Buffalo Bulls Tennis Weekend Preview: Everyone's going to Connecticut

Though traveling separately, both UB Tennis teams are on their way to Connecticut, the men facing another Ivy League opponent and a few other familiar northeastern faces, and the women getting up to speed after an easy opening weekend win six days ago.

Men

Off the heels of two very similar weekends - loss to a ranked Ivy, win over another yearly opponent - UB gets a shot for a very strong weekend with matches against Yale, Monmouth, and Boston College.

That's not to say the Bulls haven't been impressive in their 2-2 record so far, just really a coin flip from a win at then-#47 Cornell and a 3-1 record, but this weekend's Ivy, the Yale Bulldogs, only beat the Bulls 4-3 last season and UB has looked better against Brown and Dartmouth this season in addition to Cornell.

UB beat Boston College 7-0 and Monmouth 4-1 in 2015. The Eagles graduated both of their top doubles pairing a year ago, a pair that included their top singles player as well, and have only a 6-1 loss to Harvard on their register this season. Monmouth returns a similar amount of contributors, but also loses their #1 singles guy from last year's matchup.

The marquee dual of the weekend will be against Yale, who return all but last year's guy at #3 singles from the tight 2015 dual. That should be a great, close match once again.

Women

On the women's side, UB is heading to the UConn Invitational, but reports on Twitter that they'll face UConn, Bryant, and Quinnipiac. The Bulls faced none of the three last season. UConn reports that this won't be a traditional dual structure but rather each matchup will feature just four singles and one doubles contests. Color me unimpressed, especially considering UB didn't get much work against a shorthanded St. Francis last week.

Quinnipiac in particular looks to be a tough challenge. The Bobcats are the unanimous preseason MAAC favorites and two-time defending champions, having never lost a conference dual since joining the conference. This weekend will be the first spring action for Quinnipiac, but the group did lose handily to Connecticut in the fall. The Huskies did not have a particularly impressive 2015, but did send six players to the ITA Regional in the fall.

There's little compare Bryant to other than both the Bulldogs and Bulls fell to ASA College last year, though UB by a narrower margin. The Rhode Island school advanced to the NCAA Tournament last season as the #2 seed in the Northeastern Conference.

We'll have recaps for each day, rather than waiting to round up the weekend.