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Best Teams Not To Win A Natty In The Last 10 Years: 2012 Ohio State Buckeyes

They started playing tennis in Columbus all the way back in 1912 but they didn’t “really” start playing until Ty Tucker took over the program in 1999. From 1912 to 1999 (87 years) the Buckeyes had a record of 733-613-10 (.541) and won just 3 Big 10 Championships but from 2000 to the present they’re 455-74 (.860) and have won 10 regular season Big 10 Championships and another 10 Big 10 Tournament Championships. Prior to Tucker’s arrival Ohio State had never played in the NCAA Tournament but since his arrival they’ve made it all 16 times (note: field was expanded to 64 starting in spring of 1999). In those 16 appearances Ohio...

Best Teams Not To Win A Natty In The Last 10 Years: 2008 Virginia Cavaliers

If you asked the legion of Virginia fans on The Sabre to name the best Virginia team ever, I think many wouldn’t name either of the recent National Championship teams but instead would go with the feature of this post – the 2008 Virginia Cavaliers.The 2008 team, in my opinion, had the most talent 1 through 6 of any team they’ve ever fielded; I mean when your #6 guy goes on to win 14 titles (and counting) on the Future circuit (7 singles/7 doubles) you know you had some quality depth. The starting 6 from the 2008 team has won 28 singles and 70 doubles titles at the pro level which is a pretty staggering number.  The only college teams...

Best Teams Not To Win A Natty In The Last 10 Years: 2006 Georgia Bulldogs

The 2006 Georgia Bulldogs seemed like they were a team that was destined to give Manny Diaz his 3rd NCAA Championship and the schools 5th after they spent virtually the entire season ranked #1. The experienced team started 3 seniors, 2 juniors, and a sophomore and 1 of the juniors was none other than big John Isner.  Isner won the ITA All Americans in the fall by defeating Baylor’s Lars Poerschke 7-6, 7-6 in the final. Georgia’s eventual #6 singles player, Strahinja Bobusic, picked up 3 top 35 wins in the fall including a win over #2 Ludovic Walter of Duke.Luis Flores was the lone sophomore and he started off the year playing at #1 singles....

Best Teams Not To Win A Natty In The Last 10 Years: 2005 Baylor Bears

After seeing that Connor Smith was up to 200 in the latest ATP rankings that got me thinking about how Ohio State didn’t win a national championship the year he played at #6 singles or for that matter the year he played at #3.  Then I started thinking about some of the other teams that were seemingly loaded but came up short when it mattered the most. So I decided to go back through the last 10 years and pick out those teams the many considered favorites and replay the moment where their season came to an end.I’ll start off with the 2004-05 season and this is a pretty obvious one.  The Matt Knoll coached Baylor Bears were the defending...