06-05-2019, 12:42 PM
(This post was last modified: 06-05-2019, 12:42 PM by ColoradoTree.)
The brackets are filled, as #65 Iowa takes the last spot remaining, the #4 seed in Austin, TX. (Last year, the last team to take a spot was #76 Middle Tennessee State, so fewer teams passed this time around.) Here are the matchups: https://slam.tennis/ita/draft/2020/ncaaw
The most competitive regional is unquestionably Kansas (#13, #18, #21, #22), but it's not hard to imagine any of the four teams advancing out of UW's regional. Florida State has a very tough top 3 seeds (#15, #17, #20), but the #4 will get crushed. That's the same situation, but in a less extreme way, in Austin (#9, #26, #29). #14 Michigan should be afraid of its #2 seed, 19th-ranked UCF, but the #3 and #4 there shouldn't be competitive.
The easiest regionals for the host to advance are Georgia (#2, #47, #55, #58), UNC (#3, #41, #42, #62), Duke (#4, #50, #56, #60), Pepperdine (#6, #46, #49, #52), and UCLA (#7, #51, #59, #61). Stanford (#1, #36, #45, #53) and South Carolina (#5, #35, #39, #64) shouldn't be challenged in the first round but have potentially competitive second round matches, and that's even more true for Vanderbilt (#8, #28, #34, #54), Texas (#9, #26, #29, #65), and Oklahoma State (#12, #23, #25, #37).
As for Pac-12 teams, I think USC is the favorite to get out of Washington's regional, and while Cal will have some battles on their hands in both the first and second rounds, I think Cal is the favorite to advance from KU's regional. (KU loses its top 3 singles players.) I like Arizona State to win its first round but lose to Vandy, WSU-Denver is a coin flip, and I wouldn't expect anything out of Utah or Arizona.
One interesting feature is that slam.tennis has a "compare teams" feature that predicts the lineup and compares UTRs across those anticipated singles lines. It slots incoming players in where their UTRs would suggest, so Angelica Blake is projected to play #2 for us (11.41), and Mossmer is at #5 (11.03), behind Shin and ahead of Higuchi, with Madurawe and Choy on the bench. I don't think that's likely, however, since a junior player having a higher UTR than an established collegian might not prove anything--it could just be that the incoming freshman has been playing tournaments against comparably ranked players, while someone like Shin or Higuchi has just spent several months playing players rated below them, so they don't get much of a chance to climb. Comparing this year's batch of UTRs to the same time last year (and recognizing that there was a tweak to the UTR algorithm sometime in the last year that seemed to bump down collegiate UTRs across the board a bit), here's what it looked like at the end of the 2018 season vs. the end of this season:
2018:
Gordon (11.99)
Lord (11.98)
Arbuthnott (11.77)
Lampl (11.71)
Shin (11.57)
Madurawe* (11.57)
Higuchi (11.55)
Choy* (11.08)
Yee (10.91)
2019:
Gordon (11.71)
Lord** (11.55)
Lampl** (11.45)
Blake* (11.41)
Arbuthnott (11.39)
Shin (11.29)
Mossmer* (11.03)
Higuchi (10.87)
Madurawe (10.86)
Choy (10.85)
Yee** (10.59)
* incoming freshman
** departing senior
I think the odds of Blake playing singles are high, and vaulting Higuchi/Madurawe/Choy seems plausible, but I don't see her playing higher than Arbuthnott or Shin. I think the odds of both Madurawe and Choy being out of the singles lineup are very small, so I'm assuming Mossmer is on the outside looking in along with one of Madurawe/Choy.
The most competitive regional is unquestionably Kansas (#13, #18, #21, #22), but it's not hard to imagine any of the four teams advancing out of UW's regional. Florida State has a very tough top 3 seeds (#15, #17, #20), but the #4 will get crushed. That's the same situation, but in a less extreme way, in Austin (#9, #26, #29). #14 Michigan should be afraid of its #2 seed, 19th-ranked UCF, but the #3 and #4 there shouldn't be competitive.
The easiest regionals for the host to advance are Georgia (#2, #47, #55, #58), UNC (#3, #41, #42, #62), Duke (#4, #50, #56, #60), Pepperdine (#6, #46, #49, #52), and UCLA (#7, #51, #59, #61). Stanford (#1, #36, #45, #53) and South Carolina (#5, #35, #39, #64) shouldn't be challenged in the first round but have potentially competitive second round matches, and that's even more true for Vanderbilt (#8, #28, #34, #54), Texas (#9, #26, #29, #65), and Oklahoma State (#12, #23, #25, #37).
As for Pac-12 teams, I think USC is the favorite to get out of Washington's regional, and while Cal will have some battles on their hands in both the first and second rounds, I think Cal is the favorite to advance from KU's regional. (KU loses its top 3 singles players.) I like Arizona State to win its first round but lose to Vandy, WSU-Denver is a coin flip, and I wouldn't expect anything out of Utah or Arizona.
One interesting feature is that slam.tennis has a "compare teams" feature that predicts the lineup and compares UTRs across those anticipated singles lines. It slots incoming players in where their UTRs would suggest, so Angelica Blake is projected to play #2 for us (11.41), and Mossmer is at #5 (11.03), behind Shin and ahead of Higuchi, with Madurawe and Choy on the bench. I don't think that's likely, however, since a junior player having a higher UTR than an established collegian might not prove anything--it could just be that the incoming freshman has been playing tournaments against comparably ranked players, while someone like Shin or Higuchi has just spent several months playing players rated below them, so they don't get much of a chance to climb. Comparing this year's batch of UTRs to the same time last year (and recognizing that there was a tweak to the UTR algorithm sometime in the last year that seemed to bump down collegiate UTRs across the board a bit), here's what it looked like at the end of the 2018 season vs. the end of this season:
2018:
Gordon (11.99)
Lord (11.98)
Arbuthnott (11.77)
Lampl (11.71)
Shin (11.57)
Madurawe* (11.57)
Higuchi (11.55)
Choy* (11.08)
Yee (10.91)
2019:
Gordon (11.71)
Lord** (11.55)
Lampl** (11.45)
Blake* (11.41)
Arbuthnott (11.39)
Shin (11.29)
Mossmer* (11.03)
Higuchi (10.87)
Madurawe (10.86)
Choy (10.85)
Yee** (10.59)
* incoming freshman
** departing senior
I think the odds of Blake playing singles are high, and vaulting Higuchi/Madurawe/Choy seems plausible, but I don't see her playing higher than Arbuthnott or Shin. I think the odds of both Madurawe and Choy being out of the singles lineup are very small, so I'm assuming Mossmer is on the outside looking in along with one of Madurawe/Choy.