Country Club U Preview
Remember when I did shirts? That was one of the shirts. My wife still wears one of those shirts around the house. I still have a bunch of smalls and mediums in a box somewhere. I should really dig those out and give them away.
Anyway, instead of just previewing the spring golf season, I figured I'd go golf + tennis this year. This 2025 recruiting class has really shifted the tennis program in a big way, and I want to talk about it. We're about halfway through the spring tennis season (although conference play is just getting underway) and two tournaments into the golf season but previews and be previewed whenever. Here's a March 10th preview for good ol' Country Club U.
Tennis
If you look inside the tennis racket (sorry, racquet) in the image above, there's an "03" in orange. That represents the tennis team winning the national title in 2003. Besides men's gymnastics in 2012, that's the last team national title in Champaign. There have been close calls (men's basketball in 2005, volleyball in 2011 and 2018, men's golf seemingly every year since we've made match play nine times), but 2012 gymnastics – "first out of 16 programs nationally" disclaimer goes here – and 2003 tennis are the last two. Best chance currently (besides men's golf) is probably women's track? That's an article for another time.
Big Ten tennis has shifted a bit, as has everything else, with the west coast teams entering the picture. UCLA is historically great at tennis and the Bruins finished 2nd to Ohio State in the regular season and then beat them in the Big Ten Championships last year. Ohio State has won nineteen regular season men's tennis titles in a row but like golf, the "Big Ten Champion" is the team that wins the postseason tournament. And UCLA clipped Ohio State last season.
That was the big "oh, things are different now" for spring sports last year, if you didn't hear about it. UCLA beat Illini golf by one shot at the Big Ten Championships in Baltimore last April. And then UCLA beat Ohio State men's tennis 4-3 in the Big Ten championship match. This is not your father's Country Club U.
2025 was also a big dip for Illini tennis. The conference had basically been Ohio State 1, Illinois 2 for two decades (and then Illinois would occasionally beat Ohio State in the Big Ten Championships). Last year? Last year the Illini finished EIGHTH in the Big Ten. Yes, UCLA, USC, and Washington all were ahead of the Illini, as was Ohio State, but Michigan State, Nebraska, and Michigan also finished ahead of Illini tennis in the standings.
Here's a good way to show you the decline to get there. Illini tennis in the Big Ten the last 10 seasons:
2016: 3rd
2017: 3rd
2018: 2nd
2019: 2nd
2020: (Covid)
2021: 1st
2022: 6th
2023: 4th
2024: 4th
2025: 8th
Not great, Bob.
This year? This year appears to be different. This year we've come from outside the rankings to currently 9th (as of this morning). This year we've already beaten #23 Kentucky (twice), #15 Duke, #8 Baylor, and #6 TCU. This past weekend we beat Oregon 4-0 and then Washington 4-0. And Washington was one of the teams that finished ahead of us in the standings last season.
What has been the difference? The #2 recruiting class that Brad Dancer signed last year. This current team is essentially two seniors and a junior... and then a bunch of freshmen. And the kids are alright.
I should probably start by noting that this was by far the #1 recruiting class in the country after a late addition in June. As noted above, the Tennis Recruiting Network had the class ranked #2 behind Vanderbilt, but that was compiled before Dancer added Gabriel Debru in June. In 2022, Debru was the #1 junior player in the world, so you can very much believe this paragraph from the press release when Debru signed:
One of the highest-rated players to ever compete collegiately, Debru hails from Grenoble, France, and holds career-high ATP rankings of No. 233 in singles and No. 273 in doubles. Since winning his first pro singles title in July 2023, Debru has secured two singles titles in ATP Challenger Tour events, including victories in Troyes, France, in July 2024 and Como, Italy, in August 2024.
I'll translate that. When you're 19, you've been ranked as the #1 junior player in the world a few years prior, and you're ranked #233 in professional tennis, you keep playing professionally. But in the NIL world...........
That's what this was. That's why tennis is being included with the golf preview this year. I need everyone to understand that the best tennis recruit since... Kevin Anderson(?) is wearing orange and blue right now. His older brother, Mathis, was on the Illini roster the last three years. And now the younger brother – the former #1 junior in the world – is playing in Champaign.
If you want to hear more about this recruiting shift, here's a clip from a tennis podcast discussing how shocking it is to see players of the caliber of Gabriel Debru and Ohio State's Victor Lilov leaving professional tennis in Europe to play college tennis in the United States. And yes, you'll hear the exact same "he's a professional and then he can just... go be an amateur?" and "if we're honest, every one of us would have done it if the money was there" that we hear being discussed around other sports.
If you want to see Gabriel Debru swing a racket, here he is a few years ago hitting balls with Rafa:
I should probably get to the rest of the team and not just talk about Debru. Brad Dancer's main lineup has seen two seniors, a junior... and then this freshman class so far this season. I'll start with the non-Debru freshmen. Here's how the Tennis Recruiting Network ranked the players in this class. The first column is the TRN ranking for each player, the second column is their ITF Junior ranking, and the third and fourth columns.... I don't have enough junior tennis knowledge to understand what those mean:
So yes, you can clearly see the takeaway here. Hayden Jones was ranked by TRN as the #1 recruit in the 2025 class. And then Dancer added someone better than him – one of the best junior tennis players to ever choose to play college tennis – over the summer. Four of the top 17 players choosing Illinois. So I don't want to make this all about Debru. He's just...
...
(wait for it)
...
One of the seventeen.
We shouldn't forget about Kenta Miyoshi, William Mroz, or Jeremy Zhang, though. Especially Miyoshi. He was just, oh, you know, the Big Ten Player of the Year last year. Do you see why I'm adding a tennis preview to the yearly golf preview and calling it Country Club U again?
Let's just go to the ITA rankings. Here's the Illini players currently ranked in their top-125:
23 Kenta Miyoshi (SR)
26 Gabriel Debru (FR)
70 William Mroz (SR)
111 Adam Jilly (FR)
Combine those four with junior Jeremy Zhang (12-5 so far in the fall/winter) and freshman Sasha Colleu (10-7) and you have your main Illini lineup.
How far can they go? I think #2 in the conference should be a certainty again. The next closest Big Ten teams to Illinois (#9) in the ITA rankings are USC (#25) and Wisconsin (#30). So this should be a return to another 1 Ohio State/2 Illinois season in the Big Ten.
But Ohio State is also #1 in the country as they chase that elusive national title. The parallels between Ohio State tennis and Illinois golf are quite amazing. Ohio State has been the most dominant program the last 20 years but they just can't get over the national title hump. They've appeared in three title matches but lost all three (Illinois tennis is 1-1 in title matches, winning over Vandy in 2003 and losing to Georgia in 2007). So maybe this is the year that Ohio State tennis and Illinois golf win titles?
Ohio State certainly has the team for it. Here's their players ranked in the ITA top-125:
6 Aiden Kim
19 Preston Stearns
22 Jack Anthrop
29 Alex Okonkwo
93 Nikita Filin
124 Bryce Nakashima
And that doesn't even include super-recruit Victor Lilov listed above. So yes, when your entire lineup is listed in the top-125, you'd better win the national title. Their #4 player would be #1 for 95% of other schools. If they don't win it all this year, they probably never will.
The goal for Illini tennis this spring? Get to Georgia. The final eight teams will go to Athens, Georgia for the NCAA Championships. And if we're ranked #9 now and have these superstar freshmen gaining experience, it feels like the NCAA Championships should be the goal (just like Match Play is the goal for Illini golf).
Let's have a May, shall we?
Golf
It's funny that I sat down to write the yearly golf preview, I'm 1,600 words into it, and I haven't written about golf yet. Let's change that.
Here's the best way to do this, I think. The golf tournament in Las Vegas last week set the scene for this season. All 15 teams were ranked in the top-35. Here were the final results:
#1 Virginia clipped #2 Auburn at the finish line to win (Auburn's top two players both bogeyed 18 to lose by one). And then in the "B-flight" (not really a B-flight but you understand what I mean), it was three teams paired together on the course for the final round: #3 Florida, #4 Texas, and #12 Illinois. The Illini were three shots back of Florida and Texas at one point but surged in the final few holes to finish in 3rd place. This finish moved the Illini from 12th to 8th in the updated rankings.
And 8th is significant because eight teams make Match Play at the NCAA Championships. It's only March 10th, but as of right now, these are the teams with Match Play expectations:
And I should probably note that as "getting back to Match Play" because last season didn't end inside the top-8. This was, very obviously, due to the fact that I was on my 20th anniversary trip with my wife and could not attend the NCAAs at La Costa. So, my bad, fellas. I'll be back out there this year.
Actually, it was because of this terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad day at La Costa on the Sunday of the NCAA Championships:
That might be the most bogeys and double bogeys on an Illini score card in years. It dropped the Illini to 18th and, since only 15 teams move on to Monday, ended the season.
But match play is not the only "getting back to" goal. It's time to win the Big Ten again. Best way to show this is with a list of Big Ten golf titles since I started my little blog:
2009: Illinois
2010: Illinois
2011: Illinois
2012: Illinois
2013: Illinois
2014: Minnesota
2015: Illinois
2016: Illinois
2017: Illinois
2018: Illinois
2019: Illinois
2021: Illinois
2022: Illinois
2023: Illinois
2024: Northwestern
2025: UCLA
It's time to stop that streak. It's the first time we've gone two years without a Big Ten title since the Bush administration. A peek at those same rankings above shows the next closest Big Ten teams as USC at #25, Washington at #32, and UCLA at #33 so yeah, we'd better win the Big Ten this year.
And I believe we will. From last season, Jackson Buchanan graduated but everyone else returned. And we added two transfers - Dane Huddleston from Utah Valley and Freddie Turnell from Arkansas-Little Rock. You're all just waiting for the nicknames so let's start with the nicknames.
Returning Nicknames
Ryan Voois - Harvey Buckets
Given by Mike Small. He called him "RV" when he was a freshman (and still today I think) and "RV" turned into "Harvey" and then when he started making long putts it turned into Harvey Buckets.
Max Herendeen - Max Power
I just started using it when I saw him hit a 3-iron from 280 to 18 inches as a freshman.
Trey Marrion - The Librarian
This is my favorite one. I started using Marrion The Librarian and he told me he loved it. We've chatted about celebrations the fans (and by the fans I mean me) can use with it. My suggestion was opening a book with my two hands. He had a much better suggestion. Make a long putt and... "shhhhhhhhh". 🤫
Ethan Wilson - Alpine
He's from Canada. His parents were both Olympic skiers. So yeah, it had to be Alpine.
Jake Birdwell - Birdie
That's what Mike Small calls him. And is there a more obvious golf nickname for someone with the last name of "Birdwell"?
Suggested Nicknames
OK this will sound dumb but I'm going to put up the paywall right here. That way I can keep this next paragraph in the family, so to speak.