University of Minnesota Athletics
Minnesota Receives NCAA Tournament Bid
4/28/2015 12:00:00 AM | Men's Tennis
April 28, 2015
NCAA Release | Full Tournament Bracket
INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. - The 23rd-ranked Minnesota men's tennis team received an at-large bid for the 2015 NCAA Tournament, which was announced Tuesday afternoon. The Gophers will play No. 36-ranked Princeton in the first round at 9 a.m. CT May 8 in Charlottesville, Va. Should they advance, they would take on either No. 3 overall seed and regional host Virginia or St. John's May 9 at 2 p.m. CT.Â
The winner of each site will advance to Baylor's Hurd Tennis Center in Waco, Texas, where the final 16 teams will compete for the national championship May 14-19.
The Gophers will make their 25th all-time appearance in the NCAA Tournament. It will be their seventh showing in head coach Geoff Young's nine seasons as head coach of the team. Minnesota last competed in the event in 2013, also in Charlottesville. There, it defeated VCU in the first round before falling to eventual national champion Virginia in the Round of 32.
This season, the Gophers are 20-7--having already secured their first 20-win campaign since 2003--and finished with a 10-1 mark in Big Ten play, earning a share of their first conference title since 1995. They are 11-7 against nationally ranked teams and have five wins over teams in the tournament field.
Princeton will enter the teams' first-round match with a 19-7 record that includes a 4-3 ledger in Ivy League play and wins in six of its seven neutral-site matches. The Tigers lost to Big Ten opponent Penn State Feb. 28, but defeated Indiana by a 4-1 score March 19. They tied with Cornell for fourth place in the Ivy League.
Zack McCourt leads Princeton with a No. 79 singles ranking. He is 48th in doubles alongside Thomas Colautti.
The Maroon and Gold has a 1-1 all-time record against the Tigers, but has not played them since 2002 when it earned a 7-0 win in Malibu, Calif. Minnesota is 1-4 against the Cavaliers and has never played St. John's.
Tournament matches will be regulation dual matches with three eight-game, pro-set doubles played for one team point, followed by six singles matches, each valued at one team point, played in best-of-three sets. Regular scoring will be used and a 12-point tiebreaker will be played at seven-games-all in doubles and at six-games-all in singles.
