Believe it or not, LSU once had an incredibly promising men’s tennis program under former head coach Jerry Simmons. His accolades include nearly 300 wins with the program, a finals appearance and National Coach of the Year award in 1988 and ten straight NCAA Final Sixteen appearances from 1984 to 1993 (five of which they advanced).
Unfortunately, his successor, Jeff Brown, did not have quite as much success, and after a few somewhat successful seasons with the remnants of Simmons’s roster, the program plunged into mediocrity. There were bright spots throughout, like an 18-win season in 2015 and nine straight NCAA tournament appearances, but nothing came close to their success in the 1980s and early 1990s.
Brown did just enough to etch out nearly two decades with the program before LSU finally looked elsewhere. They decided to aim big, pursuing and landing one of the best college tennis coaches of all time in Andy Brandi, as well as his son, Chris.
Andy Brandi has the best win percentage in NCAA women’s tennis history, winning 460 of his 503 (91.5%) matches with the Florida Gators between 1985 and 2001. He also won three national championships, fourteen SEC regular season titles, nine SEC tournaments and a large array of Coach of the Year awards.
His son had not been heavily involved with college tennis prior to becoming a Tiger, but he had been an assistant coach at two accomplished tennis programs in Wake Forest and Baylor. He had also spent six years coaching privately, meaning he had plenty of experience developing players’ skillsets.
Acquiring the duo was a good start, but they had a lot of work to do if they wanted to turn this team into a successful program.
For one, their first roster featured just seven players, with six being the absolute minimum required for a tennis team to function. And two, the roster was not amazing to say the least. They won ten matches in the prior season, and that was with multiple star players such as Justin Butsch and Jordan Daigle graduating afterwards.
But after just two years of adjustment, the Brandi tandem had already started having success in building the program back up and with that, sought-after recruits began turning their heads in LSU’s direction.
LSU improved from a 10-win team in the duo’s first year to a 16-win team in the next and from 2018-2020, the Tigers acquired two blue-chip recruits, two five-stars and two top-25 classes. With all that in mind, it was expected that the team’s trajectory would continue moving upward.
There was just one more problem.
LSU plays in the deepest conference in the country. The SEC features multiple juggernauts, including Florida, Texas A&M and Mississippi State, who each have multiple top-five finishes since the Brandi era began, along with other consistent top-25 teams in Tennessee, Georgia, Kentucky and South Carolina.
They don’t rival the ACC in terms of championships in the past decade (not even close), but when you’re a team that’s struggling to crack the top-50, you would take playing three championship contenders over seven top-25 teams any day of the week.
Even with all the talent the Tigers brought in, it would take time for their young players to attain the experience required to compete with these teams.
Their first season (2017-18) saw the team finish with just two conference wins. That number increased to three the next season, then four in 2020-21, with the program showing increased flashes of potential as the years went by.
Ronnie Hohmann became a borderline, top-25 player at Court One for the Tigers and though the other highly rated recruits haven’t panned out quite as well (yet), they began to fill the cracks at the other courts. But wins were still hard to come by, and even with upward progression being displayed, there was still a long way to go.
That was likely what they expected and okay initially, considering once Andy Brandi retired, Chris Brandi would be there to take the reins. But Chris Brandi was put on administrative leave in the fall of the 2021-2022 season, and that promising reality was put to rest.
It’s unfortunate because 2022 was when they showed the most promise.
They had made multiple acquisitions that impacted the team, adding graduate transfers Vlad Lobak and Gabriel Diaz Freire, and junior Kent Hunter out of Cal. Those three manned Courts 2-4 and provided the team with much more production at those courts, with Diaz Freire and Hunter being especially consistent.
The team had many firsts of the Brandi era, including wins against Ole Miss and Mississippi State, and advancements in both the SEC and NCAA tournaments. Couple that with strong performances against No. 10 South Carolina (twice), No. 9 Kentucky and even No. 2 Florida in the SEC tournament, and it’s difficult to make a case against their progression.
Hohmann also continued his improvement, defeating four top-20 opponents and advancing to the Round of 16 in the NCAA singles tournament.
Andy Brandi would retire after LSU’s elimination from the NCAA tournament, officially closing their book with half the pages left blank. Though they have multiple key contributors that won’t be a part of the team next season, most of the roster will remain intact barring the departure of the Brandis doesn’t result in players transferring.
It is impossible to predict the future of the program, but the next season or two could display further progress if they maintain their roster. After that, it’s up in the air.
