Back to School

The holidays have come and gone and Ann Arbor is once again teeming with student life. Or something, I think students actually start next week, but I was back at the office in-person Wednesday so congrats everyone Michigan is back in session, which means the huge layoff between the end of volleyball season and the real start of the winter sports season is over.

In the meantime, Michigan won the Rose Bowl. I have nothing more to say on the matter but if you see a dude with glasses, a beard, earrings and painted maize and blue nails in Houston, hi, I'm jay, I hope to be carrying some All Blue stickers at least some of the time I'm there. (I'll make stickers available via the mail when I get home.)

I've gotten a little attention over the past few weeks, first from the Delaney Cup column which I highly encourage reading if you have not, and then from a twitter thread that was not my normal content at all but was a very fun time.

Sounds like a great time for some meat-and-potatoes All Blue content in the form of this winter preview. Today we'll talk tennis (both of them), and women's gymnastics. Subscribe (it's free) for a part 2 for men's gym, water polo, and wrestling in the coming weeks.

Get In Loser, It's Women's Gymnastics

Last year: Michigan's season ended in among the most heartbreaking ways I have seen a Michigan season end, and I was at the JT was short game. At the NCAA Regional Final, Michigan finished in a tie for second with LSU, but lost the tiebreaker to miss out on the National Semifinals. It was a massive upset, as Michigan was ranked #3 at the time. Michigan will open this season at #6.

Michigan's roster has had some turnover. Natalie Wojcik, one of the anchors of Michigan's 2021 National Championship squad, has graduated. So too have Abby Heiskell, who put up 10's in both vault and beam last season, and Nicoletta Koulos, who was a regular 9.5 threat (she also pet my dog one time).

Roster Outlook:

Despite the losses, Michigan has four senior captains that will push Michigan towards national contention.

• Sierra Brooks returns as a graduate, using her COVID year (it is going to be so much easier to track eligibility when those all run out). Brooks is the defending AAI Award winner, the Heisman of women's gymnastics, as well as the two time defending Big Ten Gymnast of the Year. She comes on in big moments, with her career top scores in balance beam (9.96) and floor (10) both coming in NCAA Tournaments throughout her career, and her 9.975 uneven bars career high came in Michigan's thrilling Senior Night victory over then-#1 Oklahoma last year.
• Gabby Wilson is also using her COVID fifth year. With Wojcik and Heiskell gone, Wilson's 9.975 is the top 2023 beam score from a 2024 returner, and she won the individual Big Ten Championship in vault.
• Naomi Morrison joins Brooks as Michigan's other returning first-team All American. Morrison finished fifth nationally in vault last season, topping out at a 9.975 in both that event and floor exercise. At the exhibition a few weeks ago, she competed on vault and uneven bars, and she is on the projected lineup for both events (but not floor) at Michigan's opener Friday.
• Carly Bauman is in the projected lineup for everything but vault. Her season high last year was a 9.95 in bars, including posting that score at the Big Ten Championships.

The rest of the lineup will be filled with gymnasts looking to go from rotation piece to star. Junior Jacey Vore and Senior Jenna Mulligan have both made sporadic appearances throughout their career, but begin the season on the projected lineup. Vore will compete in beam, bars, and floor, and Mulligan in vault, beam, and floor. Farah Lipetz and Paige Thaxton are both sophomores who will make their first varsity appearances in the opener. Haylen Zabrowski is the only freshman who appeared in the exhibition with a 9.700 on bars, but does not appear on the projected lineup for the opener.

Schedule Highlights:

• Super 16 v. #1 Oklahoma, #9 Kentucky, #11 Michigan State, Fri. Jan 5, 10pm ET (always ET), Las Vegas, Youtube: The Super 16 gathers some of the top programs in the country, splits them into four groups of four each, and puts some very high-profile meets right at the beginning of the season. Hopefully there's a way to watch it, but the quad meet gives Michigan an early look at another national title contender, as well as a Spartan team that is projected as the second best in the conference.
• v. #11 Michigan State, Sun. Feb. 4, 3:45p: Maybe a cop-out to just pick the Spartans again but this is the biggest conference meet Michigan will host. It is very possible that the Big Ten Championship simply goes to the winner of this meet, and given it's Sunday time slot and Maize Out designation expect Michigan to push for a packed house for this one. I was at the sell-out against Suni Lee and Auburn (and West Virginia) in 2022, the atmosphere at crowded meets is really spectacular.
• v. #10 Denver, Fri. Mar. 15, 6:45p: Denver was the host and regional champion last year when Michigan lost in the tiebreaker. The revenge match will be at Crisler, a final tune-up against a high-quality opponent before the postseason.
• NCAA Regionals, Wed. Apr. 3-Sat. Apr. 6, Ann Arbor, MI: This year Crisler will play host to a regional for the first time since 2019. That Wednesday meet is a play-in that will likely not involve Michigan, but the Thursday semi and Saturday final should have some excellent opponents.

Where do you watch these things? Don't know! As of right now you can assume anything hosted by a Big Ten school is on B1G+, but BTN has made no TV designations. On top of that, ESPN2/U used to be a fairly consistent home for Big Ten gymnastics, but with the death of the Big Ten/ESPN relationship we have not yet seen any of the conference's current partners step up to pick up the coverage, I hope that changes in the coming weeks.

A brief rant:

For the second straight year, Michigan WGym will open their season in Las Vegas, at the Super 16. This year it will be called the "Mean Girls Super 16", with the upcoming movie purchasing title sponsorship and taking over branding.

Let's get this out of the way: It is very cool that a women's sporting event that is not basketball has a title sponsor at all. I think that's great and a sign that companies want to buy-in to untapped opportunities in women's sports marketing. But there is still not a broadcaster announced; last year they announced that BTN would cover it two days before the event happened. If Paramount is going to go through the trouble of making sure the meet "will be imbued with the film’s spirited essence, ensuring that every aspect of the competition echoes its iconic vibe," maybe put the competition on a Paramount platform? Paramount+, CBSSN, hell the free CBSSN HQ channel on Pluto would be awesome. But the competition is Friday and there is no coverage announced.

UPDATE: They're doing a Youtube stream. I think my general points still stand.

Bottom Line: The thing about gymnastics is the better team usually wins. That's true in most sports, but due to the way scoring works where harder routines have a higher starting score, it is hard to pull off upsets. The top of the lineup is national championship calibur. If Michigan is actually going to compete for the national championship, we'll need to see that some of the new regular starters can overperform on any given night. Even if they turn out to not quite be national contenders, Michigan should comfortably qualify for their own regional and be a favorite to advance out of it.

Women's Tennis Has Been Building to This

A Word About College Tennis: Tennis is the most underrated spectator sport on this campus. The Michigan Varsity Tennis Center has gorgeous setups both inside and outside, and the excitement of paying attention to six tennis matches at once, going back and forth between the sides of the stadium depending on which matches are heading up, it's hard to beat. On top of that, tennis matches are all free admission. I highly recommend taking in some tennis this season.

Last year: Michigan went undefeated in the conference, 11-0, on their way to the Big Ten Regular Season Championship. The followed that up with a Big Ten Tournament title, winning 4-0 in both of the first two rounds and 4-2 over Ohio State in the final. After winning an exciting Sweet 16 matchup against Virginia in Ann Arbor, they fell to Georgia in the Elite 8 at the USTA National Campus in Florida.

From the starting lineup last year, Michigan loses just Andrea Cerdan to graduation. Cerdan played at 5 singles or 6 singles for most of the year (in college tennis each team ranks their own roster and sends out their top 6 against the opponent's top 6, with 1 playing 1, 2 playing 2, etc.), so while her leadership and steadiness will be missed (she went 11-1 when she was playing at 5 and 6), the top of Michigan's roster remains intact. Michigan opens the season ranked #5.

College tennis plays a full fall season focused on individual play, the winter season focuses on duals with other schools. As such, we already have some data on how this team might do.

Roster Outlook:

• Kari Miller finished the season at #1 singles for Michigan after starting it at #2. She has already pulled off Michigan's biggest win of the fall individual season, beating UNC's national #1 Fiona Crawley, who had played in the US Open Main Draw just months earlier. The senior and reigning ITA Midwest Regional Champion comes into the season ranked #10 nationally as an individual.
• Julia Fliegner was the runner-up to Miller at the aforementioned ITA Midwest Regionals this fall. She reached the second round of the NCAA Singles Tournament last year, and is ranked #39 nationally. She's Michigan's presumptive #2. Fliegner compiled a 16-3 record last season, mostly playing at #3. Based on her fall play it seems somewhat likely she'll open her junior season at #2.
• Just eight spots behind Fliegner in the national rankings, sophomore Lily Jones will open at #47. Jones is the reigning Big Ten Freshman of the Year and did not drop a conference singles match last season, going 8-0.
• The final nationally ranked Wolverine is senior Gala Mesochoritou, just inside the top 100 at #94 (they rank the top 125). Like Fliegner, Gala fell to Miller at the Midwest Regionals. She was 7-0 in her final landing spot at #6 singles, with a 11-5 overall record on the season.
• Jaedan Brown has been ranked at various times throughout her career but is not currently ranked in singles. Her and Miller, however, are currently ranked #8 in doubles. Brown played all of last season at either #1 or #2, so its hard to see her falling much past 3 in Michigan's lineup despite all of the singles rankings ahead of her.

Michigan has a few options for the final starting spot, and I think we'll see several of them rotate in throughout the year. Bayley Shenin is Michigan's only other player who has seen the court in a dual at Michigan, having played twice last season. Anna Ross is a grad transfer from Vanderbilt who played in the 2022 NCAA Singles Tournament but did not play during the fall season. Freshman Piper Charney started the fall as #8 in the ITA's newcomer rankings. Freshman Reese Miller (yes, Kari's sister) was also a top-ranked recruit.

Schedule Highlights:

• v. #12 Virginia, Sat. Feb. 3, noon and v. #10 Florida, Tue. Feb. 6, 5p: February starts of hot with two national powers coming to Ann Arbor. Virginia returns to Ann Arbor for a rematch of last year's Sweet 16. Michigan follows that up with a second ranked tilt against Florida. This four-day stretch should tell us a lot about what we can expect from the Wolverines this year.
• @ #14 Ohio State, Fri. Mar. 15, 6p: The Big Ten opener matches up the two best teams in the conference. The Buckeyes are the second-highest ranked team in the Big Ten and will look to deliver Michigan's first Big Ten loss since 2022. The winner will start the season with pole position on the Big Ten title, the loser will spend the rest of the season playing catch-up.
• Big Ten Tournament, Wed. Apr. 24-Sun. Apr 28: The Big Ten Tournament returns to Ann Arbor for the first time since 2011. This should be a blast, especially if it's nice out and they can have multiple duals going at once with some on the lower courts. Can Michigan host it's own championship match on Sunday?

Most college tennis is broadcast on announcer-less streams by the host. Check the Michigan twitter accounts for links. The video quality of these streams is mixed, but they pretty consistently have scoreboards and the fact that almost every college tennis match is streamed at all is impressive. Some matches may have commentary via Cracked Raquets, an outlet founded by Michigan alum Alex Gruskin that has become the semi-official home of College Tennis streaming, their NCAA Tournament broadcasts are incredible.

Outlook: Michigan will be favored in the Big Ten and is ranked such that you'd expect them to return to the Elite 8. Michigan has not missed the NCAA Tournament in Ronnie Bernstein's 16-year tenure as coach, but has also never advanced to the national semifinal. With four nationally ranked starters and a fifth who is a senior and multi-year starter, it feels like if Michigan is going to put it together and crest that hump, this is the year that they've been building towards.

Men's Tennis: Rebuild or Reload?

Last Year: Like the women, Michigan men's tennis reached the Elite 8 last year, where they fell to TCU. Unlike the women, the top three players on that roster have all graduated. Andrew Fenty is one of the best to ever play at Michigan. So is Ondrej Styler, who fell in a heartbreaker in the NCAA Singles Final, giving away match point in the second set and losing in the third. Patrick Maloney was a four-year starter who shored up Michigan's middle-roster. Despite having three top players leave, that might not even be the biggest departure of Michigan's offseason, as head coach Adam Steinberg was hired away by Florida, taking over a program that won a National Championship in 2021.

In comes head coach Sean Maymi, a former Wolverines assistant who was most recently the head coach at Nebraska. Between the roster turnover and coaching change, this will be a transition year from the Wolverines, but there is enough talent to compete for the Big Ten. The Wolverines open at #14.

Roster Outlook:

• Gavin Young had a hot fall season, progressing to the semi-finals of the ITA All-America and earning himself the #9 singles ranking going into duals season. Young has played as high as #3 singles for the Wolverines, and should begin the year in the top spot.
• Jacob Bickersteth (note to self: there's an extra "T" in there) is ranked #61 individually. Bickersteth bounced around the lineup last season, getting as high as #2 singles but mostly playing at #5 and #6. He compiled a 6-1 record in Big Ten play, 16-7 overall.
• Nino Ehrenschneider is Michigan's final returning NCAA Tournament starter, but will open the season unranked as an individual. Nino went 7-5 last year, bouncing around the back half of the lineup. He went 3-0 at #5.

Of the candidates to fill the rest of the starting positions, Will Cooksey has seen the most action of Michigan's options, going 6-1 at #6 singles last year and 8-1 overall. Bjorn Swenson had a strong fall, reaching the semifinals of the Big Ten Singles Championship. Michigan's only freshman, Alex Cairo made the Big Ten Doubles finals this fall, with Swenson.

Schedule Highlights:

• v. #4 TCU, Tue. Feb. 13, 6p: Michigan will have played multiple ranked teams by this point in the season, but the Elite 8 rematch will be the real "show me what you got" moment. Michigan upset then-#1 TCU in Fort Worth in 2022. TCU will be the favorite despite home-court, and if Michigan can pull off another upset it'd be a huge boost early in Maymi's first season.
• v. #2 Ohio State, Sun. Mar. 17, 3p: Michigan will play conference favorites Ohio State twice this season, with the home contest technically being a non-conference tuneup for Big Ten play. They head to Columbus late in the season in the conference matchup. OSU features national #4 JJ Tracy, the best tennis player named JJ to play for Ohio State since World Top 40 player JJ Wolf did from 2016-2019. Real "I'd only have two nickels but it's still weird it happened twice" situation.
• v. #24 MSU, Sat. Apr. 20, 4p: The Spartans will come to town to close the Big Ten season, in a match that should have major seeding implications for the Big Ten Tournament. The Spartans have four ranked singles players, topped by #6 Ozan Baris and #12 Ronnie Hohmann.

Outlook: This is a transition year but not a Year 0. Sean Maymi will be expected to make the NCAA Tournament in Year 1, and Michigan should probably even be a favorite to host opening weekend. The roster turnover is less experienced than it has been the last few years, but if Michigan can finish second in the conference again everything will be right back on schedule.

What Else Is Blue

• Lax rankings dropped. For what I am reasonably certain is the first time ever, men's lacrosse earned a preseason ranking, opening at #13.
• Women's lacrosse will also open the season ranked, at #17. Lacrosse starts shockingly soon in early February.
• Women's tennis alum Emina Bektas has officially qualified directly to the Australian Open main draw. Currently ranked #91 in the world, it will be Bektas' third appearance in a singles main draw at a Grand Slam, but the first that will not require her to go through qualifying.