Making the NCAA Tournament was never in question for the Arizona men’s tennis team. Whether or not it would be hosting the first two rounds of the tournament, however, remained up in the air.
The team huddled around a pair of TVs in the Arizona Sands Club as it awaited its fate Monday. The bracket was released and Arizona was left out of the top 16, missing out on the opportunity to host an NCAA Tournament match in Tucson for the first time in program history.
The Wildcats will instead travel to Cary, North Carolina, to face Princeton (18-8) in the first round at 11 a.m. Friday. No. 15-seeded UNC could await in the second round.
Arizona has lost just one match at home in the last two seasons, so it’s understandable why the Wildcats (20-6) wanted to host the first two rounds.
Head coach Clancy Shields could only describe the feeling as, “a kick to the gut.”
“I’m heartbroken for our team,” Shields said. “We earned it, we deserved it. “We should be hosting the NCAA Tournament on our home courts. The NCAA has their reasoning and things behind it, but I’ll tell you what, I’m really bummed for our kids.”
“We were certainly thinking we were gonna be here at home.”
Arizona won its Pac-12 title with a 7-0 conference record, but the then-No. 15 Wildcats were upset in the Pac-12 quarterfinals. UA entered Monday’s selection show ranked 17th in the ITA polls.
“We won the Pac-12, I think we’ve had a great season,” senior Filip Malbasic said. “I’m still surprised, but it is what it is.”
USC, which won the Pac-12 Tournament but lost to UA in the regular season, drew the No. 13 seed and will host the first two rounds.
Shields said his phone was “ringing off the hook” from his coaching colleagues around the country shortly after the bracket was announced. They too were wondering how the Pac-12 regular-season champions were sent on the road.
After the selection show, Shields pulled the team aside and reminded them what they still had to play for.
“I just looked them in the eye and said, ‘I don’t know what happened and I’m sorry that I’ve been pitching this.’ I really believed,” Shields said.
“I just told him that we’ve got the big chip on our shoulder and we’re gonna go battle our butts off in North Carolina and we’re gonna play our hearts out and and we’re gonna leave this program this season in a really good place for our seniors.”
It will be the Wildcats’ third straight appearance in the NCAA Tournament. Coming off of their first-ever run to the Sweet 16 in last year’s tournament, senior Carlos Hassey believes their previous two trips to the big dance have better prepared them for what lies ahead in this year’s event.
“It took everyone to step up and it took all our teammates to support each other heavily,” Hassey said. “We’re on the road so no one is going for us, no one is rooting for us. We just have to create that energy ourselves and that’s just what we got to do again this year.”
Shields admitted that he would love to make it farther in the tournament than they did last year but reminded his team not to get too far ahead of themselves. Should the Wildcats get to the Sweet 16 again, it’s likely opponent would be No. 2 Florida.
“We only look at the first round and it’s Princeton,” Shields said. “They’ve kind of had our number (including a 4-0 win over UA two years ago). They’re a really talented team. They’re a good, good team. Tough, tough out. We’re gonna have our hands full in that first round playing one of the top teams in the Ivy League and so we’re not going to look past anything,. It’s one match at a time. If we get past Princeton, that’s gonna be a heck of a battle.”
Being snubbed out of the top 16 is just another piece of adversity that this team has faced over the last few years. Shields believes it has only made them stronger.
“We play our best when our backs are against the wall,” Shields said. “You can look into their eyes and see that they’re hungry and they want to go prove a point. We’re gonna go do that this week … All that adversity is what made it that much sweeter last year when we did it in Kentucky and and we’ll just refocus, get our head screwed on straight and get ready for a war in North Carolina.”
