The road to the NCAA Tournament has been paved with a schedule that has been hard for the MSU men’s tennis team to overcome.
“I thought we played well against some good teams,” head coach Gene Orlando said. “We had some matches against good teams where we weren’t able to get the quality wins that we needed to help us get into the tournament.”
Five straight losses in East Lansing before coming away with two quality victories on the road against Purdue and No. 43 Indiana over the weekend has locked in the Spartans at No. 7 in the Big Ten Tournament this week, where they’ll face No. 10 Nebraska in the first round.
The mindset among the players and coaches is to win it all, regardless of the competition they’re expected to face at the University of Illinois’ Atkins Tennis Center.
If MSU can exact revenge on the Nebraska Cornhuskers on Thursday, they go head-to-head with No. 2 Ohio State, who took the regular-season matchup against the Spartans, 7-0, back on March 22.
They’re excited about having the opportunity to close out on a high note after suffering through periods of disappointment and frustration.
As for their seeding in the tournament, Orlando said that it’s due to his team not capitalizing on golden chances.
“We played a very challenging schedule, five teams ranked in the top 10,” Orlando said. “But when you put the schedule together, they weren’t top 10 two years ago. We were excited about the opportunities, but we weren’t able to compete and collect that quality win.”
In terms of how pleased Orlando is about where his team sits in the bracket, considering where MSU sat after dropping their fifth consecutive defeat to No. 32 Minnesota, he said he’ll take it and run.
“We made the most out of this past weekend to build for the future,” Orlando said. “Since we lost to three unranked teams, we had to beat Indiana. Knowing that we beat Penn State and Iowa, we knew that match meant a lot.”
Orlando is expecting big things from his senior class in the tournament, who have been a major factor in helping out the Spartans persevere through moments of struggle during this trying season.
That includes Gijs Linders, who has stepped up and elevated his game with John Patrick Mullane out of the lineup.
Thursday and Friday’s first round and quarterfinal matches will begin at 11 a.m., while Saturday’s semifinals and Sunday’s championship match will begin at 1 p.m.
