Aleady lost the Doubles Point, 8-3, 9-8(4), 8-2

[This message has been edited by Ags76 (edited 3/7/2009 7:14p).]

Lose. 2-5

[This message has been edited by Ags76 (edited 3/7/2009 7:05p).]

Coach K !!!!

No surprise here. Move along.

explain to me how you blame every loss that any team at A&M has on the coach??? Coach K is not calling plays for the girls, its not football.

His program,his players,his preparation. With that said, how do you predict the preformance of 18-22 year old girls?

Inquiring minds want to know.

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explain to me how you blame every loss that any team at A&M has on the coach??? Coach K is not calling plays for the girls, its not football.

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That's the most illogical defense I've heard for tennis. Coach K recruits and develops these players. That's his job and it continues to be done at a mediocre level.

So does it ever fall a little on the chance that the players are not prepared themselves? That they went out and partied too much? That they arent mentally focused for the match?

Part of it falls on the coach, but you cant put it all on him. If an individual player does not match up well with their opponent, sometimes there is nothing you can do.

On a better note, we did win at 1 and 2 singles, which has not happened in a while.

it's gonna get worse before it gets better.

The women's program is what it is. What you see is what we got.

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So does it ever fall a little on the chance that the players are not prepared themselves? That they went out and partied too much? That they arent mentally focused for the match?

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I suppose that could be an excuse for a match or two. But not for 1 Sweet Sixteen and 1 Conference Championship in 20 years.

Look I'm not calling for his head. I've accepted the mediocrity of women's tennis. Put them down for 3rd/4th in the conference and a 1st/2nd round NCAA loss. If that's good enough for people, fine. Apathy is the word for me.

Cooter pretty well sums it up.

Why do we continue to accept this result in women's tennis because Coach K is a nice guy...Should let me go and bring in new blood. No offense to the guy but was was HS coach before taking over a Div 1 progam..That would never happen in this day and age.

Todd Petty, Texas Tech University, just came in from Wichita Falls Rider High School.

Three points 1. Do we really want to compare ourselves with Texas Tech? 2. Per the ttu website says he is an interim coach .3 I am not bashing K but from a HS to a major division 1 program is unheard of in this day and age.

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The women's program is what it is. What you see is what we got.

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Bingo

Todd Petty at Texas Tech was the assistant coach and is the interim coach because he got "promoted" after the former head coach either got fired or resigned abruptly, depending on who is telling the story. Hiring a h.s. coach for a big D1 program is probably not a good idea.

That said, I think Bobby K's 25 years of experience probably trumps his HS background.

THAT said, read the above quote, which is about the truest thing you can say about our program. It is what it is and it ain't ever gonna be what it's not.

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Bobby K's 25 years of experience

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Don't confuse experience with success. Expecting his teams to be anything other than "also-rans" is unreasonable.

I agree with the above post.

My only point was that the guys that keep bringing up the fact that he is a "high school coach" forget about guys like Lawrence Frank, HC of the New Jersey Nets was a MANAGER for his high school basketball team. I think what Frank has done since then trumps his humble beginnings. Same with BK.

Bobby K. does bring a lot of positives to the table, but recruiting has never been one of them. How many All-Americans has he had? Not many. A fact that only points more towards the conclusion that he is probably a decent tennis coach (if he has been able to have good success with less than stellar talent). Baylor doesn't count because they're all Euros, but if you look at the longhorn roster, it is full of "blue-chippers" while ours is full of girls one tier lower...pretty similar to football, actually. He either needs to chill out with the mammoth summer camps and hit the American recruiting trail a lot harder or take a trip to Russia and find the next Sharapova.

Without that, I agree - probably the same boring cycle where his best teams are ranked 20 and win a round at the NCAAs and his worst teams are ranked 45...and either way finish 3rd in conference.

I don't see a change in the future. Byrne has bigger fish to fry than women's tennis and the bottom line is that Bobby K. has a respectable team with a respectable record year after year. If it were a more high-profile sport, I think he might be gone, but the time and money that it takes to hire a new coach relative to the revenue and publicity that even a great coach would generate (very little of the latter and zero of the former) means Bobby K is here to stay.


[This message has been edited by Harry Dunne (edited 3/12/2009 9:34a).]

I think ,among other things, he is simply a lazy recruiter. Back in the mid 90's I personally gave him the name and phone number and other contact information of a Dutch player who was intersted in A&M. This girl had wins as a junior over women on the tour with rankings in the 150s. According to her he never bothered to call or contact her in any way. She played collegiately and ended up with a singles ranking in the twenties which I think is higher than any player he's ever coached. That pretty much told me the guy was never going to have anything other than a mediocre program.

Harry Dunne is right, Coach k runs a very respectable program, plus hasn't had a losing season in 16 years with a conference championship and big 12 tourny championship in the past 6 years. If only our football program could do that.

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if you look at the longhorn roster, it is full of "blue-chippers" while ours is full of girls one tier lower...pretty similar to football

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Our tennis facilities are second to none, and are a great recruiting tool. The fact that our recruits consistently don't measure up to tu's is the root cause our program sucks on the hind tit when it comes to competing for championships.

I agree that BB doesn't give a second thought to tennis. The disaster he is administrating in the football program is likely taking all of his time.

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but if you look at the longhorn roster, it is full of "blue-chippers" while ours is full of girls one tier lower

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wrong. please name me all of the blue chips from ut women's tennis for the last 5 years.

Running out of excuses when the tangibles are in
place. I really doubt that Byrne will accept the
status quo after this season.

you know how many years people have been saying that he wont stand for it?

Facts are that BK runs a clean program, BB has no reasons to worry that it will get A&M athletics in trouble, and he has a winning season every year. Dont count on anything changing, coaching wise.

In the last 3 years

Longhorns Blue-chippers:

2008 Aeriel Ellis #5 '08 recruit in the country - will join the team in 2009
2007 Maggie Mello #9
2006 Amanda Craddock #9
2006 Stephanie Davidson #13

5* recruits
2008 Krista D'Amico #9
2006 Sarah Lancaster #31

...and their top 2 players are international, so this is what they have to choose from at 3-6!!!

We on the other hand have not had one blue-chip recruit. Our 5-star recruits are:

'08 Ashley Turpin #73
'07 Stephanie Davidson #43
'07 Morgan Frank #35
'07 Christina Liles #37

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wrong. please name me all of the blue chips from ut women's tennis for the last 5 years.

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Again, their roster is FULL of blue chip recruits, and we have none. Their 6th best recruit over the last 3 years is better than our BEST (ranking-wise, at least). So by "wrong" I think you meant "I have no idea what I'm talking about and should use the interweb a little more before talking like a know-it-all", am I getting warmer?

...and actually, the fact that texas has CRUSHED us in recruiting is not an excuse - it is what it is. I think BK does OK with what he's got, but I do agree that it's his fault that he doesn't have more. He's lucky that texas does so little with so much - they have the talent to match any school in the country, but don't really get it done.


[This message has been edited by Harry Dunne (edited 3/13/2009 5:06p).]

Texas blue chips the last 5 years: Davison, Craddock, Mello, Corovic**
A&M blue chips the last 5 years: Potgieter**, Cuthbertson**

Texas 5-stars the last 5 years: Damico, Lancaster, Zauft, Larsson**
A&M 5-stars the last 5 years: Turpin, Davidson, Frank, Liles, Clifford, Druss, Blagodarova**

Texas 4-stars the last 5 years: Leyden, Wiegand, Zein, Milic**
A&M 4-stars the last 5 years: Olivier, Santacroce

**estimated from ITF rankings and results

Four blue chips on the roster in 5 years does not equal “FULL” in my opinion, that's all I'm saying. Look, you're gonna get no argument from me about Texas being more talented than we are THIS SEASON. You’re 100% right on that. But you can't tell me that they have been beating us because they're a team that has been loaded with elite talent in recent years. It’s just not true. Not yet, at least…but believe me, Patty is on her way.

I'm not trying to start an argument here, and I wasn’t being rude with my previous post. I am agreeing with you that our recruiting has been sub-par for the last few years. Everyone knows that…you, me, even BK. My point is that it's not the recruiting that is keeping A&M #3 in the conference and #30 in the nation. It's lack of development, preparation, and motivation. Even when we had plenty of talent (Viera, Roland, Spencer, Walker, Lubinsky, Foster, Mechem, Blagodarova, Clifford, etc.) we couldn't get to the next level on a consistent basis. You've got to get the most out of what you have, and that hasn't been happening. If BK got some girls to reach their potential, or even *gasp* over-achieve, more blue chips would give A&M a second look.

By the way, I'm guessing I got my data from the same place you did. I've been a "Recruiting Advantage" member since 2005, and I'm on that site 5 days a week. I wouldn't have bothered with posting unless I knew what I was talking about.

[This message has been edited by camden creek (edited 3/14/2009 2:22a).]

I agree with you for the most part.

I got my data from tennisrecruiting.net, which in my opinion is pretty accurate about the American players (probably due to the fact that they ONLY rate American players) but incomplete because it doesn't rate internationals. What is recruting advantage and why are you on it 5 days a week? Do you coach? One of my good buddies is a college coach and although I am just a fan of Aggie tennis, I stay pretty well-informed about the college scene because it makes being a fan a lot more fun.

What I do know is that Caroline Larsson was one of the most highly pursued recruits of her class. She chose Texas over Florida and UCLA, among others. I would say that's the definition of a blue chip.

Also, Janelle Cuthbertson was passed on by many big-name schools because of injury concerns. She is undboutedly talented and based on ranking you can for sure call her a blue chipper, but when the big dogs are passing on her, I believe her "actual" rating is probably not as high.

The bottom line is that there are only 8 scholarships...and we both agree that in the last 4 years texas has filled anywhere from 4 to 6 of them with blue-chip players, most of them American. I would say that having 50 to 75% of your roster full of blue-chip players is having a roster "full of them", wouldn't you?

Aside from the above, I agree with most of what you have said. I think that it is a shame that A&M women's tennis can't be more competitive but the way I see it, there aren't a lot of Urban Meyers and Pete Carrolls out there revolutionizing womens' tennis because those guys would force the landscape to change and force the stale coaches to change or retire. When Cass (who I think WAS a guy like the analogy above) retired, we were down to our 5th or 6th choice to replace him and we got Denton, who I like and who is doing fine, but isn't really rocking college tennis' socks off. If BK retires (or gets canned, which I don't see happening), I am not sure that it is such a "hot job" that we are going to steal Stella Sampras or Bryan Shelton away.



[This message has been edited by Harry Dunne (edited 3/14/2009 12:03p).]

It appears there is consensus on two key points: BK can't recruit and he sucks at player development. It is not surprising that the top-level talent doesn't want anything to do with A&M.