Most Obscure Collegiate Teams to Expereince Consistent Success at the National Level?

* Ole Miss is what I meant

My apologies

Richmond from a few years ago wins. I know they weren't consistent but getting to nationals with only admission slots is pretty impressive. Think of how many scholarship programs they had to be beating up on.

Also don't give me any of that Ivy league crap. Having all of your financial need met at an Ivy is way better than a full ride at most schools. (besides maybe Stanfurd?)

Ole Miss is actually a phenomenal example.

Really not a great location. I mean, really. Weather isn't great, town really doesn't have much going on, and previously they hadn't had much success at all.

The chances that all of those athletes, and a talented core of coaches all got together there was a very unlikely one.

Usually when something like this happens in d1, it's because the program got a bunch of new scholarships. Syracuse and Furman come to mind recently in men's d1, I think that was the case for those two, and wouldn't be surprised if it were true for Ole Miss too.

run for place wrote:

Usually when something like this happens in d1, it's because the program got a bunch of new scholarships. Syracuse and Furman come to mind recently in men's d1, I think that was the case for those two, and wouldn't be surprised if it were true for Ole Miss too.

No Syracuse should have always been a good team. NY has a long and strong tradition.

Bucknell in the 80's

Tell me something else Iona is known for.

Yes, Bucknell went as a team 9 teams in the 70's-80's

Portland has been phenomenal for a small Catholic school in D1.

Stunt Double wrote:

Portland has been phenomenal for a small Catholic school in D1.

Portland is another great example for sure.

Iona, Butler

Utep and Iona. Mississippi State is an sec school with a great athletics program so it’s not suprising to me at all

Coach wrote:

No Syracuse should have always been a good team. NY has a long and strong tradition.

It'd be nice to think that, but the same can be said about dozens of places that aren't that good until they get scholarships and start recruiting out of state or out of the country for that matter.

Look at California, Texas, Florida, even somewhere like Ohio. Those states have tons of high school talent, you could even say "strong traditions", but barely any decent collegiate men's team right now except Stanford. (Lately UCLA's been okay, maybe Texas.) You can name 20 schools from those states that "should have always been a good team" and some of them were at points in the past but without the scholarship numbers it's really hard to stay relevant.

(Of course, good coaches and scholarship amounts are highly correlated.)

Okay, I tried it. Let's say instead "10" schools from those states.

North Central College in D3. Mediocre to low end academics, and it’s D3, yet somehow they still get D1 level recruits.

Akron.

/thread

Southern Utah and Weber State are usually good.

Good call on Iona. I was thinking the same. How about University of Alaska Anchorage in D2 and Eastern Kentucky University in D1?

UW LaCrosse (D3)