An incredible season --- Undefeated SEC Conference Champions

A heartbreaking loss in the SEC Tournament Championship Finals to a very strong Mississippi State team definitely hurt but should not diminish what an incredible SEC season we had. INCREDIBLE!

All SEC First Team: Patrick Kypson (Fr) and Arthur Rinderknech (Sr)
All SEC Second Team: Jordi Arconada (Sr), Valentin Vacherot (So), and Juan Carlos Aguilar (Fr)
All SEC Freshmen Team: Patrick Kypson & Juan Carlos Aguilar

Aggie #6 player is Barnaby Smith (Fr). A valuable player, he was 7-3 in SEC play.


ITA Men's Singles Rankings:
#5. Kypson
#12. Rinderknech
#48. Arconada
#72. Vacherot

ITA Men's Doubles Rankings:
#3. Arconada & Aguilar
#52. Kypson & Rinderknech
#65. Arconada & Kevin Lam (Jr)

NCAA Qualifiers:
Singles: Patrick Kypson (#5 seed), Arthur Rinderknech (#9 - #16 Seed), and Jordi Arconada
Doubles: Juan Carols Aguilar & Jordi Arconada (#3 Seed)

Top 8 Seeded Teams in NCAA Tournament
1. Wake Forest
2. UCLA
3. Ohio State
4. Stanford
5. Texas A&M
6. Mississippi State
7. North Carolina
8. Illinois

NCAA Schedule for First and Second Round games Friday and Saturday in Aggieland

May 11, 10 am: Baylor (18) vs Arizona State (36) ITA rankings in parentheses
May 11, 1 pm: #5 TAMU vs Lamar University

May 12, 1 pm: Winners play

Winner of May 12 game, along with 15 other regional winners, will advance to Wake Forrest (WF) for NCAA Championship on May 18-22.

When we get to WF, we may have to beat #12 Florida State and then #4 Stanford to reach the Final Four.

Great season but since the have gone to a more regional format in 1-2 rounds the Aggies got one of the toughest regions. As the 5 seed, typically should play someone in the 25-30 range. Instead they got Baylor or ASU. Baylor is always a tough matchup and they just made the finals of the Big12. Plus, they will bring a good fan base.
Look at Columbia the 16 seed gets UVA, who spent much of year unranked is is ranked 41 or unranked VCU. Not really fair...

That's a good point CoryHub. This is more like the draw that a 16 seed should have gotten, not a 5. Any idea why that happened? I know they tried to have teams travel less than a certain number of miles but this seems pretty drastic.

In a perfectly matched draw the 5 would play the winner of the 28 and the 37, right? Assuming we win, Baylor is really the one getting screwed.

SA68AG said:

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This team has a good shot to establish itself as the best men's tennis team ever at A&M.

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What would that take? Final four?

Harry Dunne said:

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SA68AG said:

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This team has a good shot to establish itself as the best men's tennis team ever at A&M.

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What would that take? Final four?

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My inference from your slightly sarcastic comment is that in your opinion they have already established themselves as the top team ever.

If they lost to Baylor and didn't make it to the sweet 16, would you still feel that way ? I wouldn't.

Elite 8 combined with regular season does the trick for me.

I can see where you would read it that way, but I wasn't being sarcastic at all. I knew that conference champs + elite 8 had been done once under Cass and then a few years ago with Denton so I figured Final Four would be what it took to say "best Aggie team ever".

Considering we are the 5 seed, any less than Elite 8 this year would probably be disappointing but in general I think the Sweet 16 is a great accomplishment and so is winning the SEC, considering several of the other schools have better facilities and a stronger tennis tradition.

This team has a better chance to go all the way than the prior elite 8 teams IMO because of the the strength 1-3.

If Kypson is on mentally and physically, he can beat anyone at number one.

I hope we can find some answers in doubles. You just can't regularly lose the doubles point and hope to always pull out 4 wins in singles.

I'll definitely be disappointed if we don't get to the elite 8 and frankly disappointed if we don't get to the semis or finals. This is the best shot we've had in my lifetime and we may not have a better shot again.

A national championship would be a game changer as far as recruiting goes that could lead to a 5-10 year period of a golden age for Aggie tennis.

A lot riding on this post season.

Good post & thanks for the insight.

Coach is a SIP btw.

AggieWonWon said:

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Coach is a SIP btw.

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So Slick Rick apparently got a new username...

I was thinking the same thing.

The return of aggie11??

jptx said:

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The return of aggie11??

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BTHO Lamar.

Starting This year the NCAA went away from seeding 17-32 and 33-48 and combined it to 17-48 allowing even more teams to play closer to home. It really is t fair bc team from Texas, Cali, Florida will always have way tougher draws bc so many more good ranked teams from 17-30 in those areas.
Think about it a week ago UVA was last 4 out. They beat last 4 in #42 Louisville and now they get in and have the easiest possible draw to the Sweet 16. They get unranked VCU then 16th ranked Columbia.
Baylor/ASU both better teams than UVA have to play each other first round then #5.
UVA has a good chance to go from out of tourney to Sweet 16. Columbia is very good and had a great year beating Baylor at indoors as well as Okie St, Vandy Ole Miss. They have had serious injuries the last month without 3 starters and slipped from 5 to 16. They are still banged up and UVA could take advantage of the opportunity

I am still here do not fear. Great year by Coach O'Shea. He really has the team going! Hope that he can keep his magic working for a few more matches.

SlickRick said:

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I am still here do not fear. Great year by Coach O'Shea. He really has the team going! Hope that he can keep his magic working for a few more matches.

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Apparently you don't know O'Shea that well. The difference is obviously Rick Meyers

SlickRick said:

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I am still here do not fear. Great year by Coach O'Shea. He really has the team going! Hope that he can keep his magic working for a few more matches.

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So you're saying Coach Denton made some great hires. Nice of you to compliment Coach Denton for a change.

You're a changed man Rick !

When is he gonna work on losing a few lbs?

We were a little flat in spots, but no real problem taking down Lamar 4-0. Will need to be sharper tomorrow against Baylor.

When you talk about the greatest A&M tennis team, I assume you mean the best men's team. The women were the NCAA runner's up in, I think, 2012. They lost the championship in a third set tie breaker.

I was a little concerned when the #1 doubles team lost a 5-1 lead, but at #3 they were down 1-3 and won 6-3.

Under Steve Denton we are 6-2 in 2nd round matches at home. Need to make use of the home court advantage today.

On to the sweet 16!

Whoop!

What was going on at the end of set 2 at #1 singles? The bu guy was at the net arguing with our player who was on the baseline, then the bu player and coach were arguing with the referee. Several of the bu players spent a lot of energy arguing with the referee.

mullokmotx said:

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What was going on at the end of set 2 at #1 singles? The bu guy was at the net arguing with our player who was on the baseline, then the bu player and coach were arguing with the referee. Several of the bu players spent a lot of energy arguing with the referee.

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I'd like to know as well. It seemed like Patrick called a ball tailing back to his right out and the BU player and coach were livid. Overall poor sportsmanship on courts 1/3/5 by Baylor. Fans were great, players not so much.

bu guy at #2 singles spent most of the first set arguing. Then after match point he spent 2 minutes arguing before he shook the A&M players hand.

Great win ! Poor sportsmanship and Baylor always seem to go hand in hand.

For those who mildly complained that we did not get weaker teams in our Regional, I am glad we had to play Baylor [ITA #18]. It was a very good match to keep us on our toes so to speak. Even though we had home court, it was not like many other first and second round matches.

Baylor is a very good team we detest as much as they hate us. They also will always bring a fairly significant crowd to our venues.

Great win! Now if #42 Alabama could only please upset Florida State.

Alabama won Doubles point. And won three of first set singles.

Bama and FSU at 2-2. The match could go either way at this point.

Bama up 3-2 now.

uh oh...Bama up 5-3 in the 3rd on line 6.

Double Match Point