We knew it was coming and now it is official – beginning in 2019 the NCAA Division I Men’s and Women’s Tennis Championships will utilize a super regional round which will take place the week after the completion of the first and second rounds. The 16 teams that advance out of the opening rounds will play the following weekend in two-team super regionals on the campus of the higher seeded team. The eight super regional winners will advance to the finals site with the quarterfinals beginning the following Thursday or Friday. The biggest benefit of going to this format will be that the NCAA semifinals and finals will take place on a Saturday and Sunday instead of a Monday and Tuesday which means more people will be able to watch. The student-athletes will benefit because they’ll get to play in front of a large crowd on campus in the Round of 16 instead of playing in front of 75 people at the final site. The release from the NCAA also mentions some of other benefits that will come with the change.
In addition to approving the super regional format, the NCAA D1 Competition Oversight Committee also approved another change that will go into effect in 2018. According to the release unseeded teams (17-64) will be slotted geographically instead of in pods – still not 100% sure what that means but I’m waiting to hear back from someone for some clarification.
Thursday was a pretty light day for dual-match action with no big upsets though there was a moderate surprise in Boca Raton as Ricardo Gonzalez’s Florida Atlantic Owls shut out the three-time defending Big East Champion St. John’s Red Storm 4-0. FAU won the doubles point with lopsided wins at No. 2 and No. 3 and then it managed to get singles wins from Remi Chancerel, Arthur Stefani, and Ignacio Jimenez with Chancerel clinching at No. 2. Five of six singles matches went to a third set so it was definitely closer than the final score indicated.
Incredible energy & fight from the @FAUMensTennis team today! 4-0 season opener win! HUGE EFFORT boys @rixgonz @RichMeade9 @FAUOwlAthletics pic.twitter.com/W7Lh8q7N5K
— McCaw Method (@AllistairMcCaw) January 19, 2017
Cornell opened up its season with a 6-1 win over Buffalo and a 7-0 win over Binghamton. The Big Red dropped the doubles point in the early match against Buffalo but then rallied to win all six singles matches after taking 12 of 13 sets. In the late afternoon match against Binghamton, Cornell won the doubles point and then took 12 of 14 sets in singles in route to a 7-0 win. Cornell started three newcomers in the singles lineup with freshmen Lev Kazakov and Pietro Rimondini starting at No. 1 and No. 5 while Columbia transfer Daniel Grunberger started at No. 4.
Tulsa swept a Thursday doubleheader against Illinois State and Arkansas Pine Bluff with its No. 1 Or Ram-Harel sitting out singles in both matches. Illinois State managed to force three third sets however Tulsa closed out the other three courts in straight sets to win 4-0. Tulsa didn’t have any issues in the nightcap against APB with the Golden Hurricane winning every completed set in singles in a 4-0 win.
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The 18th ranked USC’s women’s team made the drive up the coast to Santa Barbara and pulled out a 5-2 win. After taking the doubles point with 6-3 wins at No. 2 and No. 3, SC picked up singles wins from Gabby Smith, Madison Westby, Angela Kulikov, and Sydney Van Alphen.
Recent Case Western Reserve graduate C.J. Krimbill picked up his NCAA Today’s Top 10 Award on Wednesday night at the NCAA Convention in Nashville. Krimbill was the first men’s tennis player ever to be selected for the award which recognizes student-athlete success in the playing field, classroom, and the community. CWRU’s release has a video from the event along with more of Krimbill’s accomplishments.
AMAZING AWARD for @PrestigeofSiege CJ! This is a once in a century type of thing!! pic.twitter.com/olzZhw34Em
— Case Tennis (@casetennis1) December 2, 2016
Below is your Friday schedule with live scoring links included. As a reminder to view a list of live scoring links for more than just today go to my live scoring tab though you’ll need a paid subscription to view those.
I could be wrong (hope I am), but to me that means 17-64 will be one large group and no longer 17-32, 33-48, 49-64. So for example, if USC is a No. 5 seed, Pepperdine is ranked No. 20, USD No. 25 and San Diego State No. 30 they could technically all be at the same opening round site at USC. Under the current system only 1 of those 3 teams Nos. 20-30/17-32 would join USC. It's a major bummer, but that's how it reads to me.
Casey, I talked to someone on the rules committee and they told me that shouldn't happen despite it looking like it could. The traditional #4 seed in each 4-team regional should still be the champs from the lower-end conferences like the SWAC/MEAC/WAC, etc. It sounds like the #2 and #3 seeds in each regional could be two teams that might be closer ranked so at worst in your example you could have #5 USC, #20 Pepperdine, #25 San Diego, and maybe unranked New Mexico State.
wait they are doing away with the top 75 rankings?
Not sure I agree with the reasons for doing this. The comment above about loaded regionals is accurate, which was one of the major problems with the system implemented in the early to mid 90's. I played in the SEC during mid 90's and the regional was always loaded. I recall one year, Florida was the host (ranked about 10), and five other teams in the eight team region were ranked about 17-25 respectively. All of those teams would have stood a better chance under the current system. The other thing I disagree with is the crowds. You went to UGA, right? Then you know how amazing the atmosphere is on round of 16 day. Lots of action, people and even tailgating. I wish they would leave it alone.
Looks like they'll just publish the top 50 now – lots of Non Power-5 coaches are not pleased because that means their schools will probably rarely crack the top 50 whereas the top 75 was more attainable. That'll be less publicity and acknowledgement that they're doing a good job because for many getting into the top 75 is a huge accomplishment. I'd prefer to see everyone's ranking but I guess in the end seeing 50 is better than 25.
Personally I think the Round of 16 is the best day of tennis all year because it's non-stop tennis from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. day but the casual fan that the NCAA is targeting probably doesn't want that much tennis.
The crowds at Georgia were definitely legendary but since the NCAA starting moving the tournament around the Round of 16 crowds have fallen off. Fans of the contenders wait until the Saturday or Sunday to come to town and aside from the players there are usually few actual spectators in attendance unless the host or a local team is playing.
Let's hope in 2018 the brackets still have some logic in them but I guess we won't know until then.
Limited the published team rankings to 50 would appear to be a huge mistake. What's the reason for the change? I had hoped they would move in the other direction (150 deep). I can imagine that it might be hard to produce accurate rankings at lower levels, but the better solution is to provide some sort of alphabetical rank within categories (eg 75-100, 100-125).
I see absolutely no purpose top only posting 50 as opposed to 75. Did they give any reason for it?
Official reason – "the changes were made to have college tennis better align with other collegiate sports, as well as giving more weight to teams that are ranked."
Several NCAA sports have multiple ranking systems at play and obviously junior tennis has USTA, TRN, and UTR. Does college tennis need a second ranking system that goes deeper. Is the ITA ranking algorithm published (can it be replicated for their computer based top 50 and then extended)? And if one wanted to build a rankings service, is there a central data repository where all match results can be scraped on a weekly basis? A new service would be a wonderful addition to this site!
There will actually be a new Top 25 that debuts on February 8th – the USTA College Tennis Top 25 of which I'll be one of the voters – I'll have a post about it later tonight.
The ITA's ranking algorithm is published – http://www.itatennis.com/Assets/Oracle-ITA+Rankings+Manual-2017-01-17.pdf
The ITA's ranking system ranks every school from 1 to 255 on the men's side and 1 to 317 on the women's side although only the top 50 are published for the general public. All the results are required to be entered on the ITA's site to count – all the results can be viewed at this link – http://www.itatennis.com/ResultsAndRankings/LatestResults.htm
In the past I've projected out the top 50 using the formula once they go from the human polls to the computer polls which happens in late February.
Bobby, thanks for posting the two links – very helpful! Not sure if was mentioned already, but the ITA will provide the full ranking list to coaches. Afraid that will not be much use to fans, players, parents, and potential recruits.