After losing to No. 47 Illinois and No. 16 Northwestern, the No. 34 IU women's tennis team finished the regular season 17-8 (6-5). The Hoosiers placed sixth in the Big Ten.
IU Coach Lin Loring said that he thinks Indiana would have defeated Illinois if all of the women had been healthy for Friday's match. Sophomore Carolyn Chupa did not play due to a concussion. Loring said that senior Leslie Hureau has been playing hurt for the past three weeks and that sophomore Katie Klyczek is dealing with a hamstring injury.
"Even though we've played a little bit injured we've played well against Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Nebraska," Loring said. "I think we've been playing well and it's just a matter of if we get everybody in the lineup for the Big Tens, I'm confidant that we can play pretty well."
He said that Chupa will undergo a concussion test on Monday and the team will not know the results until later in the week.
Loring said that the team is off on Monday, which leaves Tuesday and Wednesday for the Hoosiers to prepare for the Big Ten Tournament. Indiana is hosting the tournament at the IU Tennis Center. First round matches begin on Thursday and the final match will be played on Sunday.
The top four teams in the conference--Michigan, Nebraska, Northwestern, and Purdue--will have first round byes.
As the No. 6 seed, Indiana will play the No. 11 seed on Thursday. Minnesota, Ohio State, Wisconsin, and Iowa are all tied at 3-8. IU will face one of those four schools depending on the conference tiebreaker rules.
"I had a couple of phone calls on the bus ride back from the front office," Loring said. "The rules aren't totally clear as to how we interpret the tiebreaker rules because it's never had to have been used for four teams. One way you interpret it we play Wisconsin and another way you interpret it we play Minnesota."
Loring said that he thinks Indiana will face Minnesota.
"I think that's the way you interpret the rule but to tell you the truth I may not know, we have a conference call at two tomorrow, and if they haven't figured it out by then the coaches will have to vote on it on the phone call," he said. "Either way we're playing at two o'clock on Thursday, we pretty much know that."
Loring said that preparing for a Big Ten Tournament match will be different than preparing for a regular season match because the Big Ten head coaches will announce their starting lineups on a conference call on Monday afternoon.
"That's a little bit of a different scenario during the season because you think you know who you're playing," he said. "You trade lineups with the coach and they switched the five and the six or the three and the four so unless someone is injured and they pull them out, we'll know if somebody is playing a left-hander or if someone has a big serve, we'll know. I don't think there will be any surprises, we'll know how to prepare for them and they'll know how to prepare for us since we just played"
