AAC Semifinals: South Florida and Tulsa Advance to the Finals

It was a beautiful Saturday morning in Memphis with blue skies paving the way for a pair of action packed semifinals that were played simultaneously with a 9 a.m. central start. All 12 courts were available on Saturday after only having 10 available on Friday due to a crack near the center line on court 1.

Friday Recap: UCLA and Cal Win Out West, Rain Hampers Play in the Southeast, Ohio State and Penn State deliver in the Big Ten, & More

It was an extremely long day of tennis in Columbia, South Carolina, as rain pushed the schedule at the SEC Tournament back significantly and ultimately shifted play indoors. One of the opening matches of the day, which started at 9am ET, would be a barnburner as South Carolina was trying to pull off its third top-20 upset in the last five days.

The Gamecocks started off the morning by taking the doubles point over No. 13 Texas A&M with Gabriel Friedrich and Harrison O'Keefe winning the deciding tiebreak at No. 1 by a 7-1 score.

Texas A&M rebounded in singles by taking four opening sets but South Carolina's Andrew Schafer was the first one to finish after he defeated Jordi Arconada 6-1, 7-5 at No. 3.

Thursday Conference Tournament Results

Several conference tournaments got underway on Wednesday, with an abbreviated schedule, but they really got going on Thursday with the ACC and SEC having four matches each.

All four matches at the SEC Tournament in Columbia, South Carolina, were hotly contested with South Carolina, Vanderbilt, Ole Miss, and Kentucky the day's winners.

The four matches at the ACC were quite as suspenseful with Virginia Tech rolling over Miami 4-0, Georgia Tech pulling away from Louisville 4-1, Notre Dame holding off Duke 4-1, and NC State edging Clemson 4-2.

Both of the matches in Ojai were 4-0 shutouts with Cal and Stanford overwhelming Washington and Oregon.

TCU Wins Share of Big 12 & Conference Tournaments Underway

TCU won a share of the Big 12 regular season title with a 4-0 win over No. 43 Baylor in front of a huge crowd of 1816 - not bad for a Wednesday night.

Congrats to @TCUMensTennis and @RoditiTCUTennis on the #BIG12Championship! pic.twitter.com/rO3EGXbqz3

— TCU Equipment (@TCU_Equipment) April 21, 2016

4/19 Oracle/ITA Women's Rankings Release - Top 10 Profiles

California stays at No. 1 for the seventh week in a row but its margin over No. 2 North Carolina narrowed a good bit after losing at Stanford on Saturday. Florida moved up one spot to No. 3 and Georgia fell one spot to No. 4 after the Gators beat the Bulldogs last Friday. Vanderbilt moves up one spot to No. 5 while Ohio State falls on spot to No. 6. Miami and Duke remain at No. 7 and No. 8 while Pepperdine and Michigan swapped spots at No. 9 and No. 10.

Princeton and Brown were the only two teams to rise by double digits while Long Beach State came up 9 spots. Oregon was the only team to drop by double digits while UNLV had the next biggest drop at 8.

4/19 Oracle/ITA Men's Rankings Release - Top 10 Profiles

Virginia stays at the top spot for the second week in a row while there was some shuffling at the two through five spots. UCLA moved up two spots to No. 2, North Carolina moved up two spots to No. 3, TCU fell two spots to No. 4, and Ohio State fell two spots to No. 5.

Georgia and Wake Forest remain at No. 6 and No. 7 though the gap between the two has widened considerably. USC moved up one spot to No. 8, Texas Tech moved up one spot to No. 9, and Oklahoma dropped two spots to No. 10. For further details on why the teams moved check out my profiles on each team further down below.

This set of rankings used each team's nine best wins and all losses as will each subsequent set of rankings until the selection of the NCAA field on May 3rd.

4/19 Oracle/ITA Ranking Projections

Virginia stays at No. 1 after a big win on Friday over Wake Forest while UCLA surges up to No. 2 after its road win at USC.  North Carolina comes up to No. 3 after squeezing past Georgia Tech, TCU drops two spots down to No. 4 despite winning at Texas, and Ohio State drops two spots to No. 5 despite road wins over Minnesota and Wisconsin.

There were some teams that improved their chances of qualifying for the NCAAs while there were others that really hurt themselves with some untimely losses. It's also going to be a battle to see who finishes in the top 16 and thus gets to host a NCAA regional.

Sunday Recap: UCLA Over USC, Texas Tech Takes Out OU, Columbia/George Washington/Jackson State NCAA Bound

Sunday was a tremendous day for college tennis with five matches broadcast on National TV. The day started off with Fox College Sports Pacific/Fox Sport Oklahoma showing the Oklahoma/Kansas women's match. Then you had Fox Sports 2 showing a doubleheader in Stillwater with the Oklahoma State women hosting TCU while the Oklahoma State men hosted Baylor. Lastly you had the Pac-12 Network showing a UCLA/USC doubleheader with the men playing first and then the women second.

Despite these matches being on television the stands were packed and the crowds were loud which made for a great environment for those of us that watched from home. I hope today was a glimpse into the future and not just a once a year thing. I'd love to be able to watch multiple matches every weekend and I want to applaud both Fox Sports, the Pac-12 Network, and ESPN for getting matches on its different platforms. The Tennis Channel broadcasted the finals of the Oracle/ITA Masters back in September but I don't believe they've had any college tennis on since so maybe that's something that will change in the future.

Saturday Recap: TCU Hooks The Horns, Cal Men Take the Big Slam, Stanford Women Slam #1 Cal, Coastal Carolina Dancing

The first big match of the day took place in Austin between No. 18 Texas and No. 2 TCU. The Horned Frogs took the doubles point with a 6-1 win at No. 3 from Cameron Norrie and Alex Rybakov and a 7-6(1) win at No. 1 from Hudson Blake and Reese Stalder.

Texas turned it around in singles and claimed five opening sets to really put TCU on its heels. The only Horned Frog to win a first set was also the first one to finish as Cameron Norrie defeated George Goldhoff 6-4, 6-1 at No. 1.

TCU found its fire in the second set and took all six sets to send five of the six matches to a third set. Jerry Lopez put TCU ahead 3-0 after completing his comeback with a 1-6, 6-4, 6-3 win over Michael Riechmann at No. 5.

Friday Recap: UVA Too Strong For Wake, UGA Rolls Arky, UNC Holds Off GT

The two biggest matches of the day didn't end up being as close as I thought with both No. 1 Virginia and No. 6 Georgia rolling to victories over No. 7 Wake Forest and No. 12 Arkansas.

Virginia won its 13h straight regular season ACC Championship with a 5-2 win over Wake Forest in front of over 1100 fans. It looked like Wake Forest might take the early lead but Virginia was able to hang on in doubles. Wake's Romain Bogaerts and Dennis Uspensky won 6-2 at No. 3 but Virginia's Thai-Son Kwiatkowski and Mac Styslinger would break on the deciding point to go up 5-3 at No. 2. Kwiatkowski went up 40-0 on his 5-3 service but would double fault two times in a row to make it 40-30. Kwiatkowski would land a first set and then a Styslinger volley at the net would force a Wake error to clinch the 6-3 win.

Weekend Preview (4/15-4/17)

This is a monster weekend of college tennis with a slew of intriguing matches. The biggest match will take place in Charlottesville with top-ranked Virginia hosting No. 7 Wake Forest Demon with the No. 1 seed in the conference tournament and the ACC regular season title at stake.

Georgia has already clinched a share of the SEC regular season crown and can win it outright with either a win over Arkansas or Ole Miss or a Florida loss to Kentucky and Tennessee.

Michigan has a chance to make a move in the Big Ten standings but it won't be easy with road matches at Northwestern and Illinois. Ohio State is still the favorite to win the conference but the No. 2 seed in the conference tournament will probably be decided this weekend.

Conference Tournaments & The Bubble Watch

If you hadn't noticed there are three conference tournaments taking place this week and then they'll be another 27 that will take place over the next two weeks. I have a Conference Tournament Central tab at the top of my site that will keep you in the loop on each so check it out.

There are some conferences that play a round robin format during the regular season and some that do not. The ones that do not play a full round robin format usually seed the conference tournament based off the most recent ITA rankings. The next thing you're probably wondering is what if there aren't any teams ranked in the ITA top 75 - then what? The conferences are sent a list of the expanded ITA rankings that includes just the schools in their conference so that way they can seed accordingly.

Below I'll go through each conference with my best guess on the number of teams that I anticipate qualifying for this year's NCAA tournament. There will be a lot of one bid leagues since the at-large cut-off is usually right around 42.

4/12 Oracle/ITA Women's Rankings Release - Top 9 Profiles

California stays at No. 1 for the sixth week in a row with its margin over No. 2 North Carolina at 7.53 points. Georgia moved up one spot to No. 3 and Florida moved up two spots to No. 4. Last week's No. 3, Ohio State, fell two spots to No. 5.  Vanderbilt fell one spot to No. 6, Miami stays at No. 7, Duke stays at No. 8, and Michigan comes up two spots to No. 9. Pepperdine and South Carolina actually had the same rounded point total of 50.23 but when taken out further the Waves were actually 50.2283 while South Carolina was 50.2281 so that's why Pepperdine is No. 10 and South Carolina is No. 11.

Rice, Florida State, DePaul, Utah, and Texas each rose by double digits while Washington State was the only team to make a double digit drop.

4/12 Oracle/ITA Men's Rankings Release - Top 9 Profiles

As I forecasted on Monday, Virginia is your new No. 1 with its road win over Florida putting it over the top. TCU stays at No. 2, Ohio State comes up two spots to No. 3, UCLA stays at No. 4, and North Carolina, which was last week's No. 1, falls to No. 5 after a stunning loss to Notre Dame.

Georgia moves up one spot to No. 6 after a win over Florida, Wake Forest drops one spot to No. 7, Oklahoma rises one spot to No. 8, USC falls one spot to No. 9, and Texas Tech rises one spot to No. 10.

This set of rankings used each team's nine best wins and all losses as will each subsequent set of rankings until the selection of the NCAA field on May 3rd.

4/12 Oracle/ITA Ranking Projections - NEW #1

North Carolina's stay at No. 1 has come to end with the team that they've beaten twice now taking over the top spot. Virginia rises up to No. 1 after picking up nice road wins over No. 14 Florida and No. 31 Georgia Tech while North Carolina falls down to No. 5 after its stunning loss to No. 55 Notre Dame. The Tar Heels still have the best collection of wins however its losses are the reason for the drop. Interesting note - UVA would have still overtaken UNC for the top spot even if UNC had beaten Notre Dame on Friday.

TCU stays at No. 2 after beating SMU, Oklahoma, and Oklahoma State while Ohio State moves up two spots to No. 3 after rolling over Indiana and Purdue. The Buckeyes rise was largely tied to Oklahoma making a big jump last week while UCLA, which stays at No. 4, had a few of its best wins drop which is why it wasn't able to hold off Ohio State.

Sunday: TCU and OU Win Big, South Florida Trumps Tulane, LSU KO's Kentucky, Lobos Tear-Up Tulsa, UMKC Wins 6 Hour Thriller

Sunday may not have been the most scintillating day of tennis, compared to say Friday, but there were still plenty of storylines to keep us all entertained.

Two of the top teams in the American Athletic Conference tangled on Sunday in New Orleans as No. 27 Tulane hosted No. 22 South Florida. South Florida picked up a 6-3 win at No. 1 doubles while Tulane won 6-3 at No. 2. South Florida served for the match at No. 3 doubles up 5-4 but Tulane's Alex and Ian Van Cott broke and then held for 6-5. South Florida's Robert Cid and Ignacio Gonzales-Muniz held for 6-6 and then the Bulls duo broke a 4-4 tie in the breaker by winning the final 3 points to take it 7-4.

Sunday Preview - TCU/Oklahoma St, Texas/Oklahoma, Tulane/South Florida

After a wide open Friday, that had five top 25 matchups on the slate, things slow down a little today with just two top 25 matchups with both taking place in the Big 12.

Second-ranked TCU, fresh off its first win over Oklahoma since 2008, welcomes in No. 12 Oklahoma State. This will actually be the second meeting of the season with TCU edging Oklahoma State 4-3 during the ITA Kick-Off Weekend back in January. Oklahoma State started out the year with a 15-1 record but the Cowboys have lost three of their last four and have fell from a season high ranking of No. 5 down to No. 12. Oklahoma State got shutout on Friday by Texas although the Cowboys were ahead on two of the unfinished courts. If both teams use the same lineups they used on Friday there will be just two rematches from the first meeting (Rybakov/Kadhe & Nava/Meraut) due to Ismailov leaving while TCU has Trevor Johnson back in the lineup. I definitely am not expecting another 4-3 thriller but if TCU isn't as motivated after its big win over OU it could be much closer. If TCU takes the doubles point I think they'll win the match 4-1; If TCU loses the doubles point then I'll say 4-2.

Saturday Recap: Lamar Upsets Rice, ODU Over W&M, Drake Beats Wichita State, Ivies, GGC Outduels HPU, & More

There were two bigger stories on Saturday - the rain that wiped out several matches and Lamar upsetting No. 28 Rice 4-1. The bad weather out in California washed out the Oregon/Cal and San Diego/Santa Clara matches while UNC Wilmington and VCU were rained out in Richmond. Both of the matches in California are set to be played on Sunday while UNC Wilmington and VCU won't make their match up.

Earlier this season Lamar upset then No. 47 Iowa 4-2 but today's win over Rice took it to a new level. Lamar took the doubles point by winning the deciding match at No. 2 in a tiebreak and then the Cardinals took four opening sets in singles. Lamar junior Nikita Lis rolled over Tommy Bennett 6-2, 6-1 at No. 2 but Rice senior Adam Gustafsson countered with a 6-1, 6-4 win over Sebastian Santibanez at No. 3.

What A Night - #55 Notre Dame Stuns #1 UNC, TCU & Kentucky Win 4-3 Thrillers, Georgia Rallies Past Florida, & More

Just when you think you've seen it all you get a day like today with one thrilling finish after another. Before I can even talk about all the 4-3 matches I got to give a shoutout to No. 55 Notre Dame who absolutely stunned top-ranked North Carolina in one of the biggest upsets, in terms of ranking, in college tennis history.

The Fighting Irish entered the night with a 12-12 record, and that was after beating Chicago State twice last Sunday, so most people probably figured at best they'd win a set or maybe a court but surely not the match. It was the final home match of the season for Notre Dame which meant it was the swan song for the five seniors on the roster. Four of the seniors (Monaghan, Lawson, Sabacinski, Montoya) would start and they would each play a role in the upset victory.

Weekend Preview (4/8-4/10)

The rubber meets the road this weekend with the Big 12 Conference schedule finally getting underway plus there's a big one in the SEC on Friday afternoon in Athens. It's hard to believe it but we're down to the final two weeks of the regular season in several conferences (AAC, ACC, CUSA, Ivy, Pac-12, SEC) while a few others have three weeks left (Big Ten, Big 12, WCC).

Several schools are all but guaranteed to make the NCAA tournament but there are several others that need to kick it in gear down the stretch if they want to hear their name called on selection Tuesday.

There are FIVE top-25 matchups on Friday with two of them in the SEC, two in the Big 12, and the other involving a Big 12 school and a AAC school.

Wednesday Recap: Buckeyes Tame The Cats, Cavs Too Strong For Gators, TCU Wins The Skillet

Usually we have to wait until the weekend to see top-25 matchups but we got a mid-week treat on Wednesday with three top-25 teams playing each other along with two other top-75 matchups.

The day started off in Lexington with No. 20 Kentucky and No. 5 Ohio State playing indoors due to high winds and the chance of rain.

Ohio State was able to claim the doubles point for 19th time in 23 tries after picking up wins at No. 1 and No. 3. The Buckeyes duo of Matt Mendez and Hugo Di Feo fell into an early 3-0 hole at No. 3 but rallied to take the next six games to close out Austin Hussey and Ryotaro Matsumura 6-3. Ohio State's Mikael Torpegaard and Martin Joyce led Nils Ellefsen and Enzo Wallart 5-3 at No. 1 but the Kentucky duo won the next two to even it at 5-5. Torpegaard and Joyce would take the next two games to close it out 7-5. The match at No. 2 was abandoned with Kentucky leading 6-5.

4/5 Oracle/ITA Women's Rankings Release - Top 8 Profiles

California stays at No. 1 for the fifth week in a row with its margin over the new No. 2 North Carolina at a solid 8.75 points. Ohio State dropped to No. 3 with Georgia, Vanderbilt, Florida and Miami staying firm at No. 4, 5, 6, and 7.

Duke comes up two spots to No. 8, Pepperdine stays at No. 9, and South Carolina drops two spots to No. 10

Utah, Washington, Missouri, and Arizona all went up double digits while Tennessee, Florida State, and UT Arlington all dropped by double digits.

Baylor Sics The Horns + Busy Wednesday Coming Up

It definitely hasn't been the most memorable season for Baylor but that didn't stop the Bears from knocking off No. 17 Texas for the ninth time in the last ten years.

Texas jumped out to early break leads at No. 1 and No. 2 doubles while Baylor earned the first break at No. 3. Texas's George Goldhoff and Julian Zlobinsky opened up a 3-0 lead on Felipe Rios and Jimmy Bendeck at No. 2 and ended up breaking Rios to close out a 6-2 win.

Texas's No. 1 team of Adrian Ortiz and Michael Riechmann jumped out to a 3-1 lead on Max Tchoutakian and Tommy Podvinski but the BU duo broke Ortiz to even it at 3-3 and then Tchoutakian came back from 30-40 down to hold for 4-3. After Riechmann and Podvinski held, Baylor would break the Ortiz serve again, this time on a double-fault, to win it 6-4.

4/5 Oracle/ITA Men's Rankings Release - Top 8 Profiles

North Carolina retained its top spot after splitting matches with Virginia and Wake Forest while TCU and Virginia remain at No. 2 and No. 3. UCLA moves up one spot to No. 4 after picking up wins over Cal and Stanford while Ohio State drops one spot from No. 4 to No. 5 despite winning both of its matches last weekend.

Wake Forest stays at No. 6 despite winning at No. 1 North Carolina. The reason they didn't move up was because the team's ahead of them had better overall wins plus Wake's loss to NC State is weighing them down a tad. When I did my projections I had Wake at No. 7 because I made an error on my spreadsheet; instead of giving Wake its 10% road bonus for the UNC win I only gave them 10% as in .1 instead of 10% of 106.  Georgia had a nice week picking up wins over Texas A&M and LSU but they remain at No. 7 because everyone else ahead of them either won or had better overall wins. USC moves up one spot to No. 8 after beating Stanford and Cal while Oklahoma was the big mover in the top 25 coming up from No. 18 to No. 9 after winning at South Florida and Florida State. Texas A&M stays at No. 10 just .16 ahead of No. 11 Texas Tech.

This set of rankings used each team's eight best wins and all losses while next week's rankings and all the subsequent rankings until the selection of the NCAA field will use each's nine best wins.

4/5 Oracle/ITA Ranking Projections

North Carolina stays at No. 1 for the third week in a row despite losing to Wake Forest on Sunday. UNC's win over Virginia was enough to keep it up top while TCU and Virginia remain at No. 2 and No. 3. UCLA moves up one spot to No. 4 after picking up wins over Cal and Stanford while Ohio State falls one spot to No. 5 despite winning both its weekend matches.

Georgia moves up one spot to No. 6 after picking up road wins at Texas A&M and LSU while Wake Forest drops one spot to No. 7 despite winning on the road over Virginia Tech and No. 1 North Carolina. I know what everyone is thinking - how can you beat the No. 1 team and drop? Correction: Wake will stay at 6 with 58.41 and UGA 7 - my sheet didn't count the road bonus from Wake's win at UNC.