Friday Men's Recap - LSU and Oregon Pull Off Seeding Upsets

The opening day of the NCAA Tournament is in the books and as you can see from the scores below there were a few surprises. All the top seeds cruised with only Illinois yielding a point while a pair of 33-48 seeds pulled off mild upsets.

Friday Finals:
[3] UCLA def. Weber State 4-0
[4] TCU def. Jackson State 4-0
[6] Wake Forest def. Coastal Carolina 4-0
[10] USC def. UNLV 4-0
[11] Oklahoma def. UT Arlington 4-0
[12] Texas A&M def. George Washington 4-0
[15] Illinois def. Western Michigan 4-1
[17-32] Texas def. Lamar 4-0
[17-32] San Diego def. Vanderbilt 4-0
[17-32] Michigan def. East Tennessee State 4-3
[17-32] Georgia Tech def. UC Santa Barbara 4-1
[17-32] Mississippi State def. Memphis 4-1
[33-48] LSU def. Rice 4-3
[33-48] Oregon def. Tulsa 4-1

NCAA First/Second Round Previews: UCLA & Northwestern Regionals

UCLA Regional
Sunset Canyon Recreation Center - Los Angeles, CA

[3] UCLA Bruins (22-2) vs. [49-64] Weber State Wildcats (14-7) - Friday 1pm PT - Both schools earned their conference's automatic berth after UCLA defeated Cal in the finals of the Pac-12 Tournament while Weber State punched its first ticket since 1992 with a win over Idaho in the finals of the Big Sky Tournament. Weber State went 0-3 against teams that were ranked at some point during the season the Wildcats losing to BYU, Utah, and UC Irvine by a combined score of 18-2. 

Note: These matches will be played at the Sunset Canyon Recreation Center, which is on the campus of UCLA, instead of the Los Angeles Tennis Center due to construction of the new football and basketball training facilities.

Doubles Records: UCLA 18-6, Weber State 13-8

UTR Starting 6 Power Rating: UCLA 85, Weber State 72

Saturday Recap: TCU/Texas Tech Win in the Big 12, Ohio State/Illinois Come Through in the Big Ten, Tickets Punched in the WCC, MAC, Summit, & Big West

Semifinal Saturday was a busy one with two of the closest matches taking place at the same time in Stillwater at the Big 12 Championships.

TCU edged Oklahoma in the regular season 4-3 and even though Andrew Harris wasn't playing today you figured it would be still be a close one. TCU's usual No. 4 Eduardo Nava was out as well so each team had to shuffle its lineup a bit.

TCU took the doubles point but it was anything but easy - well it was easy at No. 3 but not on the other two courts. Cameron Norrie and Alex Rybakov won 6-1 at No. 3 but OU's Spencer Papa and Alex Ghilea picked up a 7-5 win at No. 1. OU's Axel Alvarez and Austin Siegel broke to go up 6-5 but TCU's Guillermo Nunez and Trevor Johnson would break Siegel to send it to a tiebreak. OU was serving up 5-4 in the tiebreak but TCU would win three of the next four points to close it out 7-5.

Friday Recap: Baylor Stuns Okie State, Oklahoma Hold Off Texas, Chalk at the B1G, San Diego/Pepperdine To Meet in WCC Finals, Farewell to UMBC & Hartford

Every year there are a handful of teams that play their way into the NCAA Tournament and after Baylor's performance today we can add another team to that list. Baylor came in to today's match against Oklahoma State firmly on the bubble and most likely needed a win to earn its spot in the NCAAs.

Due to the inclement weather the match was moved indoors and since there was a log-jam of matches to be played they played singles first. Oklahoma State won the regular season meeting less than two weeks ago in a match that was played indoors in Stillwater so you figured they had to feel pretty confident about their chances.

Saturday Recap: Pac-12 Goes 2-0 In Indian Wells, Texas Tech Wins the HMVC, TCU Over Columbia, Utah State Makes History

It was a good day for the Pac-12 at the BNP Paribas Open Collegiate Tennis Challenge as both No. 14 Cal and No. 12 USC picked up wins over Big 12 opponents.

In the first match of the day it was the Battle of the Bears as Cal took on No. 21 Baylor. BU's Max Tchoutakian and Tommy Podvinski picked up a 6-2 win at No. 2 but Cal's Mads Engsted and J.T. Nishimura countered with a 6-3 win at No. 3. Cal's No. 1 team of Filip Bergevi and Florian Lakat served for the match up 5-3 but BU's Julian Lenz and Will Little broke and then Lenz held for 5-5. Cal held for 6-5 then Bergevi and Lakat broke the Little serve from 30-40 to win it 7-5.

Friday Recap: Noles Rally Past Hokies, Upsets Galore In the SEC, Tulane Outlasts San Diego, UNF Upsets Georgia St

Friday was a wild day of tennis with several teams coming from behind to pull out thrilling wins. The biggest comeback of the day took place in Blacksburg as No. 23 Florida State appeared to be down and out against No. 40 Virginia Tech.

Virginia Tech took the doubles point with wins at No. 1 and No. 3 but Florida State turned it around in singles and took first sets at one through four.

FSU's Benjamin Lock cruised to a 6-3, 6-2 win over Joao Monteiro at No. 1 but Virginia Tech answered with a 7-6, 6-3 win from Aaron Gomez at No. 6.

Thursday Recap: Buckeyes Top The Bulls, Columbia Wins at SMU, & Action Gets Underway in San Diego

After a calm Wednesday the pace picked up on Thursday with Ohio State taking on South Florida while the Hilton San Diego Mission Valley Spring Classic got underway with four close matches at two different sites.

No. 4 Ohio State made its outdoors debut in Tampa and despite getting tested the Buckeyes still had enough in the tank to get past No. 16 South Florida 4-3.  Ohio State's Chris Diaz didn't play in doubles (reasons unknown) but the Buckeyes still managed to win at No. 1 and No. 2. Diaz's normal partner, Hugo Di Feo, and Matt Mendez led 5-3 at No. 3 when the point was clinched.

Kentucky Holds Off Bama, FSU Slides Past Duke, Wisconsin Wins In Des Moines, Georgia Tech Tops NC State

Friday and Saturday brought us a ton of upsets but things leveled out on Sunday with most higher ranked teams holding court and getting the win.

Florida State capped off a nice weekend by defeating No. 66 Duke 5-2. The Seminoles claimed the doubles point by sweeping all three courts and then it took four opening sets in singles.

Friday night's hero, Marco Nunez, was first off the court with a 6-2, 6-4 win over Vincent Lin at No. 2 and his teammate Jose Gracia would put the Noles up 3-0 with a 6-2, 6-2 win over Ryan Dickerson at No. 5.

Thursday Recap + Weekend Preview (3/11-3/13)

There were actually four ranked versus ranked matches on Thursday with the higher ranked team winning three of the four.

No. 4 Virginia went to Tulsa, the site of this year's NCAA Championships, and rolled over No. 26 Tulsa 6-1. Virginia won a pretty tight doubles point by breaking Tulsa's 5-6 service game at No. 3 to claim the point.  Ryan Shane, Collin Altamirano, Mac Styslinger, and Henrik Wiersholm won in straight sets for Virginia at 1, 2, 5, and 6 while Thai-Son Kwiatkowski won a three-set battle over Dylan McCloskey at 3. Tulsa's Juan Matias Gonzalez earned the lone point for the Golden Hurricane with a straight set win at No. 4.

UCLA Outduels USC & San Diego Burns the Rice

Last season USC won all three meetings against UCLA, but so far this season it's Bruins 1 and Trojans 0. UCLA claimed this year's first edition of the Battle for LA by taking out #12 USC 5-2.

UCLA took the doubles point for the 10th time in 12 tries but it didn't do it with a win at #1. USC's Nick Crystal and Laurens Verboven surprised the ITA #3 team of Mackenzie McDonald and Martin Redlicki 6-4. Crystal/Verboven jumped out to a 4-1 lead before McDonald/Redlick won three straight to even it at 4-4. Crystal/Verboven held for 5-4 and then broke to win it 6-4.

Sunday Recap: Texas A&M Wins At Illinois, Ohio State Outlasts Florida, Memphis Wins in Oxford, & More

Texas A&M had been on the road for the last week and a half, and had lost its last three, but it managed to come from behind today to beat Illinois 4-2 despite playing without one of its top starters. Texas A&M senior Shane Vinsant missed today's match against Illinois due to a blister on his foot but the Aggies managed to stay focused in his absence and the team performed much better in singles than it did in doubles. The weather was right around 50 degrees outside but they played it indoors anyway. I was a little surprised at the lighter turnout of around 175 because I've been to Atkins in the past for some big matches and have seen well over 500 on hand.

Trojans Rally Past the Bulls, Wake Doubles Up OU, TCU Hammers Illinois,Hoos Up Next

The second half of the day kicked off with USC playing South Florida on the stadium courts while TCU and Illinois duked it out on the back six.

South Florida knew it needed the doubles point to give itself a chance to win and it took the point with a 6-0 rout at #3 and a 6-3 win at #2.

Men's National Team Indoors - Round of 16 Previews

The draws are out and the lineups are set for the 2016 ITA Men's National Team Indoor Championships with play getting started on Friday at the Boar's Head Sports Club in Charlottesville, Virginia. Play gets started each day at 9am eastern and finishes each night around 9 to 10pm.

I'm going to preview each round of 16 match using the master lineups that each team submitted and I'll make my predictions as well. With this being an indoor event I'll also take into account which teams are comfortable playing indoors while others only play indoors a handful of times each season.

There will be live scoring on all 12 courts but only point-by-point scoring on courts 7-12. The same goes for streaming video in that it will only be available on courts 7-12 too.

Texas A&M Survives, UCLA Wins Big, Duke Gets A Road W, Memphis Wins Again

It's been a busy week so far for Texas A&M after the Aggies knocked off #4 Baylor just two nights ago and with another big match on the horizon on Sunday against #13 South Florida it's possible they got caught looking ahead. #28 Florida State came to College Station on Friday night and gave A&M all it wanted before "Artillery" Arthur Rinderknech saved the day with a big win at #1 singles.

Texas A&M captured the doubles point with 6-3 wins at #2 and #3 and then each team picked up three first sets in singles. Texas A&M's AJ Catanzariti and Max Lunkin put the Aggies up 3-0 after they each picked up a straight set win over one of the Whitehurst brothers at #5 and #6 singles. Florida State answered with straight sets wins from Michael Rinaldi and Aziz Dougaz at #3 and #4 and then Marco Nunez tied it up at 3-3 with a 6-4, 3-6, 6-3 upset win over Shane Vinsant at #2.

San Diego Slides Past Duke, Soares Steals The Show, TCU Holds On, UNC/Baylor/Georgia Each Tested

Sunday was a great day for the guys from sunny San Diego as the Toreros went into snowy Durham and beat the host Duke Blue Devils 4-2 to clinch the school's first ever berth in the ITA National Team Indoor Championships. Sunday was also a day of near misses as #28 Oklahoma State, #40 NC State, #44 Memphis and #49 Oregon each put a considerable amount of pressure on the #1 seeds in their respective regionals before coming up just short in the end.

There were also several blowouts as Oklahoma, Texas A&M, Ohio State, UCLA, and South Florida each cruised in matches that took 2 hours or less.

The biggest comeback of the day took place in Austin as the #4 seed Texas Tech came back from 3-0 down to defeat the #3 seed Florida 4-3.

NCAA 1st Round Previews: USC & Duke Regionals

USC Regional
Marks Stadium - Los Angeles, CA

[7] USC (22-4) vs. [49-64] Idaho (16-11) - Friday 4pm - The Vandals are in the NCAAs for the 2nd year in a row after beating Northern Arizona 4-2 in the Big Sky Championship. #8 USC got the Pac 12's automatic bid after beating #23 Stanford 4-3 in the Pac 12 Championship.

Doubles Records: USC 15-11, Idaho 15-12

UTR Starting 6 Power Rating: USC 86, Idaho 71

Saturday Recap: Oklahoma & Baylor Win Thrillers, Blow Out City in ACC & B1G, USC Holds On, Mountain West Surprises, Buffalo Dancing

What a day of tennis in Waco - 2 semifinal matches played simultaneously on adjacent courts with both coming down to a 3rd set tiebreak to decide it and they both finished within seconds of each other.

It's too bad those FoxSports cameras weren't in operation today because it was rough trying to watch the conclusion of the Baylor/TCU match due to the streaming video being reduced to freeze-frame video.  As a side note, for those that were wondering, it was confirmed today by Baylor that PlaySight will be installing new HD cameras with sound in time for the NCAAs so the viewing public won't have to be subjected to any more of the current setup.  Click on this link for a preview of the kind of clarity that you'll see - choose Indian Wells during daylight hours.  PlaySight operated the streaming for Virginia Tech and did the streaming for the National Indoors at the MidTown Athletic Club in Chicago and at Indian Wells for the BNP Paribas Collegiate Cup.

Wednesday Recap: Oklahoma Over Tulsa, Texas A&M Tops Rice, San Diego Too Strong For Pepperdine

There were 3 good matches on Wednesday's docket with the higher ranked team winning each of them.

#1 Oklahoma overcame the loss of the doubles point to #20 Tulsa by taking it to the Golden Hurricanes in singles winning all 10 completed sets.  Axel Alvarez, Dane Webb, Alex Ghilea, and Spencer Papa all won in singles.

#8 Texas A&M was pushed by #48 Rice in doubles but pulled out the deciding court in a tiebreak.  The Aggies took 9 of 10 completed sets in singles and got its 3 points from Harrison Adams, AJ Catanzariti, and Max Lunkin.  The win by #51 Harrison Adams was his first dual match win this season after starting out 0-8.

#17 San Diego defeated #41 Pepperdine 4-1 to put the Toreros 2 up on the Waves in the WCC standings.  San Diego took the doubles point and picked up singles wins from Filip Vittek, Jordan Angus, and Geoffrey Fosso. Pepperdine's Pedro Iamachkine picked up the Waves lone point winning at #4 singles.  

Bears Sic 'Em, Oklahoma Rallies Past Columbia, Toreros Hold Off Drake, Vandy Survives

Saturday had several close ones with both Baylor and Oklahoma pulling through in the BNP Paribas Collegiate Challenge while San Diego and Princeton both won tight ones in the Hilton San Diego Mission Valley Spring Classic.   There was also a good one in Nashville where Vanderbilt won a 3rd set tiebreak in the deciding match to avoid getting upset by unranked Kentucky.

The headliner of the day was between #3 Baylor and #4 USC.  It was almost a forgone conclusion that Baylor would take the doubles point with how dominant they'd been in doubles play but USC had the point well within grasp.  Baylor's #3 duo of Vince Schneider and Felipe Rios were first off the court with 6-3 win but USC's #1 pair of Yannick Hanfmann and Roberto Quiroz answered with a 6-4 win.  So it all came down to #2 doubles where Baylor's Julian Lenz and Diego Galeano had jumped out to an early break lead on USC's Max De Vroome and Eric Johnson.  USC's 2s would break back to even it at 4 then get a De Vroome hold to go up 5-4 and then would go up 0-30 on the Galeano serve.  The Baylor 2s would win 4 straight points to hold for 5-5 but then Eric Johnson would hold at 40-15 to put USC up 6-5.  For the second service game in a row Baylor would go down 0-30 but they'd dig themselves out again by winning 3 straight points to go up 40-30.  After USC got the next point to make it 40-40, which was a deciding/break point, Lenz dropped the hammer on a 1st serve and sent to a tiebreak.  The tiebreak was all Baylor as they jumped out to a 4-0 lead and ended up cruising to a 7-1 win.

Friday Recap: Wake Too Good for VT, USC Gets Its Revenge, The Ville Rocks UNC, Several 4-3 Nailbiters

Friday brought us several close ones as 6 matches finished with a 4-3 final score though of course there were several that weren't as close most notably 3 of the 4 in Indian Wells.  

The big upset of the day came in Louisville as the #29 Cardinals stunned #10 North Carolina 5-2.  It looked like #7 Texas A&M might get picked off too however the Aggies rallied late and held off #35 Mississippi State 4-1.  #33 Drake came back from 3-0 down to stun #22 Harvard 4-3 and #23 LSU pulled out a tight 4-3 win on the road at #60 Alabama.

In the biggest match of the day #12 Wake Forest ran its winning streak to 4 with a 5-2 win over #16 Virginia Tech.  The Demon Deacons cruised past Va Tech in doubles and then Noah Rubin made it 2-0 with a 6-1, 6-1 beat down of Amerigo Contini at #1 singles.  Jon Ho would extend the lead to 3-0 with a 6-4, 6-3 win at #4 singles over Hunter Koontz before Virginia Tech's Edoardo Tessaro would put the Hokies on the board with a come from behind 4-6, 6-2, 6-2 win over Christian Seraphim at #5 singles. Romain Bogaerts would clinch the win for Wake Forest with a 6-4, 3-6, 6-3 win at #2 singles over Andreas Bjerrehus and then the teams would split the 2 remaining matches after the clinch.  

Wake Forest now sets its sights on #6 Duke with Wake making the short trip to Durham on Sunday.