Cummings to Norfolk State, Eubanks Wins BB&T Q-WC, Massey Ratings, Matt Hill Feature

Norfolk State Athletics Director Marty Miller announced the hiring of Darryl Cummings as the Spartans new men’s and women’s head coach. Cummings was most recently the men’s and women’s coach at D3’s Virginia Wesleyan during the 2014 and 2015 seasons but he’s most known for his 20 years at Old Dominion from 1992-2011. Cummings replaces Worth Richardson who stepped down after two seasons to take a position at the Smith Stearns Tennis Academy.

Georgia Tech rising junior Christopher Eubanks won a qualifying wild card into next week’s ATP 250 BB&T Atlanta Open after defeating 2013 Samford graduate Zac Dunkle in three sets. Dunkle took the opening set 7-6(5) but Eubanks rallied to take the next two sets 6-3 and 6-1. The Parenting Aces’s Lisa Stone was onsite and she had her recap of the final at this link.

This will be the fourth time that Eubanks has played the Atlanta ATP event. Eubanks lost in the opening round of qualies in 2012 and 2013 and then got a main draw wild card last year but fell to Radek Stepanek in straight sets. Eubanks teamed up with Donald Young to make the doubles semifinals last year.

Chris Eubanks (Photo Bill Kallenberg/Pictures in Motion)

I saw a mention yesterday by Georgia Gwinnett about the fact that they finished ranked 28 in the all-division men’s Massey Ratings. The Massey Ratings, which have been used for years in college football, take into account a number of variables including strength of schedule, points scores, points yielded, and even home field advantage. Virginia finished #1 but there were a total of 4 non-D1 programs that finished in the top 50 – NAIA’s Georgia Gwinnett at 28, D2’s Hawaii Pacific at 34, D2’s St. Leo at 38, and D2’s Armstrong State at 46. On the women’s side Cal finished #1 while the NCAA Champs Stanford finished #2. D2’s Armstrong State was the only non-D1 school to finish in the top 50 with the Pirates coming in at #30.

Arizona State did a nice feature on its new men’s head coach Matt Hill which went into detail about Hill’s battle with cancer at a young age. The article also talked about Hill’s interesting path into coaching – I’d definitely recommend giving it a read if you get a chance.