The Aggie men take on the Sooners today at 1:00 pm at the Mitchell Tennis Center; looks like a beautiful day; if you are in the area come out and support the guys; should be a great match

I'll second that. It's an absolutely beautiful day outside. Looking forward to watching some tennis today.

Not looking good in doubles. Down a break on 2 & 3.

Court 3 has had a couple chances to break back but haven't converted.

Court 2 breaks back. On serve on courts 1&2.

Court 3 drops their match 8-6.

Court 2 immediately broken again. Sooners to serve for the doubles point.

Sobers start 0-30 but win 4 straight to win the match. Spooners take the doubles point. Going to be very difficult to win now.

Withrow back in the singles lineup at number 5 pushing Szabo down to number 6.

Aggies down early breaks on courts 2&4. Should be up a break on 1 but the OU player is a liar.

Now down two breaks on Court 4. Shane looks off... Obviously.

Down a break on 6.

Down a break on every court but 1&3. Wow. Totally different team today.

[This message has been edited by Blake2003 (edited 2/24/2013 2:56p).]

Jackson breaks back on 5. Efferding on 2 is down 5-0.

Shane loses his first set on court 4; 6-1.

Jackson is broken to lose his first set 6-4. Have to leave so no more updates from me.

Aggies end up dropping the match 5-2. That's a disappointing result, but it's not all bad.

Shane fought back from losing the first set 1-6 to win the next two sets 6-1 and 6-0. He showed off his fitness as his opponent was completely gassed by the end of the match.

Harry also continues to be a stud. He won his match on 3 in straight sets and looked dominant doing it. He had his opponent looking up to the sky as if to say "what can I do?" on several occasions.

You couldn't help but feel bad for Jeremy Efferding. For much of the first set, his opponent was playing lights out. Every serve was right on the "T" and every lob over Jeremy's head was splitting the baseline rather than pushing long. Jeremy's body language was bad on top of that, as he was clearly down on himself. He fought back hard in the second set, but he couldn't keep from dropping the match in straights.

I'm still bullish on this team. They beat a team they should beat in Tulsa on Friday night and dropped a tough one against a very good OU team. That's not a bad weekend.

Agree Duke; not bad at all; my six year old grandson asked me on the way to the match who was the underdog and what was the line; I said we were the underdog and there was no way to predict an accurate line; I told him base case was a 4-3 aggie win, and a more likely result was 4-3 or -5-2 OU win; when we walked out of Mitchell he told me "you were right; 5-2, but we played hard"

Played hard but without the doubles point, we didn't have much of a chance.

Also interesting that Withrow/Ore were at 2 doubles and the freshman were moved up

I love the optimism from some of you guys but come on. OU was just a better team than us no doubt about it. Anytime you lose the doubles point and not win a set in 4 of the singles matches on your home courts that is simply not good enough. This team will have a good year, but will not be great. I will keep my hopes up but I don't have very high goals for this team this year. Maybe better next year if they can bring in a #1 player they can be a top team.

Or develop a number 1 player. This team is much better than last year and is all about potential. I don't think they are going to have a spectacular year, but I think they will have a good year, and considering the most experienced player is a junior, they should develop.

Harry, Shane and even Efferding could develop Into #1. I'd only expect 1 new scholarship guy next year

I agree with Slickrick. We're going to need to a recruit a number one. There's too big a gap between the guys we have and the typical guy playing at number 1 in the SEC.

There is a gap now but I don't think that gap will be large next year and expect a top 8 caliber team

I think both Shane and Harry, particularly Harry, could develop into a #1.

Efferding I'm not so sure about. I love his fitness, his drive and his passion, but I don't know if there is a big enough weapon in his repertoire to be a true #1.

Denton has done a great job getting the better American players to come here in a very competitive recruiting world out there. However, he has got to start bringing in one or two top internationals in. He has done a very poor job of bringing in top internationals. Klegou and Grigirov are pretty much it and they weren't really that great to be honest. The Austin Kraijcek's of the world are hard to come by.

^

+1

With the exception of Virginia we are getting as many high caliber American players as anyone. And if Virginia didnt land Jamere Jenkins and Mitchell Frank we would have probably gotten them. Its dissapointing we havent really filled that void that Krajicek/Dadamo left at the top of the lineup.

Viriginia coach must be one hell of a coach if we are getting comparable level players as you say cause they are always at least 2 tiers above us in the rankings.

We're still a very young team guys, chill out. They simply had more experience than us.

I think Denton and McKinley do an excellent job of player development. I was always impressed with the improvement Austin K. showed. However I think it's a real stretch to project any of our current players into a top level SEC #1. Even Austin would have lost several matches in SEC competition. We really need to recruit a top international guy if we want to move to the top ten level or compete for an SEC title.JMO.

We need a top 3 American or international for sure but I wouldn't underestimate the potential of the guys on campus

This is almost too difficult to try to discuss on an internet forum; we have been so close on a couple of guys who would have made a huge difference; the UVA guys are a great example; we have some really great young players, but I agree we need a really dominant guy at the head of the lineup; one of the young guys may develop, but I would like one really great player; of course so does everybody else;

I think Ore was supposed to be that dominant #1 guy. He had some big wins as a junior including a win against the #1 player in the world at the French Open Jrs. His original plan was to turn pro and skip college. In retrospect he probably should've redshirted as a true freshman. Instead, he hardly ever cracked the singles lineup and primarily played #2,#3 doubles. That says a lot about the level of these top college players and how good we were two years ago. Shane and Harry can get there and are definitely smart by deciding to play college tennis unlike Krueger and Ward-Hibbert who were committed here last spring.

Anyone know how we are looking for future recruits? I know we are young and may not sign but 1 next year.