1-on-1 with DP – 93.7 The Ticket KNTK - Husker Tennis Head Coach Peter Kobelt is back!: April 16th, 12:00pm

Episode Date: April 16, 2025

Coach Kobelt joins the show and gives us some insight on where the team is at where they're going from here!Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

It's time to go one-on-one with D.P. Coming at you live from the heart of Lincoln America, a 93-7-a-ticket and the ticketfm.com. Here is your host, Derek Pearson, brought you by Canopy Street Market. Boom. In your face, hump day. Happy lunch. Do something good, put something good in.

we say good in, good out. And it's absolutely true. The start of him and text line, you want to be a part of what we're doing. 402, 464, 5685. Text in, comments, thoughts, quotes, feelings, where you're at, where you're going to be. Any of that, you can follow on the live video streams,

Facebook, YouTube, X, and Allo, Channel 961. You want to be, get some eyes on the faces. behind the voices. We got a good one today. I want to thank Dan Swanson and the fine folks from Canterbury Street Market for always taking care of our young people. We appreciate that.

We need to get coach here attached to him as well. They make fresh meals every day. They're right down in the hay market. And if you haven't, Taco Tuesdays down at Canopy Street Market, I think tacos, hard or soft are $1.75. And I mean, there is a lot.

line out the door. You know, I have my usual special, seven bucks, four tacos, keep it moving. Keep it moving. So, but they make fresh lunches every day. You can get pasta. You can get chicken. You can get meatloaf. You can get Talsbury steak.

You can get those. They make them right there on site. Fresh ingredients, really good food, if you want. It is a big Wednesday and a big weekend in Lincoln. And I'm constantly amazed at how many, how many folks, have told me that they've never been to the Dillon tennis center. And that needs to be addressed and fixed to tweet in a hurry because I don't know if you're aware, but you have a winning men's tennis program in Lincoln, Nebraska, and they're on a

two-to-match win streak on the road in the Big Ten. And any sports fan in the country knows that getting road wins in the Big Ten and then piling them up, stacking wins is not easy to do. well let's bring in the leader and the guy that can tell us what's happening in this program they got a big weekend in lincoln we want you to be a part of it uh peter cobbout coach what's happening with you winning winning winning dude this is this is pretty cool to watch you process this thing into into a winning program thanks deepy always fun to be on the show with you you do a great job and uh we all appreciate uh you you putting us on here to kind of spread the word so uh thanks for your time but but but you Yeah, I mean, winning is short-lived. You feel pretty good for about the rest of the night,

and then you wake up the next morning with that big rock in your stomach with anxiety, thinking about what you got to do, you know, what the guys need to get better at, how we got to, you know, what do we got to do to the lineup, all the questions that you go through in your mind are just spinning in your head. So especially this time in the year, you know, we position ourselves in a pretty good spot. You know, nothing's guaranteed even at home, but especially here in a Big Ten conference. our guys have done a great job and we got a huge weekend coming up. So set the table for it that winning at Oregon, difficult win.

Yes. Walk us through that particular match because that one had ebbs and flows. And I think I'll ask you whether that was as big a win as you've had to that point this season. Yeah. So it actually started that weekend at Washington. We played Washington. They're a great team as well on the road. We played them outdoors Friday night at 5 p.m. Pacific time.

And we won the doubles point and we won in two positions. And I'm like, if you would have told me we'd have won the doubles and won those two positions, I think we're going to win the match. And we ended up losing. So that was a tough loss on the road to a great Washington team. They're ranked right around us, 39, 40 in the country. and then we got to saddle up, drive down to Oregon and play Oregon on Sunday. You know, we got to get the guys going mentally, and we come out and we lose a.

We're playing indoors, you know, the next match, and we lose the doubles point. We go down 1-0, and we're without one of our starters, little Ronnie, who's one of our best competitors on the team, and somehow we found a way just to dig out of win. So sometimes, you know, if you had told me, we'd probably. probably could have, I thought we probably could have won the match against Washington. I probably, we probably could have lost the match against Oregon. And both matches went the opposite. So sometimes you don't, you don't know why you win or why you lose, but it just kind of happens.

And you kind of just got to roll with the punches and see, you know, the motto's for us to just been, how do we get better? And, you know, each week, it's, you know, are we getting better this week? And the results kind of take care of themselves. So Husker fans love it when any Husker program knocks off Wisconsin. to go to Wisconsin and get a win, listen, through all the wrong red conversation, it just means a lot when you can stick Iowa in Wisconsin.

Tell me about the match against Wisconsin. Yeah, it was a big match for us, and it was a big match for them. There's only 10 teams that qualify for the Big 10 tournament in Wisconsin's one of those three borderline teams getting into the Big 10 tournament, and we knew that going in, so we knew that we were going to get their best.

best punch. And our guys came out. We had great energy in the doubles. We got the doubles point, and then we kind of got on them on some courts and singles, and we made it really difficult for them. And they're a good team, but they're young and we're an old team. And I think we got a lot of experience in those situations. And I think that might have been the difference. But, I mean, it's a great win. They're 55 in the country playing at home, played outside. And, yeah, I mean, winning matches like these on the road in the Big Ten is tough. It's really tough. But I think our guys are, we've been ready for it. You know, early in the season, we go down to the Big 12.

We get a win on the road at Oklahoma State. And then we go, you know, a week earlier, we're on the road. And in the SEC, we take a tough loss to Arkansas, but we bounce back and we get a great win over an old Miss team on the road early on in the season. And then we go down and play Tulsa. So we've tested our guys a good amount already this year. And they kind of know, they understand. how to get through those situations pretty well.

And I think that's kind of been our backbone a little bit. But look, you know, everything that's happened is behind us now. We're kind of focusing on what we've got to do this weekend and trying to prepare the very best we can. Before we get too deep into this weekend, I do want to ask you about the culture, the identity of this year's team. You said it's a veteran team. Sunday is senior night.

that's a big kind of highlight and amplification. But is that truly where you think this team is? Is this program an experienced program? Is that on purpose? 100%. Yeah. I mean, a lot of these guys that are playing for us have played a lot of tennis and they played a lot of tennis for Nebraska.

They've been on both sides of the results, tough losses, tough wins, bad losses. great wins. So they kind of understand the emotions. I think being in coaching now, I think the one thing that's really hard to teach is experience. So we've got a boatload of experience on our team. And yeah, our team's tough. We work them hard each and every day. You know, yesterday, you think this time in the season we're trying to slow down a little bit. But yesterday's practice, we got into them hard because we don't have time to slow down. I told the guys, look, you guys might I think this is the end of the season, but this is just the beginning.

We're just getting started here, so you've got to change your mindset, and we've got to get going here. Break that down for folks who don't know. What's a hard week? What's a hard practice going into? You got double-headers, you know, you got Friday and Sunday this weekend, and you're coming off, you know, two matches last weekend. What's a hard week?

What's a hard Wednesday for Husker tennis? Yeah, so probably a little yelling and screaming for me. You know, the guys would probably tell you that's true. but really it's it's it's kind of on them what you know we we we tell them what's expected when they come to practice and if we're not seeing it we're we can't let that happen so we make a focal point to say hey we'll practice as long as we need the practice you know within the rules to make sure that you guys are prepared the mentally for the for the match I think if you're not prepared mentally it doesn't really matter how physically you're prepared for the match if you know

you can feel fresh and everything but if you're not mentally prepared to compete and go out there and fight and win, I think it's tough. I think it's tough to go out there and win. So I keep telling the guys, I was like, come to practice, work the right way, do things the right way, practice hard, focus the best you can. We practice for an hour and a half. It needs to be your best hour and a half. If it's two and a half hours, it's two and a half hours. But at the beginning of the week, we try and we try and up the volume a little bit. Monday. We had Monday's practice was a little bit shorter just its first day back. And then yesterday was a little bit longer. today they'll play some more points but but regardless of what we're doing it's got to be with

the best mental and and physical ability that you got you just have to be dialed in especially this time and you know there's no time to take to take mental breaks a lot of what i'm asking your things that are have been asked to me they found out hey you're following tennis is pretty cool what do you know about this what do you know about that so and one of the questions was the the the number of hours for for a division one for a Nebraska tennis player, right? High school tennis players are listening and they want to know what the difference is between playing at the high school level and playing in the Big Ten conference. The amount of hours that you have to put into, let's say cardio versus serve versus on court versus film

study, how many hours? What's the average week in season for your tennis player? Well, the rules let you do 20 hours with the student athletes. But I truly think that if you're trying to be the very best you can, you're probably going to have to do closer to 25 or 25 or 30. It doesn't always have to be on the court. Some of it's in the gym. Some of it's just stretching. Some of it's in the training room. Some of it's watching some filming yourself. But I'm old, you know, I'm young, but I'm old school. I think old school and I, you know, the guy that wants it the most is going to figure out a way to get there the first. So it might not happen this week.

It might not happen next week. But we're trying to get our guys understand. Like, hey, this is how you win, man. So I told him yesterday, I don't know if it's Mike. I said it's my quote. I came up with it. But I said, if you want winning to be easier, you do everything the hard way.

If you want winning to be harder, do everything the easy way. That should be on a shirt. I think that sums it up pretty well. That should be on a shirt. It really, you know, listen, so we're talking to Nebraska men's tennis head coach Peter Cobalt. And through all of it, right, that to get Nebraska tennis to the point where you're in the top 40 and you have to, it's getting there is one thing.

And being in the Big Ten, it's not easy to stay there. So you've got some work to do and you're trying to be present and let's get this win. except you also have an eye towards the tournament. So how does that break down and what are the numbers that you keep in your mind for postseason? Well, yeah, I mean, when you're with the guys and you're at practice and you're with the team, you know, anything that you do around the guys,

you're always focused on what you're doing today in the moment so that they, you know, we're trying to keep them focused too. Obviously, they know they follow the rankings. They look at all the results there. you know, they're, but we keep telling them like, hey, look, like, that's all fine and dandy. Those things are going to happen one way or another, but we've got to take care of our business. So we got to come and be ready and ready to go and stay focused. So I try and tell them like, you don't, you don't need to look at that stuff, but you can't,

you can't babysit them 24-7, so. The internet and it's everywhere. So if they want to know the information, if they're curious, they're going to find it. Yeah, but tell me again, the back half of that one. So the idea that you, sitting at. at 38 that the tournament can't take everybody. So what's the baseline number for number of teams? And how's that determined?

So it's determined by you have at-large bids, and then you have conference championships. It's just like basketball. You have select number of teams that get in with an at-large pick, and then whoever wins their conference, no matter how big or small it is, they get an automatic entrance into the NCAA tournament too.

So there's a guy that has a website and he like kind of knows all the formulas and stuff so it's like it's amazing how how in in such finite business that the NCAA is within sports and its revenue that there's a guy there's a guy and you know it's a small tennis is a small community but there's it's a passionate community and some guys figured out the format he knows what all the rankings are going to be after you play the matches and stuff so uh you know you look at that a little bit you try not to because it drives you crazy this match, this, that match, you know, what if we do this, this and that? It's like, but, but, you know, you're just trying to do your very best.

And, look, I think this year, depending on who wins their conference, you know, you don't know that until the end of the next week or the week after the Big Ten term is one, the last ones to play. The SEC term is going on now. And so is, I think, the ACC as well. So they'll be done sooner. So we'll know some of those results earlier. but I think it'll be somewhere between 44 and 46 this year.

Again, it depends on a few other things. But look, I just keep telling the guys, I'm like, man, like, we don't have to, we don't have to worry about that. Just keep playing. Just keep playing. We got USC on our plate right now. The focus has got to be 100% on USC. And let's let the rest take care of itself.

Tell me, tell me about the guys you're going to try it out Friday. Folks are going to find themselves at Dillis 10. Dylan Tennis Center on Friday. It's a big day, but I want to talk about the young men before we talk about the surroundings, the environment and all those things. But talk to me about who you believe

the doubles are going to be in your six without giving away too much of your game playing. You can talk about the personalities, not necessarily where they're going to play or who they're going to play against. Yeah, I don't know if this is quite as crazy as football and basketball. I'm not giving away any secrets on the show.

Right. But yeah, I mean, look, our doubles, the way we teach doubles is built on a system, and it's made for everyone to be able to play with everyone. So we come to practice, and sometimes we just have guys practice with different players and just to reinforce the system. But, you know, we have our pairings, and we're pretty confident in their abilities. Obviously, everyone's trying to get better, and we're trying to get better at some things, too. And the guys are really bought in.

The first two days of practice have been a lot of doubles. and I think we're starting to catch a little bit of momentum there, which is good. I think the doubles point is a huge point in college tennis. So explain the folks to the doubles point because, again, tennis scoring, especially on the collegiate levels, a little different than otherwise. So explain the doubles point and then the single. Yeah, doubles. So you start to match with doubles, six o'clock right at six, we start with doubles,

three doubles matches. There's court one doubles, score, two doubles, score three doubles. and you play the court the two number one teams will play each other the two number two teams two number three teams all play each other the team that wins two out of the three of those sets it's first to six a tiebreaker at six all the team that wins uh the two out of the three gets the doubles point and they start to singles up one zero so now if you if you want to win the match it's the first team to four but if you got the doubles point you got to get three out of six you lose the doubles point you got to get four out of six. So the math gets difficult if you lose the doubles point.

Is there, is there any shenanigans with, you know what, their ones are really good. It may be more suited for us to attack the two and the three and put my folks down there, right, and get the point rather than setting up long-term vision for how are you going to play your season. Yeah. So every Tuesday, we have a big, we turn in our lineups to the big 10. and then all the lineups go out Tuesday night and you get to review everyone's lineup. And if you see something that might be off, you're allowed to protest it. So there's been a few protests this year. And there you go back and forth.

Sometimes they get flipped. Sometimes they don't. But by this point in the season, your number one player is pretty much laminated. Your number two players pretty much laminated. So if there's a lot of, if there's something moving, it's, you know, someone's got to be struggling or doing really well or whatever like that. So there's a little bit of the match-up game. you know, everyone's trying to turn, you know, 60, 65 cents into a dollar. So, well, I mean, you're trying your best to, you're trying your best to find ways, find ways to put your guys

into the best situations they can to be successful. I mean, that's whatever, that's what everyone does in every sport. You know, you'd be crazy to be a, to be a coach and just say, hey, go play without a plan or without, you know, trying to attack something. So in tennis, you're not able to do that quite as much, but, but, uh, you try, you, you, you try to, you, you try to, you, you, you try to, your best to position your guys the very best you can. Talk to me about the personalities involved with player one, player two. Your two top players that generally play at the top, that usually play the oppositions one or two.

Are those pretty standard for you? Have they been the same this year or have folks played up or played down? No, yeah, they've been, they've played basically one and two the entire. I think, yeah, I think Anton's played one once and Calvin's played number one the rest of the season. And so Calvin's been, you know, at the top of the line up the whole year, he's done a great job. He's a senior. He's matured a ton in his time here. He's playing some great tennis.

And, you know, he's going to be a big part of our success coming down the road here. So we're going to need him. And then obviously, Anton, also a senior. Same deal has matured a lot mentally. His tennis has gotten a lot better. And he's starting to find his mojo right now, too. So he's going to be a guy that we count on a lot as well. I mean, all the guys in our team that, you know, everyone's got a role.

Everyone's got to come and give their very best every day. Everyone's, you know, it's the first time I've ever in coaching. I've been on a team or coached the team where all nine guys have contributed and all contributed in a massive way throughout the whole season. I think it's great. I think it, I mean, it gives everyone knows when they come to practice. They got to practice and prepare because, you know, their name could be called any day. So I think that helps with it all.

But, well, yeah, I mean, the guys have done a great job. They really have. they really deserve to keep keep the season moving on. Obviously, we're focusing one match at that time. My job is to kind of see the forest through or see the, yeah, see the forest through the trees and see kind of where everything's moving and going. But, yeah, you got to be where your feet are. And, you know, we're getting ready for practice today.

We'll go after, after this, we're going out to practice. And going to prepare our very best. Sitting at 14 and 7, and it's a big, even in the, in the communication, you make a point that, listen, we need support. We need, we need Husker Nation, we need Husker Power. You need all those things to show up Friday. Because, and again, at 14 and 7 season so far, seven wins in the Big Ten Conference,

where do those kind of land as far as Nebraska historically? So last year, I think we had 17 wins overall, which was, I think that was our best record since 1990. I know the seven wins I was just told is the best in program history in the conference. the Big Ten Conference. We haven't been in the Big Ten forever, but in terms of conference play, that's the most wins we've had in the Big Ten Conference, which is great. Again, it's just a testament to the guys, really, honestly, they're the ones out there hitting the balls and doing all

the hard things. But yeah, I mean, it's a ginormous weekend for us. You know, obviously the NCAA tournament's coming on. We have these two matches and then we'll go to the Big Ten tournament. We qualified for that, which is great. But, you know, we're looking to play the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2011. So yeah, I mean, if we, I think if we can get a win this weekend, we kind of secure our bid. We'll see. Obviously, that's no easy task with two great teams coming in town, two brand new teams. We've never played either one ever before. So USC on Friday night, USC or UCLA on Sunday for Senior Day. We're going to have a, I was just told some of the community members are going to have a tailgate out in the parking lot, 4 to 6 p.m. before the match. People are

asking me, what do I bring? And I tell them, whatever you bring to a football game tailgate, you're allowed to also bring to a tennis match tailgate. So whatever, whatever beverages you'd like to bring or whatever sandwiches you'd like to eat, you know, those are, those also work at a tennis match. So. Bach, did you like to dance on that one? He, he, he, he, he, he circled that up really nicely about whatever you would normally do, do that. Do that. We just need more of them. Sure. We just need more of them. Sure. We just need more. them. We will go through that. I want to go through the two opponents. I want to go through

the tailgate. I want to go through the, you know, look, I'm going to tease you this thing. They're giving away free pizza. One of the days. Pizza Sunday and an iPad Friday night. See? And so there's lots to talk about. Again, Peter Cobalt, Nebraska men's tennis. We'll go to break when we'll come back.

We'll talk about this big, huge tennis weekend here Lincoln. When we get back to one-on-one.