What a great day it’d be to be out in Indian Wells with 4 college matches going on highlighted by USC/Baylor plus you’ve got Djokovic/Murray and Federer/Raonic – high quality viewing.
The Hilton San Diego Mission Valley Spring Classic wraps up today with San Diego and Drake meeting in the finals plus they’ll be a good 3rd place match between Ivy League powers Harvard and Princeton. Can Drake make it 3 wins in 3 days playing San Diego in the Toreros own backyard?
TCU hosts a pair of lower ranked teams with both Dartmouth and UT Arlington coming in though of course it’s not that far for UT Arlington. Any chance TCU gets caught napping and drops 1?
Kentucky is still looking for its first conference win of the season after some near misses against Georgia (2-4), Tennessee (3-4), and South Carolina (1-4). Will Vanderbilt be able to follow up its win over Tennessee with another win over Big Blue?
Oklahoma takes on Columbia though you figure OU has to have its eyes set on either USC or Baylor. Will the Lions catch Oklahoma off-guard and pull off a surprise?
Now for the big one – Baylor/USC. Both teams are playing well though Baylor is definitely playing a little better right now. Can Baylor keep it up or does USC show that it’s not one to be forgotten about? Let’s dive in and take a look at all the #s. As a reminder in the singles matches the UTRs are after the school abbreviation.
#3 Baylor (13-2) vs. #4 USC (13-2) – 5pm est/2pm pst – Live Scoring & Streaming Video
Doubles Records
Baylor – 14-0 overall & 28-4 on all courts (didn’t play dubs vs. Memphis)
USC – 8-5 overall & 21-11 on all courts
Baylor – When healthy, Diego Galeano has played at 4 though with him out of the lineup the bottom 3 has gelled so it’ll be interesting to see if Matt Knoll leaves everything as-is or if he re-inserts Galeano. Diego did play yesterday at 3 but Lupieri didn’t so that didn’t effect 4-6. It’d be hard to move Felipe Rios out of the lineup with as good as he’s been playing this year. It’ll also be interesting to see who Knoll goes with at #2 and #3 because both Max Tchoutakian and Tony Lupieri have been fairly interchangeable there – I’m thinking Lupieri ends up at 3 due to the past head-to-head win over Johnson plus I think Tchoutakian has a slightly better shot than Lupieri of beating Roberto Quiroz.
USC – Robert Quiroz has been a mainstay at #2 all year though his results as of late haven’t been up to his usual high standards – it’s possible he could be dropped down to #3 with Eric Johnson getting the call up to #2 – I don’t think it’ll happen but it could. Peter Smith swapped Nick Crystal and Max De Vroome at #5 and #6 for the UCLA match but swapped them back yesterday against Tulsa.
When you have 2 Top 5 teams playing you know that each has the talent to win so it’s a matter of who shows up each court. If Yannick Hanfmann and Roberto Quiroz weren’t both in a slump I’d take USC in this one but since they are and since Baylor has been playing well pretty much all throughout the lineup I’m going to take the Bears. I’ve got Baylor down to win doubles and 1, 2, and 3 singles with USC sweeping the bottom 3 but if just 1 of those guys the other way the result could be different. Prediction: Baylor 4-3
Here are your live scoring/update links for Saturday’s matches (though they are always up in the tab at the top too)
Purdue vs. #28 Cal – 11:30am est
#1 Oklahoma vs. #29 Columbia – 2pm est
#4 USC vs. #3 Baylor – 5pm est
#20 Tulsa vs. BYU – 8pm est
#22 Harvard vs. #32 Princeton (3rd P) @USD – 1pm est – Harvard Twitter & Princeton Twitter
Middle Tenn St vs. #39 Indiana (7th P) @SDSU – 1pm est – MTSU Twitter & Indiana Twitter
#43 Denver at #38 San Diego State (5th P) – 5pm est – Denver Twitter
#33 Drake at #30 San Diego (Championship) – 5pm est – Live Scoring & San Diego Twitter
Dartmouth at TCU – 2pm est – Live Scoring
Kentucky at Vanderbilt – 2pm est – Live Scoring
Arizona at Boise State – 3pm est – Live Scoring
Pepperdine at Portland – 3pm est – LIve Scoring & Streaming
UT Arlington at TCU – 6pm est – Live Scoring
I agree with your analysis of the SC-Baylor duel, except I think Eric Johnson will win. But the top 2 for USC are struggling, while the bottom 3 are rock solid. Doubles is key, as usual, and despite USC's higher rankings, I think Baylor finds a way to get that one. So it should come down to the #3 court, and I think Johnson pulls through. He's getting better as the season moves on. Question is, which team will feel more in its elements, since it's going to be hot (Waco) and dry (LA). USC will also have more of a home crowd, though I don't know if there will be a lot of people there, since the Federer match is going to take place at the same time.