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 State has been a top 5 national seed 8 times with those 8 coming in consecutive years starting in 2007 and ending in 2014. The only team to string together a longer streak is Virginia who has been a top 5 seed each of the last 9 years (10 times total since 2005).

Tucker's recipe for success has traditionally been to have a balanced mixture of the top talent from the state of Ohio and the northeastern U.S. along with a few high-end Europeans. Some of Ohio State's better players over the last decade weren't the sure thing TRN Blue Chips but rather the 4 and 5 stars that Tucker was able to develop into excellent players (Kobelt, McCarthy, Callahan, Metka). The reason they were able to develop is due to Tucker's practice of getting many of his guys to take a redshirt season which allows them to adapt to college life as well hone their game at a slower pace. 8 of the 12 guys on the current roster have already taken a redshirt season or will be taking one before their eligibility runs out. If you go back to 2007, 21 of 37 guys that played for the Buckeyes will have taken a redshirt season.

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 that could rival that number would be some of the Stanford teams with the Bryan Brothers in the late 90s.

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. Flores, who was a top 10 ITF junior with a pair of wins over this guy named Novak Djokovic, actually joined the team in January of the year prior but wasn't eligible to play until January 2006. Antonio Ruiz teamed with John Isner to win the 2005 NCAA Doubles Championship but then took the fall off to play in pro events.  Colin Purcell was coming off a year where he went 19-4 splitting time between #4 and #5 and he had a decent fall but an injury kept him out of the lineup for the first 3 matches of the 2006 season.  Matic Omerzel was coming off a 16-7 year where he played mostly at #3 and then he made it to the finals of the SEC Indoors in January 2006.

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 national champs and they were ranked #1 all season long in every poll released except for the last one.