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Message: [QUOTE="bballnut90, post: 2776905, member: 2117"] Thanks for the input. I just used Sweet 16 as a measuring stick to highlight teams that haven't found NCAA success. There were many teams that had a few good years, but for the most part haven't been a consistently successful programs. Discovering that teams like West Virginia, Virginia, Auburn, and USC haven't made a Sweet 16 in the last 18 years really surprised me. Kansas had back to back Sweet 16s in 2012 and 2013, so they were recently successful. Kansas State has made the 2nd round in two of the last 3 years...nothing dreadful about that. They also made a Sweet 16 in 2002 so that's why they weren't included. They should've been much better in 2003 and 2004 when they had Kendra Wecker, Laurie Koehn and Nicole Ohlde. In regards to Big Ten, I think the biggest issue is they cannot keep top area recruits in conference. In Chicago alone they've lost Candace Parker, Cappie Pondexter, Dev Peters, Jewell Loyd, Tricia Liston, Morgan Tuck, Ariel Massengale to other schools. Notre Dame's emergence is a big part in this. In the last decade they landed Diggins/Reimer (Indiana), Loyd (Chicago), McBride (Pennsylvania), and Arike (Wisconsin). In the earlier part of the decade, you had Amber Harris and Ta'shia Phillips both decommit from Purdue and go to Xavier...if they played for Purdue, they would've had very good teams from 2010-2012. The list could go on and on, but Kelsey Mitchell, Jantel Lavender and Jessica Davenport are the only top recruits I can think of who stayed in Big Ten country. The program that is most surprising to me is Wisconsin. Madison is a huge college town and they had strong fan support in the early 2000s (consistently ranked in the top 10 nationally for attendance) and still had good attendance in the late 2000s. They had some very good players in 2001 and 2002, even landing the #1 recruit from the 1999 class who played 2 years before transferring to JUCO. The men's program sells out every game, so does their women's volleyball team. It's surprising that they've never made the Sweet 16 and they've been a Big Ten bottom feeder. In regards to Alabama, they made 5 consecutive Sweet 16s from 1994-1998. They made the Final Four in 1994 and gave Tennessee's 39-0 squad their closest game in 1998. And Vanderbilt shouldn't be on this list at all....they were very good for many years. Almost made the Final Four in 2001 and 2002 under Foster, and made 4 Sweet 16s under Balcomb. They made the tournament every year from 2000-2014. [/QUOTE]

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