Editor's Note: The following is a survey of the current college tennis landscape provided by former Waco Tribune-Herald sports editor, Kim Gorum. Baylor will host the NCAA Championships for the first time, May 14-25, 2015, at the Hurd Tennis Center. This bi-weekly series is meant to give the Central Texas community a look at what to expect when the nation's top teams come to Waco.

By Kim Gorum

The BNP Paribas Collegiate Challenge may or may not prove to be the Next Big Thing in college tennis. But with three of the nation's top four teams and 11 of the top 40 players competing in perhaps the best venue this side of Wimbledon, it's certainly the biggest thing in college tennis right now.

"It's going to be awesome," said Baylor men's coach Matt Knoll, who recruited an elite field for the eight-team, three-day tournament beginning Friday in Indian Wells, Calif. Baylor is hosting the event at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden in conjunction with the $5.4 million BNP Paribas Open, the second-richest ATP/WTA Tour stop in North America behind only the U.S. Open.

In addition to the third-ranked Bears, the field includes No. 1 Oklahoma, No. 4 Southern Cal, No. 20 Tulsa, No. 28 Columbia, No. 29 California, Purdue and BYU. First-round matchups, determined by the May 3 rankings, pit Oklahoma vs. Purdue and Columbia vs. California in the top half, with USC facing Tulsa and Baylor playing BYU at the bottom. The openers feature a pair of rematches, with Tulsa having upset USC last month in Los Angeles and Columbia edging Cal in the ITA Indoors.

If seeding holds, the semifinal matchups of Baylor-USC and Oklahoma vs. Columbia or California would not be out of place in the NCAA Championships this May in Waco. The Lions and Golden Bears were in the Top 15 last month.

"It's sort of compelling," Knoll said of what could be a dry run for the NCAA Tournament -- emphasis on dry. "It's outdoor tennis, with conditions similar to what we'll see here. Similar temperature, similar surface. It's going to be a very good indicator."

The event began last year as the Oracle Collegiate Challenge, a four-team event which the Bears won by knocking off Cal and Illinois (who had beaten Tulsa). Oracle, the software giant whose founder and executive chairman Larry Ellison owns the Indian Wells tournament as well as the venue, remains the presenting sponsor of the event.

When Ellison hired former Hewlett-Packard chairman (and 1979 Baylor tennis letterman) Mark Hurd as co-CEO in 2010, it was a match made in heaven for college tennis.

"Not only did Larry put his money into tennis, but he put his heart into it," Knoll said. "He's there for all the weeks surrounding the event, he's personal friends with all the top players and they stay at his place at Porcupine Creek. He's really made a connection with the (ATP) Tour."

Ellison upgraded the facility, increased the prize money and made Indian Wells the best-attended tennis event on the planet outside the Grand Slams. Last year, more than 430,000 fans streamed into the Coachella Valley for the tournament.

"You know, historically, the players were dying to get out of California so they could get to Miami (for the Miami Open)," Knoll said. "And now the players are dying to stay in California so they don't have to go to Miami. And that's really a credit to Larry Ellison."

Hurd's passion for the college game (his name is on Baylor's tennis complex, and he funded the H-P Challenge Cup, the late, lamented yearly series between BU and Stanford) dovetailed perfectly with Ellison's investment in pro tennis.

"Larry didn't know much about college tennis before Mark came on board, but he does love tennis and he wants to do things that are good for everybody," Knoll said. "You know, we've got that site out there and we've got a great opportunity to showcase tennis."

He didn't have to convince USC coach Peter Smith.

"When we went out there last year, (Smith) knew we'd done the thing at the BNP and he said, 'That's unbelievable. Anything Larry Ellison is doing for tennis, we've gotta jump on board. This is a great opportunity for college tennis.' "

So when BNP decided to expand the field from four to eight this year, Knoll knew who to ask.

"I called Peter and said, 'Hey, we're going to expand the tournament to eight,' and he said, 'We're in.'

"I said, 'Don't you even want to know ... ' and he said, 'Nope. We're in.'

"(OU coach) John Roddick? Exact same conversation:

"We're expanding."

"We're in."

Positioned at the midpoint of the college season, six weeks after the ITA Team Indoors and six weeks before the NCAAs, the Collegiate Challenge could certainly evolve into an elite event. But some issues are already apparent. Notably scheduling. Georgia was all-in for this year's Challenge, but had to pull out because of SEC scheduling issues when BNP moved the event from midweek to the weekend.

Tournament organizers have also told Knoll that eight teams is too many, so next year will see the third format in as many years: a Big 12/Pac-12 Challenge with Oklahoma, Baylor, USC and Cal each playing the two teams from the opposing conference.

Part of this is just trial-and-error, of course. In retrospect, almost everything about the first Super Bowl was decidedly unsuper.

In any case, Knoll is optimistic about the event's future -- as he is about virtually everything else.

"It's year-by-year now because there are a lot of moving parts," he said. "But the will of Larry Ellison is there, the will of Mark Hurd is there, and the will of the tennis coaches is there. So it's hard to believe that it won't continue."

If the NCAAs began today ...
Here's how the men's and women's draws would be seeded:

MEN: 1. Oklahoma, 2. Illinois, 3. Baylor, 4. Southern Cal, 5. Georgia, 6. Duke, 7. Texas A&M, 8. Texas, 9. Virginia, 10. North Carolina, 11. Ohio State, 12. Wake Forest, 13. Mississippi, 14. Northwestern, 15. Florida, 16. Virginia Tech

This scenario could produce an NCAA Round of 16 clash between Baylor and Northwestern, two programs that have never met.

WOMEN: 1. North Carolina, 2. Florida, 3. Georgia, 4. California, 5. UCLA, 6. Baylor, 7. Virginia, 8. Southern Cal, 9. Alabama, 10 Stanford, 11. Oklahoma State, 12. Vanderbilt, 13. Michigan, 14. Miami, 15. Clemson, 16. Pepperdine.

Baylor could get a rematch with Big 12 rival Oklahoma State, whom they handled 4-0 Saturday in Stillwater, in this scenario. Perhaps even a third meeting, if the two should face each other in the conference tournament.

Trivial matters
Which Big 12 men's and women's players have won the most career matches in the singles draw of the NCAA Tournament? (See answer at end of column).

Big 12 rains on Big 10 parade ... again
I was prepared to shower hosannas on Illinois for one of the most singular weekends in recent college tennis history: three days, three cities, three wins against Top 20 teams.

No one had ever been crazy enough to attempt such a feat, let alone pull it off. But after taking down No. 8 Texas in Austin on Saturday and No. 9 Texas A&M in College Station on Sunday, the Illini were on the brink of road-trip immortality ... until they ran out of gas in Fort Worth.

No. 17 TCU ended Illinois' remarkable run Monday with a 4-0 blitzkrieg that lasted only 100 minutes, and at the very least postponed the fourth-ranked Illini's bid to return to No. 1 for the first time since 2004.

"No ifs, ands or buts about it, TCU was just better than us today," coach Brad Dancer told fightingillini.com. "Their coaches and players were obviously well prepared and deserved the victory."

TCU jumped in front early by dominating doubles. But after rebounding from doubles losses to beat Baylor (Jan. 21 in Waco) and A&M, the Illini had no answer for the Horned Frogs. TCU won four first sets in singles, and closed out the match with straight-sets victories by Guillermo Nunez, Arnau Dachs and Facundo Lugones, who dropped only nine games between them.

"We beat a very, very good team that competes really well," TCU coach Dave Roditi told gofrogs.com. "We had a full week of outdoor weather where we could practice. That helped so we could play at this level."

With their second win this season over a Top 10 team, the Frogs figure to climb a half-dozen rungs next week from their current spot at 18, and with some help could even give the Big 12 a fourth team in the ITA Top 10.

Dancer, who played the entire weekend without his top singles player after suspending senior Farris Gosea, remained undaunted.

"The March through Texas came up one match short," he said. "We look forward to hopefully having another shot later this spring."

With a Top 10 seed all but clinched, this much seems clear: the Illini will be back in Waco in May. --------------

Illinois wasn't the only Big 10 squad to suffer a deflating loss this month at the hands of the Big 12. Top-ranked Oklahoma rallied from 2-0 and 3-2 deficits to end Ohio State's national record 200-game home winning streak, 4-3, on March 6 in Columbus.

"That was one of the best tennis matches I've ever been a part of," OU coach John Roddick told soonersports.com. "To win four singles in here after dropping the doubles point shows we have an incredibly tough group."

The Sooners got Ws from usual suspects Axel Alvarez, Dane Webb and Alex Ghilea, but the clincher came from Florin Bragusi at No. 6. The first-year sophomore from Romania unloaded a service return winner to end a three-hour war against the Buckeyes' Kevin Metka, 7-6, 6-7, 7-6.

"Florin stepped up in a fantastic environment and showed what he's made of," Roddick said. "I couldn't be more proud of that mental effort."

The Sooners became the first team to beat the Buckeyes at home since then-No. 1 Illinois pulled off a 5-2 win on April 5, 2003. Need some tennis perspective on how long ago that was? Roger Federer was still three months away from winning his first Grand Slam title, at Wimbledon.

According to ohiostatebuckeyes.com, the winning streak is the longest in collegiate varsity sports history. Over its 11-year, 11-month run, Ohio State won nine Big 10 regular-season titles and eight conference tournament championships. The website has a great recap of the streak, which you can read here: http://www.ohiostatebuckeyes.com/sports/m-tennis/spec-rel/031215aaf.html --------------

Unhappily for the Buckeyes, that wasn't the only streak that ended for them in the last fortnight. With Sunday's 4-2 upset loss at Tulsa, Ohio State this week dropped out of the ITA Top 10 for the first time in almost nine years. Ohio State is now No. 11, and Tuesday's visit to No. 8 Texas marked the Buckeyes' first contest as a non-Top 10 team in 294 matches, according to college tennis blogger Bobby Knight (@College10s2day).

As noted in our last installment of "The Road to Waco," Tulsa is almost an honorary Big 12 member this season, having scheduled five of the league's six teams (Texas Tech is the outlier). So every time the Golden Hurricane wins a big match, whether against Ohio State at home or USC on the road, the Big 12 gets a ratings boost. Baylor, Texas, TCU and Oklahoma State have already beaten Tulsa, and will be reaping the rewards next week with the 'Cane jumping to No. 20 on the ITA computer.

And just in case you were wondering, Baylor's longest streak in the Top 10 ended at 183 matches, from April 8, 2002, to Feb. 24, 2008.

Cowboys dominate at Pacific Coast Doubles
Oklahoma State's Nicolai Ferrigno and Lucas Gerch defeated top-seeded Roberto Quiroz and Thibault Forget of Southern Cal, 6-3, 6-4, last weekend to become the Big 12's first winners of the prestigious Pacific Coast Men's Doubles Championship.

Ferrigno and Gerch, who play No. 3 doubles for the Cowboys, didn't drop a set in winning seven matches over three days in the 128-team draw. The 126th annual tournament, played at the La Jolla Beach and Tennis Club in La Jolla, Calif., attracts many of the West Coast's best players, as well as collegians from across the country.

Previous men's open winners are a who's-who of :American tennis, including Jack Kramer, Bobby Riggs, Pancho Segura, Don Budge, Tony Trabert, Stan Smith, Bob Lutz, Arthur Ashe, Dennis Ralston and John McEnroe.

This final, however, was an international affair. Ferrigno is a senior from Hvidovre, Denmark, while Gerch is a sophomore from Berlin. Quiroz, from Ecuador, is the nephew of 1990 French Open champion Andres Gomez, and Forget is the son of French Davis Cup player and captain Guy Forget.

Forget was a late replacement for USC teammate Yannick Hanfmann, who with Quiroz is ranked No. 4 nationally in doubles.

"It was a great weekend of doubles for us," OSU coach Jay Udwadia told okstate.com. "I'm very proud of Nico and Lucas. They played some of the most rock-solid doubles that I've seen all season."

Udwadia had a second team, sophomore Jurence Mendoza and freshman Lukas Finzelberg, reach the Round of 16 before dropping a 7-5, 6-4 decision to Quiroz and Forget, and four other Cowboys competed in the draw as well.

Ferrigno and Gerch seemed unlikely candidates for a breakthrough going into the event. They dropped their only two matches in the fall season, and weren't paired together for the spring's first seven dual matches. But Udwadia put them back together in February, and they won three of four at No. 3 doubles before being moved up to No. 2, where they started 2-0 this weekend against Memphis and Pepperdine.

By the numbers
-- The Baylor women's 4-0 victory over Oklahoma on Sunday was the 300th of coach Joey Scrivano's BU career. Now in his 13th season in Waco, Scrivano has compiled a 301-88 overall mark (.774) and 118-10 (.922) in Big 12 play, with five of those 10 losses in his first two seasons.

Scrivano's teams have won 10 regular-season and seven Big 12 Tournament titles, and have reached the NCAA Round of 16 in nine of the last 10 seasons. The native of Cambridge, Ontario came to Baylor after three seasons at South Alabama. His career coaching mark is 360-106.

-- With Oklahoma and Baylor listed 1-2 in the March 10 ITA men's computer rankings, the Big 12 becomes the first conference in at least 8 years to occupy the top two spots. The ITA archives its weekly rankings online only to 2008, but no conference has been 1-2 in that stretch of 120 ranking periods. Before 2008, the ITA lists only season-ending rankings. No league has ended the season with the top two men's teams since UCLA and Stanford of the Pac-10 did it in 1996.

-- The Texas women were 21-0 all-time against Houston, including a 5-0 win last year, before the Cougars hammered them, 6-1, on March 7 in Houston, winning four of six singles matches in straight sets. The match was one of five straight losses in which the Longhorns scored a total of five points, matching the worst dual-match run in the program's history.

Texas also scored a total of five points in a five-match losing streak in 2003, although that run of 6-1 setbacks against Notre Dame, Florida, UCLA, USC and California came against tougher competition than this one (Pepperdine, USC, Michigan, Northwestern and UH).

The Horns ended the slump with a 4-2 upset of No. 23 Oklahoma last week in Norman, and jumped to No. 36 this week on the ITA computer.

-- Recall the discussion in our last missive of No. 1 USC's stunning loss to No. 51 Tulsa? Well, the Alabama men's 4-2 win over then-No. 9 Mississippi on March 6 was an even bigger shocker by the numbers. The Crimson Tide was unranked, and came in with an 8-9 record larded with a combined six wins (all in a single day!) against Jackson State and Jacksonville State. For rating purposes, those Ws aren't worth jack. Likewise their other two wins, against noted non-powers UAB and Samford. Alabama was so far off the radar that even with a win over a Top 10 team, the Tide barely cracked last week's rankings at No. 66. They have since added a win over Auburn and are up to No. 60 this week.

-- In the Alabama women's 5-2 upset of No. 6 Georgia on March 6 in Tuscaloosa, there were six sets that went to tiebreakers or were decided by a late break (7-5). The Crimson Tide won all of them.

Who's hot
-- Soren Hess-Olesen, Texas: With back-to-back wins over #18 Jared Hiltzik of Illinois and #44 Chris Diaz of Ohio State, the senior from Aarhus, Denmark, improved to 15-0 in dual matches and 25-2 overall. Hess-Olesen is currently No. 2 in the ITA computer rankings, and should overtake Louisville's Sebastian Stiefelmeyer next week to become the first Longhorn in the Big 12 era to reach No. 1. Stiefelmeyer, who beat Hess-Olesen in straight sets at the ITA All-American Championships last October, lost to #63 Noah Rubin of Wake Forest on Sunday.

Only five Big 12 players have ever made it to No. 1 in the ITA rankings: Oklahoma State's Pavel Kudrnac (1998), Baylor's Benedikt Dorsch (2003-04-05), BU's Lars Poerschke (2006), OSU's Oleksandr Nedovyesov (2009-10) and the Bears' Julian Lenz (2014).

Hess-Olesen is a two-time ITA All-American and the defending Big 12 Player of the Year. He reached the semifinals of the NCAA singles draw last year before losing to eventual champion Marcos Giron of UCLA.

-- Julia Elbaba, Virginia: Elbaba needed a couple matches to return to form after missing the Cavaliers' early-season Baylor trip with the flu, but she's been on a roll ever since. The junior from Oyster Bay, N.Y., is currently No. 1 on the ITA computer with a 7-1 record in dual matches and 19-3 overall. She's won five straight with a pair of DNFs since her last loss six weeks ago, to then-No. 6 Lauren Herring of Georgia, and her list of wins is a who's-who of college tennis.

Elbaba has beaten 12 current Top 100 players, including #4 Maegan Manasse (Cal), #5 Austin Brooke (Florida), #8 Jamie Loeb (UNC), #15 Lorraine Guillermo (Pepperdine), #18 Giuliana Olmos (USC), #20 Brianna Morgan (Florida) and Virginia teammate #25 Stephanie Nauta.

Elbaba is a two-time ITA All-American in singles with a 66-18 record in her first two seasons, and last year earned doubles honors as well after posting a 28-12 mark with partner Rachel Pierson, who now plays No. 1 singles for Texas A&M.

Looking ahead
Big matches on campus, March 18-April 1

Thursday, March 19
-- #6 Baylor women at #30 Texas A&M: Aggies are making up ground fast in bid to earn a host spot in the NCAA Tournament. Beating BU even once in their annual home-and-home would give them the inside track.
-- #40 Tennessee men at #17 Vanderbilt: Former BU assistant Sam Winterbotham's Vols jumped 15 spots with a win over South Carolina. A win in Nashville has them knocking on the Top 25 door.

Friday, March 20
-- #4 Southern Cal vs. No. 20 Tulsa (BNP): Don't bet on Peter Smith pulling anyone out of the lineup in rematch of year's biggest shocker.
-- #28 California men vs. #29 Columbia (BNP): With only Ivy League matches remaining on their schedule, Lions hope to make one last ratings push.
-- #3 Baylor men vs. BYU (BNP): Cougars won only previous meeting between the schools in 1971. But these aren't your grandfather's Bears.
-- #10 North Carolina men at #26 Louisville: Dangerous match for Tar Heels against a rested Cardinals team stung by a 7-0 loss last week at Wake Forest.
-- #8 Virginia women at #15 Clemson: Cavs look like the superior team, but playing their first outdoor match of the season? At Clemson?

Sunday, March 22
-- #9 Alabama women at #30 Texas A&M: Aggies have Top 10 talent, are playing at home, and need this one badly.
-- #15 Florida men at #13 Mississippi: After losing at home to Ole Miss on ITA Kickoff Weekend, Gators get a shot at payback.
-- #7 Texas A&M men at #60 Alabama: Was the Tide's 4-2 win over Ole Miss a fluke? Methinks they won't be sneaking up on the Aggies.
-- #12 Wake Forest men at #6 Duke: Wake gets a chance to prove it's Virginia's most dangerous ACC challenger.

Tuesday, March 24
-- #2 Florida women at #30 Texas A&M: Another chance for the Ags to build their resume. But if they don't beat Baylor or Alabama, this is almost a must-win. Friday, March 27
-- #10 North Carolina men at #9 Virginia: Assuming they beat Notre Dame and BC, Hoos will put their 129-match ACC win streak on the line in C-ville. Hoo are you betting on?
-- #11 Ohio State men at #14 Northwestern: After seeing the Buckeyes mauled on the road last week by Tulsa and Texas, the Wildcats are no longer hoping for moral victories.
-- #18 TCU men at #1 Oklahoma: Frogs certainly got OU's attention with quick KO of Illinois. Will Sooners have an Indian Wells hangover similar to their dip after the ITA Indoor?
-- #8 Texas men at #31 Oklahoma State: A dangerous spot for the Longhorns, coming right before their Norman showdown with No. 1 Oklahoma.
-- #14 Miami women at #8 Virginia: With almost the same teams (and rankings), the Canes won last year in Coral Gables, 5-2. If it's outdoors, they could do it again.
-- #11 Oklahoma State women at #21 TCU: Four of the Frogs' five losses are to Top 10 teams, all on the road. Now they get No. 11 on their own courts, and they're laying in the weeds.

Sunday, March 29
-- #6 Duke men at #9 Virginia: With the ACC as deep as it's ever been, Virginia's conference win streak seems vulnerable. Does Duke have the mindset to end it? .
-- #11 Ohio State at #2 Illinois: The Illini are ascendant, and the Buckeyes are taking on water. It's a long road that has no turning.
-- #8 Texas men at #1 Oklahoma: As Bart Scott said, "Can't wait."
-- #13 Mississippi men at #7 Texas A&M: Huge seeding implications, for both the SEC Tournament and the NCAAs.

Surveying the field
A preview of some of the top contenders for the NCAA Championships in Waco beginning May 14

WOMEN: Texas A&M
-- Record: 5-3 (3-1 in SEC)
-- Ranking: No. 30 on ITA computer (March 17)
-- How their resume shapes up: At the moment, not very well. After losing on their home courts to TCU in the ITA Indoor qualifier in January, A&M coach Howard Joffe suddenly had a schedule too light for a team with championship aspirations -- and no way to toughen it up. When March arrived, the Aggies had played only six matches, about half as many as most Top 10 teams.

Without a victory over a ranked opponent, A&M was actually out of the Top 75 until a 5-2 home win over No. 26 South Carolina on March 6. But with six matches remaining against teams in the Top 16 and 11 against the Top 50, A&M has plenty of opportunities to get the wins they'll need to secure home court for the opening rounds of the NCAAs.

The next six days provide four big chances, in fact, with home matches against No. 6 Baylor, No. 37 Auburn, No. 9 Alabama and No. 2 Florida. But if the Aggies don't come away with two wins in that stretch, they won't have much margin for error going forward.

-- Top players: A year after being one of the Aggies' best points with a 16-4 mark at 2 and 3 singles, #62 Saska Gavrilovska (Soph, Vrsac, Serbia) has struggled at the top of the lineup (2-5 duals, 9-9 overall). Ines Deheza (Jr, Santa Cruz, Bolivia) and #57 Rutuja Bhosale (Soph, Shrirampur, India) have picked up the slack, posting a 10-2 mark between them at 3 and 4. As Virginia transfer Rachel Pierson goes, so go the Aggies. The Princeton, N.J. sophomore, currently #46 in singles, is 5-0 in their wins, including Saturday's clincher in a 4-3 road win over No. 32 LSU, but 0-3 in their losses to TCU, North Carolina and Georgia. After winning four matches against Top 100 players in the fall, she was 0-3 against the current Top 100 in dual matches before coming from a set down to beat #40 Joana Vale Costa of LSU.

-- NCAA Tournament history: 18-20 in 20 appearances. A&M reached the NCAA finals in 2013 before falling to Stanford, 4-3. It is the only time the Aggies have advanced beyond the Round of 16.

-- Record against Baylor: 23-20. After BU coach Joey Scrivano won 14 of his first 15 against A&M, the Aggies have won five straight, sweeping a home-and-home the last two years. A&M hosts Baylor on Thursday, then visits Waco on April 8. And if the Ags don't earn one of the 16 seeds in the NCAAs? Don't be surprised if they end up back in Waco for the first two rounds.

Previously previewed: North Carolina (Feb. 17), UCLA (March 4)

MEN: Southern California
-- Record: 12-2
-- Ranking: No. 4 on ITA computer (March 17)
-- How their resume shapes up: With five wins over current Top 20 teams (including two vs. No. 3 Georgia), Southern Cal is odds-on to earn a Top 8 seed. But the relative weakness of the Pac-12 will work against them as they try to stay in the Top 4. The Trojans still have their chances, notably this weekend when they could face No. No. 2 Baylor and No. 1 Oklahoma in the BNP Paribas Collegiate Challenge. But with only one other Pac-12 school currently in the Top 25, they can't waste those opportunities. Beating No. 19 UCLA in both the regular season and conference tournament might not be enough to keep their current position.

-- Top players: Eighth-ranked Yannick Hanfmann and #20 Roberto Quiroz may be the Trojans' bell cows, but unranked Eric Johnson (Sr, San Jose) and #51 Nik Crystal (Soph, Waccabuc, N.Y.) have been their best points, combining for a 20-1 record in dual match singles. Hanfmann (Sr, Karlsruhe, Germany), a two-time All-American, is 8-2 after two losses and a DNF in his last three matches, while Quiroz (Sr, Guayaquil, Ecuador) is 7-3 despite dropping three of his last five. The pair also form the nation's #4 doubles team. Johnny Wang (Sr, San Marino, Calif.) and Max de Vroome (Jr, Vught, Netherlands) add national championship experience to the bottom half.

-- NCAA Tournament history: USC last year won its 21st NCAA men's championship, No. 1 all-time ahead of Pac-12 rivals Stanford (17) and UCLA (16). The Trojans are 95-32 in NCAA play since the dual-match format began in 1977.

-- Record against Baylor: 7-4. USC has won five straight against the Bears, including two last year, 4-2 in the ITA Indoor and 5-2 in Los Angeles. The Trojans won two of the teams' three NCAA Tournament meetings, in the Round of 16 in 2002 and 2013, while the Bears won a semifinal showdown en route to the national title in 2004.

Previously previewed: UCLA (Feb. 17), Georgia (March 4)

Trivia answer
Baylor's Zuzana Zemenova leads all Big 12 players in victories in the NCAA Tournament's singles draw with 17, almost double the total of teammate Nina Secerbegovic, who is second with nine. No other women's player has more than six. In fact, Zemenova has more singles tournament wins than any of the other Big 12 schools except Texas, which has a combined 19 from seven different players over the league's first 18 years.

Zemenova won the NCAA title as a freshman, upsetting top-ranked Audra Cohen of Northwestern in the 2005 final, 4-6, 6-2, 7-5. She reached the round of 16 as a sophomore, the semifinals as a junior and returned to the finals as a senior, dropping a 6-2, 6-3 decision to Georgia Tech's Amanda McDowell. She is the only Big 12 player, man or woman, to reach the semis three times. Texas' Breaunna Addison (2013) is the only other women's player to do it once.

On the men's side, Benedikt Dorsch leads all Big 12 men's players with 11 NCAA singles wins, one more than teammate Benjamin Becker. Both players won NCAA singles titles, Becker in 2004 with a 6-3, 6-4 win over Tulane's Michael Kogan, followed by Dorsch's electric 6-2, 7-6 (6) finish against San Diego's Pierrik Ysern in '05. Dorsch also reached the finals in 2003, losing to Illinois' Amer Delic, 6-4, 6-3. No other Big 12 men's player has made a final, and only Texas' Soren Hess-Olesen has gotten as far as the semis (2014).

Baylor is the runaway leader in singles wins among conference schools during the Big 12 era, outdistancing Texas 35-24 on the men's side and 39-19 on the women's.