2024 3.5M Nationals Predictions thread
- Thread starter Pinecone
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Many of the Intermountain players were also on the 40+ 3.5 team that finished 3rd at Nationals last weekend in Orlando. Wonder if they will all travel to the opposite coast (San Diego) for their second straight week of Nationals play. Makes me tired just thinking about it. Though it looks like they do also have a few strong under-40 guys to give the old dudes some rest.
Currently the five undefeated (2-0) teams are
Socal
Middle States
Midwesterners
Intermountain
MidAtlantic
Looks like your final 4 picks are looking pretty good except for PNW who are 0-2. Socal was off your radar but they are dominating so far with two 5-0 wins, tho perhaps an easy schedule.
Agree, PNW had a tough flight with Mid-west, Florida, and SoCal. In the last match, PNW beat SoCal in a tight 3-2 that was just enough to eliminate them from final four. Came down to least games lost (SoCal 151, Intermountain 146)!
Intermountain better be thanking PNW for giving them a second life.
On an aside, it feels like this year a lot of teams who play each other play the same teams. Not sure if that’s the case in other years. Also this year feels like a lot more parity, semifinals just finished with MidAtlantic and Intermountain getting through in a lot of tight sets.
Intermountain better be thanking PNW for giving them a second life.
On an aside, it feels like this year a lot of teams who play each other play the same teams. Not sure if that’s the case in other years. Also this year feels like a lot more parity, semifinals just finished with MidAtlantic and Intermountain getting through in a lot of tight sets.
Wow, Intermountain won the national championship after barely squeaking into the final four.
Many would argue they did not even deserve to make the final four. They were tied with Socal for the fourth spot after the round robin and both teams were 3-1, 15-5, and 31-13 in sets. So the tiebreaker came down to games. Intermountain was 212-146 (59.22%) and Socal was 224-151 (59.73%). Socal had the higher %, but by the strange USTA rule the tiebreaker is fewest games lost.
I suppose Intermountain ended up proving they belonged by winning the whole thing (congrats!!), but they needed some luck to get that chance.
Many would argue they did not even deserve to make the final four. They were tied with Socal for the fourth spot after the round robin and both teams were 3-1, 15-5, and 31-13 in sets. So the tiebreaker came down to games. Intermountain was 212-146 (59.22%) and Socal was 224-151 (59.73%). Socal had the higher %, but by the strange USTA rule the tiebreaker is fewest games lost.
I suppose Intermountain ended up proving they belonged by winning the whole thing (congrats!!), but they needed some luck to get that chance.
By the way, congrats on picking three of the final four correctly! @schmke is tough to beat on predictions and he only got one (Middle States). Mid-Atlantic and Intermountain were not even in his top eight:
Favorites: Caribbean, Middle States, NorCal, Pacific Northwest
Contenders: Eastern, Mid-west, SoCal, Southern, Texas
Simulating 2024 USTA League Nationals - 18 & Over 3.5 Men
USTA League Nationals for 2024 continues this weekend! The schedule is more compressed this year, normally Nationals would have started th...
computerratings.blogspot.com
Actual final four: Mid-west, MidAtlantic, Middle States, Intermountain
ichaseballs
Hall of Fame
i have definitely seen stronger 3.5c players vs 4.0c
heck i have seen 3.0s that are stronger than 4.0c
heck i have seen 3.0s that are stronger than 4.0c
schmke
Legend
Yup, the broken standings tie-breakers rear their ugly head. Who is to say SoCal wouldn't have won it all given the chance to prove they belonged?
schmke
Legend
I agree. I've said this repeatedly. Yes, they let teams as formed stay together through Sectionals, but it results in potentially a sub-par team advancing to Nationals.
This is similar to sections electing to not check strikes until the end of District/State/Sectional playoffs. If a player gets DQ'd, the team benefits from their wins, but going forward is now a different team. It isn't fair to the teams that have to play them, and it can result in not sending the strongest available team.
curtstead
Professional
I'm the captain of Southern 3.5 18+. It's a weird rule, I'll agree with you, but of course I'm going to play by my region's rules just like anyone else would if they were from Southern. It absolutely sucked losing those 4 players, most of whom were with us for a long time since 2022 or earlier. However, at the end of the day, you're no longer a 3.5, so I get it. It was a fight to even make sure we had 8 players to go to Nationals at all. However, we ended up with 12. If guys were going to take the time off work, time away from family, and spend the money to make it there, I was playing them, even if it reduced our chances of winning by playing a weaker lineup with alternates playing.
However, in response to why SoCal didn't make it, we gave SoCal a hell of a battle with the strongest lineup we had on saturday morning. That team is composed entirely of self rated "3.5s" (their D3s were so obnoxious dude), so I won't lose any tears for them missing out, lol. My S1 played the match of his life, and our D1s were up 5-2 in the first, served for the 2nd at 6-5 with multiple set points. One of their D1s was REALLY good. He was cramping a lot, probably the reason we had a chance at all, but he was honestly pushing 4.5, lol.
I think we wore them out because most of the lines were pretty long. My S2 2nd set was well over an hour. Our D2s smashed their D2s pretty bad, and they'd been an up and down line for us at city, state, and sectionals, but they've really been playing well lately. I think SoCal's D2 was their weakest line, tbh. After playing us, they only had maybe a couple hours before their match against PNW, which losing barely kept them out of top 4. I rotated a bunch of guys in against ******* and Middle States though. We only played our strongest nationals lineup against Northern and SoCal, and we did pretty good. Their D3s were hitting reflex tweener volley winners (multiples of them), would just hit random tweeners on cross court baseline rallies, and both players 1st serves were 100mph+.... very 3.5, yes.
It just sucks, 90+% of my 3.5 team has been together for a long time since Summer 2022, and I think we had a great chance of winning the whole thing with our sectionals lineup. We had no ringers, we did it the right way, and developed our team over time, and then of course we lose players with the early start. It is incredibly frustrating, especially because winning Atlanta is hard enough (took us 3 tries to finally do it, you have to get insanely lucky unless your team is full of ringers), and you basically have to do it again when you go to USTA State for Georgia as multiple teams from Atlanta will play in surrounding regions that aren't far.
It sucks, it is what it is, but proud we finally made it to nationals. It will likely be the only trip for us, as most of the team has now moved on to either 4.0 or other 3.5 teams. Hell of a run.
Also, on a final note, it didn't help drawing 3 of the top 5 teams randomly.... wtf is up with that...
Congrats to Intermountain! Got to watch them a bit, they were very good.
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Starting next year, early start bumps won't be able to play at Southern sectionals.
Moon Shooter
Hall of Fame
I don’t understand what happened to southern. Did 4 of their players get DQed during sectionals but their matches still counted as wins at sectionals? But then those DQed players could not go on to nationals? I don’t understand what early league has to do with it.
schmke
Legend
Southern, particularly Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee, have a lot of early start leagues that started 2024 league play in the Fall or even Summer of 2023. The National rule is that players that are bumped up at the end of 2023 are not eligible to play at Nationals at the lower level. Sections are allowed to decide if these players can continue to play at the lower level through Sectionals and through this year, Southern has allowed them to keep playing.
So yes, you have a scenario where players not eligible for Nationals play at Sectionals and help their team win, but then can't play at Nationals. I get that the section doesn't want to penalize the team and have situations where teams can't advance through playoffs or are handicapped in doing so, but it is just postponing that situation and results in the section champ perhaps not being the strongest Nationals eligible team that could be sent.
curtstead
Professional
They were not DQ'd in the sense you're asking about. They were bumped up to 4.0 in the prior year end rating. However, we started our season in May of 2023 while they were still rated 3.5. They were allowed to play for State in Georgia (May 2024) and Sectionals (July 2024). They are not allowed to play past sectionals, however.
I'm the captain of the Southern team you're asking about, btw.
Moon Shooter
Hall of Fame
Thanks for the explanation. I find it hard to believe a section would do that. The team that wins your season districts, state and sectional will have some of its best players unable to play at nationals.
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