BATON ROUGE — The LSU men’s tennis team qualified for its eighth-consecutive NCAA Tournament on Thursday, as the Tigers were selected to play the Texas Christian Horned Frogs on May 11 in College Station, Texas. The time of the match has yet to be determined.
“TCU is a tough opponent and they’ve had a share of success this season,” said LSU head coach Jeff Brown. “They are ranked right around us and we’ve both had similar seasons this year. We know that we our feeling pretty good about ourselves right now and we know that they probably are too.”
LSU heads into the 2002 NCAA Tournament with a 10-13 overall record and as the 31st-ranked team in the nation. The Tigers faced arguably the toughest schedule in the nation this season with contests against 14 opponents ranked in the top 25. LSU defeated three top-25 teams and knocked off five eventual NCAA Tournament teams in dual-match play this season.
The Horned Frogs enter next weekend’s first round match with an overall record of 11-11 on the season and are in the midst of a two-match losing streak. TCU lost consecutive contests in their season-ending competition at the Conference USA Tournament against both 25th-ranked South Florida, 4-1, and Louisville, 4-2.
“In the match against TCU, we are just going to have to see who has developed the most over the course of the year,” Brown said. “The team that keeps the focus and keeps it all together will win the match and that’s a hard thing to do knowing that the winner will have to beat Texas A&M on their home court to go to the Sweet 16.”
Sixteenth-ranked Texas A&M is hosting the regional and will face the Southern Jaguars in the other match of the four-team competition in College Station, Texas. Texas A&M finished the season with a 20-6 overall record on the season, while Southern qualified for the NCAA Tournament automatically by winning the Southwestern Athletic Conference title. The Jaguars finished the season with a 15-12 overall record.
The Southeastern Conference took a huge step in being considered the strongest conference in the nation on Thursday, as all 12 SEC schools were invited to the NCAA Tournament. Vanderbilt, the lowest ranked SEC team at No. 43, will travel to Lexington, Ky., to play Ohio State in next weekend’s first-round action.
Six of the SEC’s 12 teams were announced as host sites on Thursday with No. 1-ranked Georgia leading the way. Georgia is the defending national champion and will be joined as a host site by second-ranked Tennessee, No. 7 Kentucky, No. 9 Ole Miss, No. 12 Auburn and the 13th-seeded Florida Gators.
The NCAA Singles Championship contenders were also announced via the internet, as LSU senior Dan Kiernan earned a birth in the prestigious field of 64. Kiernan, the Tigers’ All-American from Newcastle, England, is currently the 52nd-ranked singles player in the nation and finished the season with a 20-14 overall record. Kiernan ended the regular season with three wins over opponents ranked in the top 50.
The LSU men’s tennis team will begin its quest for an eighth-straight trip to the Sweet 16 on either Saturday, May 11 or Sunday, May 12 against the Texas Christian Horned Frogs in College Station, Texas. The official date and time of the match has yet to be determined by the NCAA.