Wake Forest Men, Georgia Women Top Seeds with NCAA D-I Team Championships Brackets Released; More American Titles on ITF Junior Circuit Last Week

The NCAA Division I fields are set with the selection shows revealing the draws for this weekend's regionals at 16 men's and 16 women's sites across the country. These shows used to be must-see, with unanswered questions on who would host and how the seeds would shake out, but Chris Halioris at collegetennisranks.com has taken all the drama out of the reveal with his programming to project the fields and the seeds. For the second straight year, he correctly predicted all 16 men's and women's seeds, in order, with the only thing left to learn is who would be traveling to play in those 32 regionals. That has now been answered; click on the headings to go to the draws.

The Division I top 16 seeds:

MEN:
1. Wake Forest
2. TCU
3. Texas
4. Stanford
5. Ohio State
6. San Diego
7. Virginia
8. Columbia
9. NC State
10. Arizona
11. Cal
12. Mississippi State
13. South Carolina
14. Tennessee
15. Central Florida
16. Texas A&M

The formula the NCAA committee uses and does not deviate from moved fourth-ranked Virginia down to 7, allowed No. 18 Texas A&M, who lost in their first match (the quarterfinals) of the SEC tournament, to move ahead of No. 16 UCLA, who won the Big Ten tournament title, and had No. 9 Columbia supplant NC State for the No. 8 spot. That is critical in that the top 8 will also host the Super Regional round of 16 matches next weekend.

I don't mind the head-to-head criteria, which is how Columbia overtook NC State, but the two other parts of the formula that look at record vs common opponents and Top 50 wins are not really indicative of anything that isn't in the ranking or the head-to-head. Giving greater weight to more recent results would certainly help get a better picture in these cases when so little appears to separate one team from another in the rankings.

So No. 11 seed Cal ends up being a draw loser, with UCLA coming to Berkeley after winning the Big Ten title and having a loss to Cal back in February to avenge. Texas A&M gets a tough Baylor team, but it would have been more fitting if UCLA was sent to College Station to decide who should have been the No. 16 seed on the court.

WOMEN:

1. Georgia

2. Texas A&M

3. Michigan

4. Ohio State

5. North Carolina

6. Oklahoma

7. Virginia

8. Duke

9. Auburn

10. Tennessee

11. Texas Tech

12. NC State

13. LSU

14. Texas

15. Vanderbilt

16. Washington

The women had fewer flips, with just Texas Tech, No. 12 in the rankings, passing No. 11 NC State, and that was based on Tech's win over NC State at Kickoff Weekend.

But the NCAA's iron-clad 400-mile rule gives rise to all sorts of contortions that aren't in anyone's best interest. The No. 1 rule in deciding who goes where is to send teams to regionals within 400 miles of them, which is considered a drive, not a flight. Put another way, the NCAA committee has to make their top priority the fewest number of flights. It also must keep fellow conference members away from the same regional.  

Why this drive vs fly has assumed such importance is beyond me, and I know the NCAA tennis committee is trying to get it changed to give them more flexibility in forming regions, but they have been unable to make any inroads with the NCAA. This leads to Oklahoma, the No. 6 seed, hosting No. 19 Oklahoma State, who can easily bring their fans to Norman, while No. 5 North Carolina's No. 2 seed is No. 28 South Carolina, who has now been in Chapel Hill for regional play for three straight years. 

The minimizing flights metric could make some sense if the NCAA was paying for these flights, but they are not. The 64 schools participating in each draw pay all their own expenses for the first two rounds, and they have no input on whether they would be willing to pay more to travel if it meant a more balanced regional as a result. 

To read the manuals for the championships and see the lineups submitted by each team, click here. I assume the dates and time will be out in the next day or two, with matches beginning Friday.

I will have more comments on the draws later this week at the annual Tennis Recruiting Network NCAA D-I Roundtable. For the instant reactions of Halioris, Cracked Racquets' Alex Gruskin and No-ad No-problem's John Parsons, plus Gruskin's interview with NCAA tennis committee chair Chris Young, see this Deciding Point episode on YouTube.

I had already reviewed the results of the ITF J100 in Delray Beach on Saturday, and the J500 in Offenbach Germany Sunday but there were other titles for Americans on the ITF Junior Circuit in several far-flung places, starting with the J200 in Aldershot England. Unseeded Ford McCollum and Nischal Spurling won their second straight J200 title, and their fourth of the year, defeating unseeded Christian Gronfeldt-Sorensen and August Brostroem Poulsen of Denmark 7-6(9), 6-3 in the final. McCollum and Spurling, who won J200 titles in February on hard courts in the Dominican Republic, won the J200 on clay last week in Italy.

Jack Secord, the No. 2 seed, reached the final, falling to the defending champion, No. 6 Benjamin Gusic Wan, 6-3, 6-3. Gusic Wan had reached the final of the British 18s Nationals two weeks ago.

Sixteen-year-old Carel Ngounoue's ITF winning streak this month ended at 15, with a loss in the final at the J100 in Tunisia. The unseeded Ngounoue, who won a J60 in Malta and a J100 in Tunisia two weeks ago, lost to unseeded Yanael Beranger of France 6-1, 2-6, 6-3 in the final.

Americans swept the titles at the J30 in Jamaica, with 15-year-old top seed Kamil Stolarczyk of New York taking his first ITF Junior Circuit title with a 6-1, 4-1 retired decision over No. 2 seed Pedro Vargas in the all-USA boys final.

Unseeded 14-year-old Aarini Bhattacharya of Virginia won her first two ITF Junior Circuit titles, beating unseeded McKenzie Shelton 6-0, 7-5 in the all-USA singles final, after partnering with Gianna Graci for the doubles title. The No. 4 seeds defeated No. 3 seeds Shelton and Allison Crane 6-2, 7-6(0) in the final.

In the fourth all-USA final No. 3 seeds Sean Peng and Andrej Markovic defeated unseeded Carson Kuchar and Robert McAdoo 7-6(4), 6-4 for the doubles title. I believe Kuchar is the son of PGA golf star Matt Kuchar and McAdoo the grandson of NBA Hall-of-Famer Bob McAdoo. 

At the J30 in Kigali Ruwanda, 16-year-old Eaden-Zack Harron of Florida won his first ITF Junior Circuit singles title. The No. 6 seed defeated top seed Shaurya Swarup of India 7-5, 7-6(3) in the final. 

And at the J30 in Sri Lanka, 18-year-old Shourya Bhattacharya won his first title on the ITF Junior Circuit, taking the doubles with Nikhil Kurapati of India. The unseeded pair defeated No. 3 seeds Chuan Ding and Ziao Qian of China 6-4, 1-6, 10-8 in the final.

This week's ITF Junior Circuit tournament in the United States is a J100 in Coral Gables Florida, with Zavier Augustin and Welles Newman the top seeds.