Middle Tennessee State University Athletics
“It was such a wild ride” - A Q&A with Coach Jimmy Borendame
5/4/2022 5:55:00 PM | Men's Tennis
Middle Tennessee heads to Raleigh this weekend as the No. 16 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament
MURFREESBORO, Tenn. — It was a wild selection Monday for the Middle Tennessee men's tennis team, as the Blue Raiders earned the No. 16 overall seed in this year's 64-team draw, making them the top seeded team at the Raleigh regional.
Middle Tennessee has already traveled to the Old North State, where MT will face off with North Carolina State, Liberty and UNC Wilmington, with their opening round match against the Seahawks scheduled for Friday at 1 p.m. central, 2 p.m. eastern at the J.W. Isenhour Tennis Center.
Just after the selection show on Monday, MT Staff Writer Sam Doughton caught up with Head Coach Jimmy Borendame about his team's journey this season, the preparation going into the weekend, and a little bit of the head coach's personal history with some of these programs.
"Francisco Rocha talked about his surprise at seeing the national seed pop up. How exciting was it to see the committee honor the work your team has put in this season?"
I felt like there was a week when we went to Wichita State, the guys were feeling a little pressure, because we thought we'd have to win out to get a top 16 seed. I felt in the doubles against Tulsa, and when we lost the match to Tulsa, I actually felt a little bit of relief that we could put that behind us.
Sometimes a loss can be a couple of steps forward. The same thing happened in 2019 and 2021. That loss kind of rights the ship, we refocus, we get back to focusing on the process of what got us to where we are, the "UPERB" part of our theme "SUPERB." Being United, being Positive, being Excellent in everything we do, R is for Rowdy and B is being Brave. I thought those were good losses.
"Y'all were able to rally and show some grit in Norfolk, winning two tight matches to take the C-USA Championship against UTSA and Charlotte just to get into this position. How proud are you of your team's performance in those clutch moments?"
It was such a wild ride, with Chris Edge not practicing the whole week and then practicing for thirty minutes on Friday. How tough he is to then go in and play and win. He didn't just play and fill a spot, he played and won on 30 minutes of practice. That was a tough situation for me, because John Chin is no slouch and he took care of business on Friday against UAB.
To then decide, do you put in arguably the GOAT (Greatest Of All Time) of the program, second winningest player in school history who hasn't practiced, or do you put in the young, fresh legs, eager and ready to go, wanting to prove himself (freshman)? The whole thing was wild.
But the guys believed that we were going there to win, felt it from the very first day when we were walking around. Other teams were watching us practice, there's just an aura about this team and how special they are.
"Going to Raleigh for the regional with three other programs that have had a lot of success this year. What have you seen from UNCW, NC State and Liberty over the years that have gotten them to this point?"
UNC Wilmington, they're kind of like a perennial powerhouse of the CAA. Very tough outdoor team. They're also very rowdy. Chris Massaro might not know this, but in 2011, when I was a head coach at Drake, we went to UNCW and I was actually thrown out of a match. They brought blow horns, which were illegal to bring to a match. I argued with the referee and I pulled my team off the court after we had lost the four points and refused to continue to play because they refused to remove the blow horns. So I stood up for what I believed in and quite frankly, I'm not their favorite person at UNCW.
NC State, they beat us in 2019 in the first round of the tournament. Coach Kyle Spencer has been a bit of a rival of mine for years. They've got a great program, they've kind of risen to the top of the ACC. Liberty, I've been keeping my eye on them a little bit more as a new C-USA team. They have amazing facilities, Coach Derek (Schwandt) is a good young coach.
"You guys have played such a tough schedule all year, with the Blue Gray National Tennis Classic giving you that tournament atmosphere. How ready are y'all for the NCAA tournament given that schedule, and the experience of this team?"
Knock on wood, I've just been so happy that we haven't had Drew Shea or Jonathan Griffith out at practice with anybody with any injuries. Everybody's been full throttle, which is great. My wife always teases that I'm in a better mood when I have all nine guys at practice. We're just going to keep focus on doing what we're doing, nothing really different, and go on from there.
"To close out the selection show, it was really special seeing President McPhee confer degrees onto some of your graduating players, since they'll be missing graduation this weekend. What did it mean to have that moment for them tonight?"
I reached out to Lee De León and asked. I just remembered that baseball had something going on in 2019 and they had a nice ceremony. So I thought I'd ask, and the worst that could happen is that they would say no. And Dr. McPhee told Lee that he'd be happy to do it. I think that it's really important as international students, those pictures that they take are going to go up on walls and families are going to be really thrilled to have that as a memory, because many of them can't come over.
