[oldalum]

When you have the advantage at every position, it probably makes sense to try to play it straight, no?  You figure that Heck and Ye would be strong favorites against anyone they play.

BC

I agree but the ideal for Arizona may be to prefer a reverse order lineup and hope they win the #3 match (along with the two involving their two best players). It's not fully under Walker's control. Arizona should be able to throw away one match with a worse player against one of our two best, shouldn't they? And further complicating things is that the stroke play and match play strengths of an individual player may differ. I assume the coaches have all this doped out ahead of time, so no matter who Arizona throws up there we have our path planned.

The Arizona coach is probably pretty good at this too: in 2018 she took Arizona from the 8-seed in match play to win the championship, defeating us in the semis along the way.

[oldalum]

When you have the advantage at every position, it probably makes sense to try to play it straight, no?  You figure that Heck and Ye would be strong favorites against anyone they play.

BC

I agree but the ideal for Arizona may be to prefer a reverse order lineup and hope they win the #3 match (along with the two involving their two best players). It's not fully under Walker's control. Arizona should be able to throw away one match with a worse player against one of our two best, shouldn't they? And further complicating things is that the stroke play and match play strengths of an individual player may differ. I assume the coaches have all this doped out ahead of time, so no matter who Arizona throws up there we have our path planned.

The Arizona coach is probably pretty good at this too: in 2018 she took Arizona from the 8-seed in match play to win the championship, defeating us in the semis along the way.