British Tennis Forum - Celebrating 20 Years!

Lambda · ATP level

RE: General college chat 2024/25

Lambda · ATP level

After a 2 and half hour rain delay the remaining 2 courts between the Pepperdine and San Diego women went down to the wire but Pepperdine secured the Championship title. Hannah Read was named to the All-Tournament team in singles. The loss leaves San Diego ranked 41, 1 place outside of a NCAA at large bid and without the other factors that are part of the NCAA calculation overturning their placing according to collegetennisranks. They could fall another place with the cut moved up 1 with results elsewhere today. If this is where their season ends, they are a better side than 41, but hampered by having only 4 players in the fall due to players not turning up or leaving from home sickness and having to recruit last minute replacements. During the spring season having multiple injuries, including Hannah twisting her ankle skipping between change of ends, and having to play without 6 players mid season and cancelling other matches due to insufficient fit players. That said, it was in their hands and the 'hangover' defeat to Washington State last week has caused them to miss the cut.

San Diego men retained the men's Championship with a 4-2 win. Ollie winning his singles. They will be ranked 7 but seeded 6 according to collegetennisranks moving ahead of 4th ranked Virginia who they have as seeded 7th from the other factors that are taken into account.

UCLA play Ohio State in the men's Big Ten final. Giacomo Revelli (UCLA) getting another win at No 6 in the SF.

Of note away from British players but with British interest to some, in the women's Big Ten Championship final Ohio State upset 3rd ranked Michigan in a 4 -3, I assume thriller. Westside LTC and Surrey player Nao Nishino getting the final point at No 4 that gave the Buckeyes the title. She defeated Emily Sartz-Lunde 6-7(5) 7-6(7) 6-4. Nao saving match point in the 2nd set tie break. From what I read, with most games going to no ad deuce in the final set, it may have gone to a 3rd set tie break if it was not for at 3-3 deciding point Michigan receiving their 3rd overule, giving them a game penalty putting Nao 5-3 up. The win jumps OSU from being ranked 9 to a top 4 team, which I think is fair to say nobody outside of Ohio State saw coming.

Today's matches of interest
Womens Sun Belt Championship Final
Old Dominion (1) [Johnson] v Marshall (6) [McGrane, Hurrion]
Winner qualifies for NCAAs

Mens Big Ten Championship final
Ohio State (1) [Jansen] v UCLA (2) [Revelli]
A Ohio State win puts them in contention for a top 4 seed
A UCLA win puts them in contention for a top 16 seed and first 2 rounds host.

Lambda · ATP level

UCLA take the men's Big Ten Championships from Ohio State. It was Ohio State's first defeat at home in 76 matches and the first defeat to a Big Ten team at home since 2003.
Will Jansen lost singles 2-6 5-7 at No 4
Revelli didn't play singles. Not sure if he played doubles as the live scoring didn't give names in doubles.

It means that all 4 of the Power 4 conference championships on the men's side have been won by a team new to the conference this year.

Lambda · ATP level

Old Dominion win the women's Sun Belt conference championships and with it a place in the NCAAs.
Sofia Johnson was unfinished for the 2nd day running and dropped her 1st singles set in conference play this year.

Lambda · ATP level

Sophia Hurrion and Aisling McGrane (Marshall) finished their season with a 9 match win streak in doubles, dropping just 7 games in those 9 sets.

Lambda · ATP level

Congratulations to all our players whose teams won their Conference Championships and qualified for a place in the NCAAs.

Men
Max Basing - Stanford - Atlantic Coast Conference
Giacomo Revelli - UCLA - Big Ten
Sam Nicholson - UNC Wilmington - Coastal Athletic
Gabriel Johnson - South Caroline State - Mid Eastern Athletic
JB Pickard, Sebastian Harrison, Will Gray - Samford - Southern
Raffaello Papajcik, Theo Coats - Denver - Summit League
Oliver Tarvet - San Diego - West Coast Conference

Women
Cheri Darley - Stetson - Atlantic Sun
Holly Fischer - Harvard - Ivy League*
Jess Dawson - Furman - Southern
Jemma Cave - Stephen F Austin - Southland
Sofia Johnson - Old Dominion - Sun Belt
*Ivy League do not have a championships instead the Ivy League place goes to the outright winners of Ivy League regular season

The full line up of NCAA teams and the brackets, as Americans call draws, will be announced tonight. It's not really a draw anyway as teams are placed to host sites that are near them where possible.

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

The April player of the month vote is now available!

britishtennis.activeboard.com/t71862020/april-2025-player-of-the-month-vote/

Lambda · ATP level

The NCAA draws have been announced
Women's bracket
Men's bracket
Matches take place Friday and Saturday or Saturday and Sunday.
For those unfamiliar with the NCAA draw. The first 2 rounds, called regionals, are held at a top 16 seeded team during he first weekend. All other teams must be placed at a host site within 400 miles where possible. Teams cannot be placed at a site with another team in their conference. The committee tries to keep the 2nd team at each site as a 17 to 32 ranked team as much as they can within the 400 mile rule. Where there are options, they try not to place teams against opponents they faced last year in the regional rounds.
The 3rd round onwards follows a normal 16 seeded draw, 1 v 16, 2 v 15 etc.. the 3rd round, called super regionals or sweet sixteen is held at the top 8 seeds, providing they progress this far, during the second weekend. The winners of R3, the elite eight, then progress to the Championship site, this year at Baylor in Waco, Texas.

Some observations, thoughts and mostly ramblings on the women's draw.

The lack of California and Florida schools as hosts and a lot of hosts being concentrated in specific areas have given more leeway to placing teams as more teams than usual are not within 400 miles of a host and need to fly. That's led to a more balanced draw than usual.

Georgia Tech (Roach, Bilchev) are in the Georgia regional and play Iowa (Jess Matthews) in 1st round. It was inevitable that Georgia Tech would be placed here as the only host site that was within 400 miles and not in the same conference. That is unfortunate for them, as it will be the upset of the year if the top seed hosts, and favourites for the title, don't progress from this regional. Of note in the submitted line ups is Kylie is listed as No 6. That doesn't mean she will play, but I find it interesting she's been listed ahead of the usual No 6.

Old Dominion (Johnson) is in the Duke regional and play Florida Atlantic (Millie-Mae Matthews) first. These 2 schools went unbeaten in conference play, and Florida Atlantic didn't lose their first match of the year until the Conference Championships, but it was a weak schedule. Definitely winable for ODU, but Sofia will need to play better than last weekend. If ODU win then Sofia will play Liv Hovde in the 2nd round.

NC State (K & G Paskauskas, Conway) host UCF (Rylatt) and Furman (Dawson). UCF is a potential banana skin for NC State in the 2nd round if, as they should, progress past the 1st round. That would probably see Gabia P v Hannah Rylatt at No 6. Hannah's singles results have been improving of late and is described by Alex Gruskin (cracked racquets) of having a very aggressive game. NC State are unbeaten at home, but this is a potential upset. Should NC State win this regional then there is likely to be neighbouring rivals UNC that block their path to the final 8 in Waco.

Virginia (Lacy) host a relatively easy regional. Isabelle remains at No 5 in the submitted line up despite her difficult conference championship week. Although they have Kosokova, who hasn't played singles through injury since January at No 6 and Collard at No 7. It's hard not to see Collard play at No 6, so it seems they've given themselves the option to play Isabelle or Kosokova, if fit, at No 5.

USC have a long trip to Louisiana State with no host within 400 miles.They play Memphis in the first round and if they get through LSU. LSU are underranked as they have lost matches when Cadence Brace or Kayla Cross have been missing playing pros. I can't imagine LSU will allow them to be missing for the NCAAs. USC also have not travelled well this year. It's possible for USC with one of the best doubles points in the country, to win through doubles and the bottom 3 singles, but to have the best chance of winning this regional Grace will need to beat Cadence Brace. Immi is listed at No 3 and will play Tilwith Di Girolami, if they get through R1 to play LSU.

Harvard travel to the Vanderbilt regional, which will be held on Middle Tennessee's courts as Vanderbilt only have 4 courts for singles. Harvard will play UCLA, which UCLA will be heavy favourites to win.

San Diego women didn't make it in. We already knew Florida, Miami and Florida State would miss out but it still feels weird without them.

For the geeks/obsessives like me, women's submitted team line-ups for the championships.

Lambda · ATP level

And on the men's draw

Wake Forest (Pow, Robertson) are top seeds and should get through against Gardner-Webb and Kentucky (Rankin). Charlie is listed at No 4 and Luca at No 6 who seems likely to play Matt Rankin in R2. The defeat at the ACC Championships for Wake Forest is probably what they needed so they don't go into the NCAAs complacent thinking they are unbeatable.

There's a very interesting eighth featuring mostly Californian schools, with 11th seed California (Chen) hosting UCLA (Revelli) and 6th seed San Diego (Tarvet) hosting USC (Weightman). Remember, UCLA did the unthinkable by beating Ohio State in OSU's backyard to win the Big Ten championship at the weekend. That put them up to 16 in the yet to be published rankings, but they didn't get a top 16 seed as the NCAA stuck with their stated selection criteria which put Texas A&M above them in the seedings. As such UCLA are a very dangerous travelling team and there is a very real chance of a top 16 seed in Cal falling here.

USC will also present a threat for San Diego, but at home San Diego should progress against USC, and then the following weekend they will host the winner of the Cal regional. Oscar Weightman was missing for USC last week, but is submitted at the No 3 spot for the NCAAs.

Ohio State (Jansen) as 5th seeds will be the home team in the first 3 rounds and they look to have a relatively easier route than most to the final 8 in Waco. Nor are they going to want to lose twice in one season at home following the shock loss to UCLA.

South Carolina (Thomson) host Florida State (Connel) among others. South Carolina are strong at home, otherwise I would have put this more evenly matched but that's not to say Florida State don't have a chance.

The winner of that regional travel to the winner of the Stanford (Basing) regional, most likely Stanford. Pepperdine (Stephens) play Alabama (Jones) in the 1st round here.

TCU (Pinnington-Jones, Maxted) are 2nd seeds and host Oklahoma. Should they get through this weekend, then there is a potential match up with UCF the following weekend. UCF defeated them in the Big 12 championships, although this time TCU will be at home. The question is how healthy is TCU. Missing their No 2 for several weeks, their No 5 playing at No 3 retiring in that UCF loss and Jack rolling his ankle in the 1st match at the championships, which clearly affected him with 2 heavy losses to players outside the top 60. They were also missing their No 4 who would have been playing at No 3 in that UCF loss, although I understand that was down to illness.

men's submitted player line-ups

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

Thanks Lambda, really good insight as always!

So the championship final 8, those are weekend of the 16/18 May ie three consecutive weekends of regionals, then super regionals (although presumably the last 16 arent in fact regionally aligned at all if they follow a strict seeding structure?) and then championships?

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

I was trawling through the 64 mens and 64 womens teams and looking at the coaches. Two things struck me - I couldnt see any Brits as head coaches, would that be correct or did I miss someone? And there arent many main tour level names among the coaches -
I spotted Steve Denton and Rod Harmon that I remember, not any others although there are probably lower level players among the coaches.

Lambda · ATP level

JonH comes home wrote:
Thanks Lambda, really good insight as always!

So the championship final 8, those are weekend of the 16/18 May ie three consecutive weekends of regionals, then super regionals (although presumably the last 16 arent in fact regionally aligned at all if they follow a strict seeding structure?) and then championships?

R1 & 2 this weekend, last 16 9/10 May, Championships 15 to 18 May.

Lambda · ATP level

On Monday the transfer window opens, and will be open for about 1 month. However, this comes amid uncertainty about roster limits for next season. The House settlement agreement that will substantially change the US College athletics landscape by allowing revenue sharing with athletes among other things has still not being approved. To stop the wealthy schools from cornering the player market from the proposed agreement, a roster limit is included in it.

At the settlement hearing on 7 April, the judge deferred approval as she had concerns on some areas, principally the effect of roster limits on existing athletes and asked the parties to submit proposals to resolve her concerns. The judge thinks that immediately implementing roster limits on existing athletes is neither fair or reasonable to current athletes. The judge suggested grandfather rights to existing students on roster limits.

The subsequent submission from the defendants addressed most of the judge's concerns but did not contain a proposal on the roster limits concerns, saying it would cause chaos as budgeting, planning and decisions on player commitments for next year have already been made based on roster limits being in place in anticipation of the settlement. The judge has rejected this argument, saying "any disruption that may occur is a problem of Defendants' and NCAA members schools' own making. The fact that the Court granted preliminary approval of the settlement agreement should not have been interpreted as an indication that it was certain that the Court would grant final approval."

On April 23 the judge gave the parties 2 weeks to come up with a solution. She is ready to move to trial if the parties cannot come up with a solution that addresses her concerns.

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

Lambda wrote:
JonH comes home wrote:
Thanks Lambda, really good insight as always!

So the championship final 8, those are weekend of the 16/18 May ie three consecutive weekends of regionals, then super regionals (although presumably the last 16 arent in fact regionally aligned at all if they follow a strict seeding structure?) and then championships?

R1 & 2 this weekend, last 16 9/10 May, Championships 15 to 18 May.

Looking forward to seeing how the teams with Brits get on this weekend! Thanks for keeping us informed Lambda, suspect you will have a bowl of pretzels and a cold Bud to take you through it!

Lambda · ATP level

JonH comes home wrote:
Lambda wrote:
JonH comes home wrote:
Thanks Lambda, really good insight as always!

So the championship final 8, those are weekend of the 16/18 May ie three consecutive weekends of regionals, then super regionals (although presumably the last 16 arent in fact regionally aligned at all if they follow a strict seeding structure?) and then championships?

R1 & 2 this weekend, last 16 9/10 May, Championships 15 to 18 May.
Looking forward to seeing how the teams with Brits get on this weekend! Thanks for keeping us informed Lambda, suspect you will have a bowl of pretzels and a cold Bud to take you through it!

Unfortunately not. I'll miss most of this weekend's action, which I'm disappointed about, especially having to miss Sofia's and Kylie's last college matches. Hoping to catch some of Kylie before I go out as Georgia Tech are an early start.

All the women play their R1 today and R2 tomorrow. The men are split half on the same schedule and half playing R1 tomorrow and R2 on Sunday.

Easiest place for links and results: https://collegetennisranks.com/schedules/weekahead/d1/byTime

There's also 4 streams on cracked racquets YouTube channel from 6pm for anyone that doesn't want to watch a specific match.

-- Edited by Lambda on Friday 2nd of May 2025 12:12:33 PM