[ColoradoTree]

CT, thanks for running us through it.  Just out of curiosity, what would you have thought of the strategy of picking the 4th seed in Columbus?  I mean, it would have meant a brutal first match (against #12 tOSU on their home court), but given the firepower coming in, I think we probably would have been favored, and would we have won, we would have gotten a second ranked team (#17 or #18).  It's a strategy that we've put to good use in the NCAA's tournament (not on purpose, of course) where we become the nightmare underseeded team that nobody wants to play.

BC

I would've loved it for the excitement factor, though it would've been perhaps an unnecessary risk. Ohio State loses a couple mid-lineup contributors, and their recruiting class, while good (ranked #19), doesn't hold a candle to ours in terms of dominant, immediate impact. You lose those matches and it doesn't hurt you all that much in terms of ranking points, but they're great wins. And yeah, I would have favored us over Ohio State (ever so slightly) and the LSU-Tennessee winner, albeit not by much. The problem is that a team like ours is probably depending on a couple of those types of matches at Indoor Nationals, and the cost of failing to reach Indoor Nationals is thus fairly high in terms of not having good wins under our belt at the end of the season. (In other words, the direct cost of a loss on Kick-Off Weekend is fairly low, but the opportunity cost might be higher than we're willing to pay.) 

I thought the 3 seed in Waco looked fairly attractive. You get a Miami team that loses its longtime ace in Estela Perez-Somarriba in the first match, and then you get a very good-but-not-great Baylor team to advance. I would've felt better about that situation than playing at Columbus. The 3 seed in Orlando looked really appealling, too--a very winnable match against #22 Auburn and then you'd have to beat #11 UCF at the USTA National Campus, which would mean a pretty minimal home court advantage compared to a campus site. I also probably would've preferred the 2 seed at Texas A&M, but UVA is beatable. Their incoming class is very good (a Canadian who's probably behind Ma but at Yepifanova's level, and they have another blue chip who's a bit behind Xu, but still a top ten recruit) and is only ranked behind A&M's class due to A&M's quantity (four players in the class compared to UVA's three), but I'd rather have UVA's top two than A&M's four. I thought A&M was the best landing spot when we picked in terms of safety of advancing, but if we manage to get past UVA, it should stand up as a better win over the course of the season. (The head-to-head result between UVA and Ohio State last season, when OSU won 4-2 in Columbus, could've factored in there as well.) 

Charlottesville is an indoor site for Kick-Off Weekend, and most other options I mentioned are set to be outdoor sites (except for Columbus), so perhaps this was intentional to get us more used to playing indoor tennis prior to National Indoors. 

Or maybe Lele is a big Dave Matthew Band fan! The UVA indoor facility is the Boyd Tinsley Courts, named after the primary benefactor, DMB violinist and Charlottesville native Boyd Tinsley, and he apparently comes to lots of matches when not touring.

[ColoradoTree]

CT, thanks for running us through it.  Just out of curiosity, what would you have thought of the strategy of picking the 4th seed in Columbus?  I mean, it would have meant a brutal first match (against #12 tOSU on their home court), but given the firepower coming in, I think we probably would have been favored, and would we have won, we would have gotten a second ranked team (#17 or #18).  It's a strategy that we've put to good use in the NCAA's tournament (not on purpose, of course) where we become the nightmare underseeded team that nobody wants to play.

BC

I would've loved it for the excitement factor, though it would've been perhaps an unnecessary risk. Ohio State loses a couple mid-lineup contributors, and their recruiting class, while good (ranked #19), doesn't hold a candle to ours in terms of dominant, immediate impact. You lose those matches and it doesn't hurt you all that much in terms of ranking points, but they're great wins. And yeah, I would have favored us over Ohio State (ever so slightly) and the LSU-Tennessee winner, albeit not by much. The problem is that a team like ours is probably depending on a couple of those types of matches at Indoor Nationals, and the cost of failing to reach Indoor Nationals is thus fairly high in terms of not having good wins under our belt at the end of the season. (In other words, the direct cost of a loss on Kick-Off Weekend is fairly low, but the opportunity cost might be higher than we're willing to pay.) 

I thought the 3 seed in Waco looked fairly attractive. You get a Miami team that loses its longtime ace in Estela Perez-Somarriba in the first match, and then you get a very good-but-not-great Baylor team to advance. I would've felt better about that situation than playing at Columbus. The 3 seed in Orlando looked really appealling, too--a very winnable match against #22 Auburn and then you'd have to beat #11 UCF at the USTA National Campus, which would mean a pretty minimal home court advantage compared to a campus site. I also probably would've preferred the 2 seed at Texas A&M, but UVA is beatable. Their incoming class is very good (a Canadian who's probably behind Ma but at Yepifanova's level, and they have another blue chip who's a bit behind Xu, but still a top ten recruit) and is only ranked behind A&M's class due to A&M's quantity (four players in the class compared to UVA's three), but I'd rather have UVA's top two than A&M's four. I thought A&M was the best landing spot when we picked in terms of safety of advancing, but if we manage to get past UVA, it should stand up as a better win over the course of the season. (The head-to-head result between UVA and Ohio State last season, when OSU won 4-2 in Columbus, could've factored in there as well.) 

Charlottesville is an indoor site for Kick-Off Weekend, and most other options I mentioned are set to be outdoor sites (except for Columbus), so perhaps this was intentional to get us more used to playing indoor tennis prior to National Indoors. 

Or maybe Lele is a big Dave Matthew Band fan! The UVA indoor facility is the Boyd Tinsley Courts, named after the primary benefactor, DMB violinist and Charlottesville native Boyd Tinsley, and he apparently comes to lots of matches when not touring.