Who do you guys feel were the most underachieving teams in 2005. The teams with some hype coming into the year, which ended up not coming close to their expectations. I'll start it off by saying Northwestern. Everyone thought they were gonna take the country by storm this year but they ended up not even making hte tournement. Obviously the loss of Alvarez for the early portion of the year hurt them, but they were dissapointing to say the least.
UCLA. Even losing Barrett and Feilhaber, they had WAY too much talent not to win at least one game in the NCAAs. Yeah, Marvell got hurt late, but no way should UCLA not be a Sweet 16 team, at least. And VCU should be on this list, too. They were seeded a year ago and had a great run in the NCAAs and brought a lot of talent back and didn't even make the NCAAs this year. And Stanford should be on this list for missing the NCAAs for the third straight year after two straight trips to the Final Four. Without Bobby Clark's players, this program is floundering.
1.Stanford 2.Michigan 3.Boston College 4.Portland 5.Northwestern 6.St. Louis 7.Tulsa 8.Rutgers 9.Wisconsin 10.Harvard This is not a top ten you want to be on. With the exception of St. Louis, these teams really struggled all season long. SLU is only on this list because they missed the tourney and even Tom will say that was a major blow. Many expected them to be back this year and the question is will they be back next year? Stanford is in bad shape and showed no signs of improvement this year. Michigan took a major step backwards this year after making the Elite 8 two seasons ago. And what has happened to the once mighty Scarlet Knights?
How do you include Harvard and Northwestern when one team has no scholarships and the other only a few ? Hoff and Fucito's loss at Harvard hurt them for sure. They are a team to watch next year. Northwestern probably just achieved this year instead of overachieving last year. Still a winning record and in the top 25% of teams according to soccerratings.com. Not sure what their injury situation was. Stanford, SLU, Portland and Rutgers are the only teams with any real tradition. The rest of the teams are going to be up and down based on an injury here, a play there.
How do you include Harvard and Northwestern when one team has no scholarships and the other only a few ? Hoff and Fucito's loss at Harvard hurt them for sure. They are a team to watch next year. Northwestern probably just achieved this year instead of overachieving last year. Still a winning record and in the top 25% of teams according to soccerratings.com. Not sure what their injury situation was. Stanford, SLU, Portland and Rutgers are the only teams with any real tradition. The rest of the teams are going to be up and down based on an injury here, a play there. I realize that Harvard doesn't award athletic scholarships, but are you saying Northwestern doesn't fully the progam? I would think they would playing in the Big Ten..
Not sure what Northwestern has but it is nowhere near fully funded but still a bit of a disappointing year. Much like Vanderbilt, Georgetown, etc. Those schools get by on financial aid packages like the Ivies. None of those type schools offer academic aid either since all the students who are admitted regularly are such good students. Difference is in Georgetown and Northwestern's case is that they have to compete against some of the best funded programs in the country, unlike the Ivies who compete against schools with the same rules. Does anyone know a breakdown of what schools get what scholarships ?
To me, underachieve means to do less than you should with the talent given. So UCLA did underachieve in the tournament, although they lost to a very hot SMU team. I would not say Stanford underachieved to a significant extent. I just don't think Stanford had the talent to do better than 5th or 6th in the Pac-10. And the rest of the Pac-10 was very strong. 3 tournament teams and 2 others on the bubble (one of whom, Washington, really should have made the tournament when one compares it to a Providence or a Brown or Yale).