5 or #6 position that will win matches against teams ranked #15 or lower. Hopkins showed me that they are a team that will almost definitely win their conference once again (where was Swat) this year. And I respect that.

Mary Wash….

What a year last year was for Mary Washington. They broke their streak of losing to Pomona and Redlands (yes this is a storyline I love to talk about) and finished in the top 15 for end of year rankings. That is a VERY successful year for the Eagles! There are some talks about Mary Wash and their conference situation (I believe it is considered a Pool B team now? Can someone confirm?), but honestly nothing really changes from their part. They are going to get in through Pool B if they keep doing their thing. I hear there are 4 Pool B teams this year because of this change. 

Conference questions aside, this was a nightmare tournament for the Eagles. Their older guys, Brown, Hutchison, Fleming, and Tecce, combined for 2 total wins all singles tournament. That is not good from their top 4 returning players. The rest of the guys are mainly freshmen. Priyan Desilva deserves a shoutout for a quality win over a seed, albeit a 9th seed, but that’s a good win for a young player. There isn’t much to talk about for the Eagles because they simply didn’t play many meaningful matches. I could look at the back draw, but that’s an extra click that I don’t really want to do. Also, the ROI of looking and analyzing the back draw is probably pretty low, at least from what I remember about my playing days. So, end conclusion – Mary Washington has work to do if they want to stay in the top 20. 

Quick Hits

• Welcome to the Stevens Ducks for joining the Mary Wash ITA for the first time! They celebrated by seeing Gomez (9 seed) take out Lacombe of CNU (#1 seed) and that’s pretty much it.
• This was the first time someone from outside CMU and Hopkins has won this tournament since Hayden White of Washington and Lee, I believe. Congrats to Angradi of Salisbury!
• No one from Swarthmore made it past the Round of 32 – the rebuild of that team continues.
• Southern Virginia had a legit tournament for a dark horse contender. Marcos Diaz (#5 seed), who I believe is like some old transfer dude that is almost my age, made the round of 16 and lost to Austin Gu.
• I am tired from writing this much.

Conclusion

Not much to say here. Fall season is fall season. I can’t wait to see what happens in the Spring when I am invested in this thing and the players are talking about crap that we say on their team buses. ASouth, OUT.