Can't join from work, firewall blocking the brackets again this year. Are the "First Four" part of this bracket challenge? I might be able to get home before the first game.

I have a legitimate reason for doing horribly. My alma mater is one of eight schools with at least 50 years at D-I never to make the big dance.

Anyone want to attempt that list?

Northwestern
Maine (???)

uh, uh

Well, there's my contribution.

I'm guessing that the list will have more of the "I had no idea they were D-1" than the "I had no idea they've never been to the dance" type of suprises.

Not if they've be D1 for the last 50 years.

I'll have to find the list now.

I'll save you the time, Snaqs...

Link

Now that South Dakota State is in, that leaves Maine and Alaska as the only states that have never sent a team to the big dance.

Oh, and Alaska has no D-I schools.

I knew there would be at least one Southern Conference school (Citadel) on the list. I should have known about William & Mary since I live 15 minutes from their campus.

:D Too late, I was reading the list while you posted the link.

I'll say of the 8, it was 50/50 for me. With four, I was more surprised that they had been D1 for 50 years.

Interesting note, Denver would have been on the list had they not left D1 from '80-'99.

It must be brutal trying to recruit top players to a military academy. I have two friends that went to The Cid (including our class clown), no chance in hell would I consider that.

W&M and Maine are more about football, anyway. It's not easy being a CAA school up here, with most of the conference bunched up down your way, but Maine makes it work somehow.

Although both UAA and UAF do compete at the D-I level in a number of sports.

Right, Maine has played both in hockey plenty of times. I recall a Great Alaska shootout in-season tournament. Maine opts for the one in south Florida now.

Go Bears ???
 

What about baseball?

Hockey primarily, of course (two national championships). Baseball has come back a bit (defending conference champions), but it will never be like it was in the '80s when they had five College World Series trips. The college baseball landscape has changed way too much, and a lot of northeastern schools have dropped baseball in favor of lacrosse. Maine baseball's nearest conference opponent is six hours away, but Maine has way too much history to consider axing the program.

So Goes Maine, So Goes The Nation ...
 

Now that's the Maine program that I remember. Successful, even though the "warm season" is only two months long, and the black flies slow down a pitched, or a batted ball.