Aggies almost lost last year up in Columbia by a score of 4-3. Today, the Ags get the match 5-2, but it was WAYYYYYYYY to close for comfort. Tigers, an indoor team, and a historic conference bottom feeder seemed to have more pride and pushed enough matches to where they really could have won this match. Close doubles, two wins in singls, and had it been up at their place, and not at our amazing facility with our crowd, you have to wonder. Urbina is incredible, but the Mizzou redhead pushed her hard. Morgan won a rematch against a girl that beat her in Missouri last year.

Kansas State is something to be concerned about as they shocked #10 Baylor yesterday in Waco (who we've never done anything against in Waco or here in College Station - don't kid yourself, Baylor is a lot better than us). Oklahoma has clearly turned things around, and I have heard they have surpassed us. Oklahoma State and Tech are very dangerous and have closed the gap, and Nebraska's Germans are just deeper. We got blown out by Texas and even Iowa State is pretty good. Kansas and Colorado are the only teams I see us clearly better than.

We've by far got the best facilities in the conference if not in the country. What gives?

And that's why we play the matches, we will see what happens.

Some of it might have been "too close", basically the same girls who gave us some trouble have given Baylor and Texas a few fits, but we were clearly a better team than Missouri.

We've certainly been stuck in that "good, but not great" position for the past 5-6 years. I don't know if that will ever change, but we'll see what happens when they play the matches.

From what I can tell, this is the best team we have had for a while. We still have the problem of lack of depth and this is probably not a team that can win more than one round at NCAAs. I think the main problem as the OP has pointed out, is that the other teams in the conference and in Texas are getting better and we are just sort of staying the same. Also the mens' great success (with two different coaches now) probably has a lot of us asking "why not the women"?

I do think that this team is good enough to finish 3rd in the conference, which as OP points out is actually much more of an accomplishment than it used to be back in the days when there was only 3 good teams.

I would just like to see more Nazaris being recruited.

Baylor's loss to Kansas State was a fluke, in my opinion. They didn't play Filipiak or Ormond in singles, and Joey messing around with his lineup every week finally caught up to him. As much as I hate to say it, I would be surprised if they lose any more conference matches.

And we do NOT have "by far the best facilities in the conference, if not in the country." They are still way, way above average, and we are always making improvements, but they don't blow everyone away like they used to. You can't just count on the facilities to do the recruiting, especially on the women's side.

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And we do NOT have "by far the best facilities in the conference, if not in the country."

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That seems like it would have to be true, since our facility is now 13 years old. I have not had a chance to see that many. Just out of curiosity, whose facilities are better?

Like I said, our facilities are still very, very good and they still provide one of the best home court advantages in the country. All the teams love playing at our place, and the NCAA/ITA/Big 12 loves having us host their tournaments. What I'm saying is, they are not BY FAR the best, to the extent that they give us some sort of unbeatable recruiting advantage. They are a big part of the package, but the facilities alone don't bring in the best players.

Off the top of my head, Baylor, Tulsa, OU, Arkansas, Illinois, Michigan, Virginia, Stanford, Tennessee, Georgia, and a handful of others have great facilities that are physically comparable to Mitchell.

Check out this video. Scroll forward to the locker room part.

http://www.baylorathleticsexperience.com/facility_tennis.php