Broadway Bill and the Final Countdown

The Men’s Tennis Experience ft. Broadway Bill Zhang is reaching its final weekend of the 2009 season.  It’s do or die.  Win or go home (and wait for the NCAA selection committee to make its decision).  Here’s a look at this weekend’s UAA Championships.

The Maroons probably knew they might be in this situation pretty early on in the season.  They probably had an idea that they’d be at the edge of the at-large pool when they went lost the first D-III match of the season to Denison 5–4.

If they didn’t know it then, they probably started to get the picture after getting swept by Kenyon in mid-February.  Or maybe it just started to become clear after the 6–3 loss to DePauw over Spring Break.

Regardless of the fact that this has been a strong year for the team overall, those are the matches the Maroons are probably going to look back on and wish for a do-over if Chicago can’t find an upset this weekend at UAAs and sneak into the postseason.

There is still one at-large bid up for grabs, and it’s going to take a little bit of luck and lot of good tennis to get it.

1. DePauw needs to win. After DePauw jumped UT–Trinity in the rankings, the Maroons automatically became Tigers fans. If DePauw can win the SCAC, that’ll make things interesting. As in, they win, Carnegie and Chicago are actually in contention; they lose, our games are as meaningless as all of the games the Detroit Lions will ever play. DePauw has built an NCAA-worthy resume this year, so if Trinity takes the automatic bid, the show’s over.  I’m going to assume that, based on the solid tennis they’ve been playing recently (here, for example), the Tigers are going to win it and the UAA tournament is going to matter for us. In that case…

2. Carnegie Mellon needs to win and then lose. We’re not exactly rooting for the Tartans,  but they need to get to the third-fourth match on Sunday.  The road should be fairly clear for that, considering they’re playing an NYU team that got swept by 29th-ranked Salisbury earlier this season on Friday and (presumably) a second-ranked Wash U team that has been near perfect on Saturday.  If everything doesn’t go as planned, Chicago could be in trouble. Let’s say Carnegie loses in the first round.  Chicago is going to win in the first round (or else we’re out) and almost certainly lose in the second round (but we’ll get to that a little bit).  If the third-fourth match is Chicago vs. NYU, that doesn’t help us all that much.  We need a quality win in the third-fourth match, not just a win over NYU.  If we beat them, we probably pass Carnegie, but I don’t know that we would pass Trinity.  Lets say Carnegie beats Wash.  Then it’s over:  We can’t afford to have Carnegie get the big win that we need.  But, again, let’s assume everything goes according to plan, if no other reason than that I want to keep writing.

3. Chicago needs to finish third. Remember, this part probably only really matters if the first two things happen. I’ll start here by saying that it would be a huge mistake to overlook Case in the first round. A week and a half ago, the Spartans lost a marathon of a match 5–4 to Denison, the same margin of our loss to Denison at the beginning of the year.  I don’t think many would disagree that Chicago is a far better team now than they were at the beginning of the year, but it still shows that Case can go.  That said, I don’t see the Spartans being too much of a problem. So we go on to Emory. I’m not even going to say anything about Emory losing in the opening round, because it’s just not going to happen. Now, I am horrified of Emory. Really, just typing this is difficult because they’re so good. Just kidding. Sort of. I don’t predict a massacre, but Chicago isn’t going to win this match. Not without Lado (He’s got one name now, like LeBron. Or Cher) at two and not with an apparently half-deaf and dying Steve Saltarelli. In any case, we’re in fine shape to reach the third-fourth match, and this is where the magic is going to have to happen.  This is very assumptive and is causing me to knock profusely on this wooden computer that I’m using to type this, but let’s take a look at the match-up that could maybe happen on Sunday.  Some notes:

• Carnegie has a 1–0 lead in the series, if we only count the last time we played them. Last year’s third-place match-up ended with them coming out on top 5–2. We beat them in 2007, but that was before the Broadway Bill era. Beyond that, we lost to them in 2006, 2005, 2004, and 2003, and probably a bunch of times before that, but the records only go back to 1978 when the hall of records was mysteriously blown away.

• Chicago has placed third twice in UAA history, with the only finish better than that being a second-place finish in 1995. The Maroons were third in 2007 and fourth a year ago.

• James Muliawan is 3–8 at one (he moved up after playing two, where he has gone 3–2). On the flip side of that, Alex Nemerov is down to two, where he’s 7–3.

• Garrett Brinker is going to be expected to fill in for Lado this weekend at two, and he’s struggled all season in singles, going 3–9. He’s got a combined record of 0–3 at one and two.

• Jan Stefanski and Will Zhang have teamed up only three times this year, going 1–2. They lost both matches they played last weekend against Wash and Tyler.

• Mark Bonner and Troy “Psycho T” Brinker have been cash at three doubles with an 8–3 record. Their backwards caps are averaging 2.5 and 3 aces per match, respectively.

• Carnegie has been very good playing doubles this year, compiling an overall record of 46–20. Chicago’s overall doubles record is 24–27.

So those are some thoughts. I’m not going to make a pick, because I actually don’t know enough to make any serious predictions here. I do know that the team is very focused for this match, and they definitely believe they can beat Carnegie. In any case, it’s going to be shame for two out of the Trinity-Carnegie-Chicago group on the outside right now. All are talented teams, and only one can get into the tournament. If nothing else, here’s to a good last hurrah.