Men's Tennis Expecting to Win
2/27/2002 12:00:00 AM | Men's Tennis
Feb. 27, 2002
Editor's Note: Dave Campbell's column appears in each edition of the Baylor Bear Insider Report, available upon membership in the Baylor Bear Foundation. For information on joining the Bear Foundation, click here.
Of this and that and the other as Baylor begins a spring semester that just has to be better than what the fall semester delivered.
What the fall semester delivered was mainly a series of disappointments. Just one team -- the volleyball team -- made the NCAA playoffs and thus earned Sears Cup points for Baylor's sports year. I have to think that athletic director Tom Stanton, very much caught up in the Sears (all sports) competition, is not going to tolerate such meager production from the fall sports indefinitely. Nor should he.
But the good news is that the spring returns should be much, much better. Ten different Baylor teams are in action (that's counting men's and women's basketball teams) and I'm guessing at least eight of the 10 will win invitations to participate in post-season competition.
To date, Baylor has won Big 12 championships in four sports (soccer, men's tennis, baseball, men's golf) over the league's five-year history (we are now half way through the sixth year). Which Baylor team will be the one to win that fifth crown? And will it be won this spring?
Answer: Several Baylor teams -- notably baseball (ranked No. 16 nationally in Baseball America's pre-season poll, behind No. 8 Nebraska and No. 9 Texas) and men's golf (although the team is very young) -- appear to have the potential to finish first or thereabouts. But . . .
Prediction: Coach Matt Knoll's men's tennis team will win the Bears' next league crown, and will do so this spring. "I'm going to be bitterly disappointed if we don't win," Knoll told the Insider last week.
No question, his Bears are well armed. Freshman Benni Becker is ranked No. 3 nationally (highest national ranking ever for a Baylor netter), freshman Markus Hornung is ranked No. 25 and sophomore Reiner Neurohr is ranked among the top 100. This is the first time Knoll has ever had three players ranked among the top 100 at the same time. And several of his other Bears -- junior Zoltan Papp, sophomore Matias Marin, sophomore Cory Ross, sophomore Nathan McGregor, freshman Armando Carrascosa -- would be playing No. 1 on a lot of Baylor teams of the past rather than fighting for the No. 4-6 singles spots as they currently are doing.
Editor's Note: Dave Campbell's column appears in each edition of the Baylor Bear Insider Report, available upon membership in the Baylor Bear Foundation. For information on joining the Bear Foundation, click here.
