[ColoradoTree]

We last played in the ITA National Indoor Tournament in 2011. My impression when we stopped was that the missed weekday class time was the primary reason for the decision, and that it was the players' wish to stop (I don't think the coaches would care). The Round of 16 is on Thursday, and I guess that usually means leaving on Tuesday if they are going to have a practice session on the tournament courts on Wednesday.) I remember respecting that decision for that reason, and wishing we weren't penalized so much for it. But I can't remember where I heard that, and it could be wrong.

Could well be! I'm basing my understanding on a collection of half-remembered statements by folks now combined with some guesses as to why Lele would want to do it, especially given that the program hasn't made much of an effort to replace those matches throughout the year in the schedule.  If you want to skip an early-season tournament over two weekends, fine, but then add a few more matches.  Yes, we scheduled Florida, Vanderbilt, Texas, TCU, and Pepperdine this year, but the top-ranked teams play more (and play more good teams) than we do.  

We have a lot of one-match or no-match weekends: (1) we played only San Jose State during ITA Kick-Off Weekend; (2) we played only St. Mary's during Indoor Nationals; (3) we didn't play at all the weekend before ITA Kick-Off Weekend, when many other programs squeeze in a match to get ready; (4) we only played Vanderbilt on the Nashville road trip, when there are a number of good programs within a few hours' drive; and (5) we didn't have another match scheduled the weekends where we played Oregon or Cal, or the weekend when we were scheduled to play Pepperdine.  There are opportunities to beef up your schedule just by filling out the remaining weekends on the calendar, while still opting out of a tournament that would require you to miss much of a week of classes.  

I guess what I'm trying to say is that Lele's rationale for opting out of Kick-Off Weekend/Indoor Nationals may well have been to avoid missing class time, but there are still lots of holes on the schedule that wouldn't involve missing class time, and those are still going unfilled, so I think there has to be more at play than just wanting to avoid missing class time.  I know we've made more of an effort in recent years to get a couple more tough matches on the schedule (adding Vanderbilt and usually another team to our annual matchup with Florida), but we could certainly do more.  (I'd love to add annual matches with Duke and UNC to our schedule, for example. Beating them is massive for your ranking, but losing to teams that good barely hurts you at all.)  

Of course, I could say all of that to Lele, and she could quite rightly respond, "what does it matter?"  And she'd be right--when the program standard is national titles, do you really care if you win it as a 1 seed or as a 15 seed?  Everyone knows we're a threat to win regardless of our seed.  Heck, just look at the last several years:

2017: lost in NCAA final to Florida as a 7 seed (beating the 10, 2, and 3 seeds before losing to the 1 seed)
2016: won NCAA championship as a 15 seed (beating the 1, 10, 6, and 12 seeds along the way)
2015: lost in NCAA QF to Georgia as a 14 seed (beat the 3 seed, lost to the 6)
2014: lost in NCAA SF to UNC as an 11 seed (beat the 3 and 6 seeds, lost to the 7)
2013: won NCAA championship as a 12 seed (beating the 5, 4, 1, and 3 seeds along the way)
2012: lost in NCAA QF to USC as a 5 seed (beat the 12, lost to the 4)
2011: lost in NCAA final to Florida as a 2 seed (beat the 15, 7, and 6 seeds before losing to the 1)
2010: won NCAA championship as an 8 seed (beating the 9, 1, 5, and 3 seeds along the way)

So, Lele has some pretty good data to point to when arguing that Stanford doesn't need to schedule additional matches to boost our ranking--we do just fine without it.  Maybe we would have advanced a little further in a couple of those years, but "having a deep NCAA run" isn't the program expectation.  It's winning.  Every year.  So who cares if you play a top-ranked team a round or two earlier than you would otherwise?  

(For the record, I care a little bit, because if you can make your path to the title a little bit easier, then you should always do that, but that underseeding hasn't determined our NCAA fate the last several years.  In the last 8 seasons, we've beaten a higher seed in the NCAA tournament in 6 of those seasons, and in the other two, we lived up to our seeding and didn't get upset, at least.)

---

A couple pieces worth a read:

* A profile of UNC's Makenna Jones, in which her loss to Arbuthnott in last year's NCAAs features as a catalyst for her to improve, and the UNC coach acknowledges Stanford being underseeded and previews the Round of 16 match with Stanford: https://www.tennisrecruiting.net/article...510F3A10DC. (I didn't know her mom played at Stanford!)

* The College Tennis Today preview of the Round of 16 matches: https://www.collegetennistoday.com/item/...eview.html.  Bobby Knight calls it the "match of the day" and predicts a 4-3 match with the teams splitting the six singles matches and UNC going through on the strength of the doubles point.  (He thinks Lord, Arbuthnott, and Higuchi will get wins for Stanford in singles.)  While he acknowledges that Stanford is a favorite on paper (i.e., per individual UTRs), he still mostly sticks to the ITA rankings in predicting singles winners, going with the lower-ranked player only in Lord's case (and given last year and her preseason #7 ranking this year, and her form against Michigan, that's totally fair, even setting aside her UTR advantage). His singles predictions are entirely possible, and I wouldn't be at all surprised to see it shake out that way (my belief that Shin should beat Aney could easily be overcome by the fact that this is Shin's biggest match so far in her career and Aney is a junior and more seasoned), but I just have a feeling we're going to pull off doubles wins at 2 and 3 and take that point.  I really want Gordon to win--there's a nice boost of confidence for everyone else when your top dog beats their top dog--though as Jones hasn't lost at #1 all year against a challenging schedule, you can't count on it.  Especially if the match has to be played indoors and Shin and Higuchi go on last, we'll need good performances at 1, 3, and 4 to keep the match in reach to give Shin and Higuchi a chance to finish it.  (I'm confident of that, really. I don't know how the matches will end up for Arbuthnott and Lampl, but they don't quit, so those things are at least going into a third set.)

As for the other Round of 16 action, he picks (1) Vanderbilt to roll over (16) Miami, (10) South Carolina to beat (7) Georgia 4-2, (3) Duke to beat (14) Northwestern 4-3, (6) Texas to beat (11) Texas Tech 4-2, (13) Pepperdine to shutout (4) Georgia Tech 4-0, (12) UCLA to upset (5) Ole Miss 4-3, and in the unseeded matchup, Florida State to beat Tulsa 4-2.  So, if Stanford wins and his predictions are otherwise right, we'd see Stanford playing South Carolina in the quarterfinals, and on the other side of the bracket, an all-California quarterfinal between Pepperdine and UCLA.  (For the record, I also think UCLA and Pepperdine will post "upsets" and beat their respective opponents. Could see the Georgia-South Carolina match going either way, and I don't think Northwestern will be that competitive vs. Duke, but I think the Big Ten just wasn't very good this year.)

[ColoradoTree]

We last played in the ITA National Indoor Tournament in 2011. My impression when we stopped was that the missed weekday class time was the primary reason for the decision, and that it was the players' wish to stop (I don't think the coaches would care). The Round of 16 is on Thursday, and I guess that usually means leaving on Tuesday if they are going to have a practice session on the tournament courts on Wednesday.) I remember respecting that decision for that reason, and wishing we weren't penalized so much for it. But I can't remember where I heard that, and it could be wrong.

Could well be! I'm basing my understanding on a collection of half-remembered statements by folks now combined with some guesses as to why Lele would want to do it, especially given that the program hasn't made much of an effort to replace those matches throughout the year in the schedule.  If you want to skip an early-season tournament over two weekends, fine, but then add a few more matches.  Yes, we scheduled Florida, Vanderbilt, Texas, TCU, and Pepperdine this year, but the top-ranked teams play more (and play more good teams) than we do.  

We have a lot of one-match or no-match weekends: (1) we played only San Jose State during ITA Kick-Off Weekend; (2) we played only St. Mary's during Indoor Nationals; (3) we didn't play at all the weekend before ITA Kick-Off Weekend, when many other programs squeeze in a match to get ready; (4) we only played Vanderbilt on the Nashville road trip, when there are a number of good programs within a few hours' drive; and (5) we didn't have another match scheduled the weekends where we played Oregon or Cal, or the weekend when we were scheduled to play Pepperdine.  There are opportunities to beef up your schedule just by filling out the remaining weekends on the calendar, while still opting out of a tournament that would require you to miss much of a week of classes.  

I guess what I'm trying to say is that Lele's rationale for opting out of Kick-Off Weekend/Indoor Nationals may well have been to avoid missing class time, but there are still lots of holes on the schedule that wouldn't involve missing class time, and those are still going unfilled, so I think there has to be more at play than just wanting to avoid missing class time.  I know we've made more of an effort in recent years to get a couple more tough matches on the schedule (adding Vanderbilt and usually another team to our annual matchup with Florida), but we could certainly do more.  (I'd love to add annual matches with Duke and UNC to our schedule, for example. Beating them is massive for your ranking, but losing to teams that good barely hurts you at all.)  

Of course, I could say all of that to Lele, and she could quite rightly respond, "what does it matter?"  And she'd be right--when the program standard is national titles, do you really care if you win it as a 1 seed or as a 15 seed?  Everyone knows we're a threat to win regardless of our seed.  Heck, just look at the last several years:

2017: lost in NCAA final to Florida as a 7 seed (beating the 10, 2, and 3 seeds before losing to the 1 seed)
2016: won NCAA championship as a 15 seed (beating the 1, 10, 6, and 12 seeds along the way)
2015: lost in NCAA QF to Georgia as a 14 seed (beat the 3 seed, lost to the 6)
2014: lost in NCAA SF to UNC as an 11 seed (beat the 3 and 6 seeds, lost to the 7)
2013: won NCAA championship as a 12 seed (beating the 5, 4, 1, and 3 seeds along the way)
2012: lost in NCAA QF to USC as a 5 seed (beat the 12, lost to the 4)
2011: lost in NCAA final to Florida as a 2 seed (beat the 15, 7, and 6 seeds before losing to the 1)
2010: won NCAA championship as an 8 seed (beating the 9, 1, 5, and 3 seeds along the way)

So, Lele has some pretty good data to point to when arguing that Stanford doesn't need to schedule additional matches to boost our ranking--we do just fine without it.  Maybe we would have advanced a little further in a couple of those years, but "having a deep NCAA run" isn't the program expectation.  It's winning.  Every year.  So who cares if you play a top-ranked team a round or two earlier than you would otherwise?  

(For the record, I care a little bit, because if you can make your path to the title a little bit easier, then you should always do that, but that underseeding hasn't determined our NCAA fate the last several years.  In the last 8 seasons, we've beaten a higher seed in the NCAA tournament in 6 of those seasons, and in the other two, we lived up to our seeding and didn't get upset, at least.)

---

A couple pieces worth a read:

* A profile of UNC's Makenna Jones, in which her loss to Arbuthnott in last year's NCAAs features as a catalyst for her to improve, and the UNC coach acknowledges Stanford being underseeded and previews the Round of 16 match with Stanford: https://www.tennisrecruiting.net/article...510F3A10DC. (I didn't know her mom played at Stanford!)

* The College Tennis Today preview of the Round of 16 matches: https://www.collegetennistoday.com/item/...eview.html.  Bobby Knight calls it the "match of the day" and predicts a 4-3 match with the teams splitting the six singles matches and UNC going through on the strength of the doubles point.  (He thinks Lord, Arbuthnott, and Higuchi will get wins for Stanford in singles.)  While he acknowledges that Stanford is a favorite on paper (i.e., per individual UTRs), he still mostly sticks to the ITA rankings in predicting singles winners, going with the lower-ranked player only in Lord's case (and given last year and her preseason #7 ranking this year, and her form against Michigan, that's totally fair, even setting aside her UTR advantage). His singles predictions are entirely possible, and I wouldn't be at all surprised to see it shake out that way (my belief that Shin should beat Aney could easily be overcome by the fact that this is Shin's biggest match so far in her career and Aney is a junior and more seasoned), but I just have a feeling we're going to pull off doubles wins at 2 and 3 and take that point.  I really want Gordon to win--there's a nice boost of confidence for everyone else when your top dog beats their top dog--though as Jones hasn't lost at #1 all year against a challenging schedule, you can't count on it.  Especially if the match has to be played indoors and Shin and Higuchi go on last, we'll need good performances at 1, 3, and 4 to keep the match in reach to give Shin and Higuchi a chance to finish it.  (I'm confident of that, really. I don't know how the matches will end up for Arbuthnott and Lampl, but they don't quit, so those things are at least going into a third set.)

As for the other Round of 16 action, he picks (1) Vanderbilt to roll over (16) Miami, (10) South Carolina to beat (7) Georgia 4-2, (3) Duke to beat (14) Northwestern 4-3, (6) Texas to beat (11) Texas Tech 4-2, (13) Pepperdine to shutout (4) Georgia Tech 4-0, (12) UCLA to upset (5) Ole Miss 4-3, and in the unseeded matchup, Florida State to beat Tulsa 4-2.  So, if Stanford wins and his predictions are otherwise right, we'd see Stanford playing South Carolina in the quarterfinals, and on the other side of the bracket, an all-California quarterfinal between Pepperdine and UCLA.  (For the record, I also think UCLA and Pepperdine will post "upsets" and beat their respective opponents. Could see the Georgia-South Carolina match going either way, and I don't think Northwestern will be that competitive vs. Duke, but I think the Big Ten just wasn't very good this year.)