Granted, buckeyes are not edible, so the label is a bit more effective than other possibilities like the Ohio State Cashews or Ohio State Macadamias. 1) lays it out simply: "The ball shall be spherical. Did opposing teams go cold because of the defense they encountered -- or the basketball? You can get far more meaning from looking at how the team has performed against teams against which you have at least a passing familiarity of. When the college first emerged as a football powerhouse in the late nineteenth century, the newspapers in rival communities disparaged the Purdue athletes with names such as "coal heavers" and "boilermakers.". Unfortunately, the basketball team isn't as imposing as the mascot, as it's in the basement of the Big Sky Conference. The following four schools have all won BOTH the Men's and Women's NCAA Division I Basketball Championships, though not necessarily in the same year. Golden Flashes? Well, back in the 1910s, the university's football coach, John R. Bender (who not only coached at Washington State, Kansas State and Tennessee, but also coached multiple sports; football, basketball, and baseball) was said by local sportswriters to look like a billiken. A few schools use a brand called MacGregor. We all get it. Kent State also has some notable alumni including Alabama Crimson Tide head coach Nick Saban, Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker James Harrison, Chicago Cubs pitcher Andy Sonnanstine, former New York Yankees catcher Thurman Munson, and San Diego Chargers tight end Antonio Gates (though he didn't play football there; instead, he played basketball). What is a zip, you ask? The Orange are a big 8.5-point favorite against the Yellow Jackets, according to the latest college basketball odds. After all, a college's reputation can be impacted by rankings, however silly they may be. Although the bulk of college basketball's Power 5 schools use Nike basketballs, the manufacturing giant has different versions of its standard ball. In the NBA, I believe, there is a standard. Originally, this team was called the "Fighting Teachers," as Indiana State was once just called Indiana State Teachers College. Fun fact: Their baseball stadium is named after Stony Brook alumni and current Texas Ranger pitcher Joe Nathan, who donated $500,000 to renovate the field. As for Stephen F. Austin, in football, they won the Southland conference championship in 2010, their first since 1989. Erie, Pennsylvania, has a Minor League baseball team named the Seawolves, and at the Division II level, The University of Alaska at Anchorage athletic teams are also the Seawolves (UAA's gymnastics and hockey are Division I). Of course the Saint Louis University Billikens had to make this list of strange team names and mascots. They regularly get blown out by 40, 50+ points. An interesting addition, their football team (which no longer exists) is known for throwing the first legal forward pass in college football history, back in 1906. When we play Fairfield, they can be a tough opponent to beat, even though we are not considered to be rivals (despite the fact that we are in-state here in Connecticut; roughly 45-50 minutes away from each other). Up until the 1920s, they used to be called the Pioneers, until they changed it to Aces. The most polarizing views still center on The Rock, a basketball manufactured by a New York company called Anaconda Sports. Even some of Beilein's former players didn't care for The Rock, though Michigan evolved into a national title contender that finished in the top 50 in field goal percentage inside the arc in seven of Beilein's last nine years with the program. The Demon Deacon mascot is a distinguished yet peculiar fellow who sports a top hat and a bow tie, which gives him major style points in my book. Forums can be frustrating because of the people on them and the crap they like to talk about, but if you can stand to wade through all of that then you can often pick out a few nuggets that can be very helpful. College Basketball Lines, College Not many team names have a quadruple meaning like the Tennessee-Chattanooga Mocs do. Dartmouth is a member of the Ivy League and boasts the lowest acceptance rate of any school on this list. Solid, sturdy and safe is one route to take. Trying to draw meaning from looking back at a basketball game . Alabama ranks among the top South Central universities, and it competes in the NCAASoutheastern Conference (SEC). Chaucer, Geoffrey. In baseball, they're the most winning baseball team over the last 31 years. Whatever a Sun Devil is, it belongs on this list. There aren't any wild anteaters in California, but UC Irvine adopted the animal as its nickname and mascot anyway. . The favored team was a school best known for . In spite of those sentiments, don't expect coaches to disregard anything that might give them even a minor advantage over their contemporaries. The Jayhawks play with a Wilson basketball, so opponents headed to Allen Fieldhouse will probably use a Wilson in that week's practices. The Rock, the bulk of people interviewed by ESPN suggested, has a harder exterior than other basketballs, which gives it a different feel than that of the other brands used in the sport. And once Minnesota became the Gopher State, it didn't take long for the University of Minnesota athletic teams to become the Gophers. The Stetson cowboy hat was originally manufactured by John B. Stetson, the first benefactor of Stetson University. Interestingly, they're a part of three conferences in Division I: the Southern Conference(for wrestling), the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (lacrosse, water polo), and the Big South (everything else). The story follows the adventures of this bird as he is captured by a fox that he eventually outsmarts and escapes from. Connecticut Huskies Rhode Island . The name Wichita State Shockers seems to suggest electrocution and an intimidating ability to strike down opponents with a bolt of lightning. Daily NCAAB Free Picks in 2023. First, the mascot came from a 1923 write-up after Wake Forest beat rival school Trinity (now Duke University), when the editor of the paper referred to the football team as the Demon Deacons for their devilish play. When Michigan signed a new deal with Nike in 2016, the apparel giant asked the Wolverines to discontinue use of The Rock and placed language in Michigan's contract that compels the school to use a Nike ball at home. ", "I'm disappointed in that a little bit," Izzo said. Chanticleer is a rooster in the Nun's Priest's Tale of Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales. But coaches can and do deviate from a university's brand. His team became known as "Bender's Billikens.". For them to remove the logos would be very costly as a result. (8-2, 0-0) 43. But no one can question how daunting the team's logo is. They're also in this year's NCAA Tournament. VMI is best known for their two years in men's basketball, in 1976 and 1977. Any ball that meets those standards is legal, even if the seams and stitching vary. Every so often, though, those teams play games against higher profile teams are we have to handicap them. However, that's not the only sport Georgetown has done well in. In Erie, mascot C. Wolf is a gray wolf dressed as a pirate. It's not entirely clear whether Stony Brook is worthy of inclusion on this list since the Seawolf really isn't a unique mascot. You must admit that the Dartmouth Broccoli has a nice ring to it. I have some serious qualms with Demon Deacon up there. At the heart of Dartmouth's picture-perfect New England campus is a big town or village green (see it here). D1 NCAA. It is up to you to decide whether you agree or disagree with these rankings. 20 Strangest Division I Team Names. The fact that this university is located in Florida makes it even worse. Fun Fact: Legendary NFL coach Bill Parcells was a linebacker and later a graduate assistant at Wichita State in the early 1960s. The Men's Basketball team at Stanford made $7,768,928 in revenue, while incurring $6,480,368 in expenses. 1 CCNY Beavers - 1950 The Beavers are so obscure that they aren't even in D1 anymore and instead play at a DII level today. Browse Sports. "I don't like it. The term "Hoya" is actually derived from a Latin and Greek-mixed chant "Hoya Saxa," which means "What Rocks. You will need to read more than the headline on the Presbyterian website to learn that the Hose really does refer to hosiery. Campell University is a member of the NCAABig South Conference. OSU is consistently one of the top teams in the Midwest, and Brutus is one of the most well-known mascots in the country. You see, the university is part of the Diocese of Hartford, and the word "hart" according to Webster's Dictionary, means "a male of the European red deer, stag.". by Noodle33. 8 points. Cookie Notice Our rankings algorithm requires a minimum number of games played before we can accurately rank teams. Spherical shall be defined as a round body whose surface at all points is equidistant from the center except at the approved black rubber ribs (channels and/or seams).". Do a statistical survey Looking at statistics and how they compare to their opponent is always a part of handicapping at least it hopefully. Maddux Sports makes its money from repeat sports "I get it," he said. Why is the mighty North Carolina program called the "Tar Heels"? By comparing the recapssports bettorscan be sure that what you are reading makes sense and is at least a somewhat accurate representation of what happened. Nebraska coach and former Iowa State sharpshooter Fred Hoiberg, a 40% college 3-point shooter who thrived from distance during a 10-year NBA career, says a basketball brand can affect a game, which is why he'd like to see a permanent change. When researching all Division I colleges and universities for other articles using afair, balanced, highly scientific, and entirely empirical system of evaluationstudying their retention rates, graduation rates, selectivity, and financial aidwe came up with an in-depth analysis containing lovely data, but that wasn't useful for this list. "However, through sheer will and determination, he continued to trudge through and escaped out of the tar. These are but a few common team names in the world of collegiate sports. On another note, the unofficial mascot is the bear, but the above illustration captures the spirit of the team just as well. A decade before he led Virginia Commonwealth to the Final Four, Shaka Smart was a low-level member of Dayton's staff who had been handed a frustrating task by his boss, coach Oliver Purnell. This assumption, though, would be wrong. During the 2012-13 season, Michigan's opponents made 40.1% of their field goal attempts and only 30.8% of their 3-point attempts with an obscure ball brand called "The Rock" in Ann Arbor's Crisler Arena. "The Nun's Priest's Tale." NCAA Sports. NCAA School. After all, global warming hadn't taken effect yet. "Hokies" became Virginia Tech's nickname after O.M. Now, if you raise the goal above 10 feet, now we've got a problem.". They are a more recent addition to Division I sports. https://www.thoughtco.com/strangest-division-i-team-names-788263 (accessed March 2, 2023). Although most fans don't notice the differences, players accustomed to repetition certainly do. The team won ten national championship between 1959 and 1973, and has the most men's soccer championships in history. The team earned the shockers label because many of the early players harvested wheat to earn money. by OtisBushtail. Pomona is a small private not-for-profit school . In college football, I don't think there is. In 1977, the Keydets went 26-4, and reached the NCAA Tournament again. Filecoin Network; Filecoin Foundation This is an online quiz called Obscure College Basketball Mascots. Wildcats. The team got its name in 1907 during a game against Auburn played in a sea of mud in which Alabama held its own against Auburn, a team expected to crush themAlabama's school colors, crimson and white, also played a role in the cultivation of the new name. Other early names include grangers, blacksmiths, railsplitters, cornfield sailors and pumpkin-shuckers, but ultimately, the Boilermaker name stuck. "There were only one or two when I started coaching," West Virginia coach Bob Huggins said. Does the brand of basketball really matter? However, no mercury or madness was involved in the Stetson name. What better way to intimidate your rivals than to name your team after a small, burrowing rodent. Apparantly, this univesity in Indiana thought that just being called the Aces wasn't enough, they had to incorporate a color with it. "It's not anything new to us. The railroad theme in the current logo refers to Chattanooga's history as a railroad center of commerce. Paul acknowledged that opposing defenders and road environments have an impact, too, and it's impossible to pinpoint one variable as the most significant component in the disparity. Okay, the history isn't so glorious, but kangaroo does rhyme with KCU, and in that historic year when the university chose its mascot, the Kansas City Zoo had just purchased two baby kangaroos. Ideally, I like to look at a couple of recaps. Some NCAA conferences are so obscure that the only time we hear about them each year is when the winner of the conference loses to a number one seed by 40. During this process, it came to our attention that many schools have strange names, and we set out to choose the strangest. "20 Strangest Division I Team Names." We've got work to do!" Like me, you're probably wondering what a billiken is? Theyaverage more than 20,000 people at their home games. With the college basketball world full of basic bulldogs and every kind of wolf, it's refreshing to see a mysterious foreign canine as the mascot of Southern Illinois. Recaps are never great at the best of times, but they at least give you a sense of how the team plays, how they matched up against their opponents, which players carried the load, and so on. Bulldogs. But today. If the ball is ever to be standardized in college, the discussion -- like so many issues in the game -- will have to begin with coaches. 12 Vols lose starting PG Zeigler to torn ACL, Tide's Oats takes blame for Miller's 'TSA' intro, Iowa State dismisses third-leading scorer Grill, Davis within 25 points of tying Maravich's mark, Scheyer makes history as Duke sweeps at home, USC, OU, Seton Hall, Iowa in new hoops tourney, Man pleads guilty for trying to extort GT, Pastner, Sizing up the player of the year winners in all 32 Division I men's conferences, 5 things to know as Antoine Davis is set to pass 'Pistol' Pete's scoring record. The team had no name and the uniforms were red, so in a moment of enlightenment he called it "the big, red team." Because Stetsonswere a type of hat that people wore in theOld West, and their name is called the Hatters. Which 16 teams should you buy or fade ahead of March Madness? Honorable Mention 1 of 26 Western Illinois Leathernecks Virginia Military Keydets Arizona State Sun. Grove, Allen. His deal with Anaconda Sports persisted after Michigan signed its megadeal with Nike three years ago. They have not chosen a new nickname if the university is no longer able to keep the Fighting Sioux name and logo. If you think the kangaroo makes for a rather lame mascot, you've obviously never been kicked by one. Also, no disrespect to any Stag students and alumni, but that must be the cuddliest-looking college mascot I've ever seen. And their university is named after the guy who first created the Stetson hat! Located in Clinton, South Carolina, Presbyterian is one of several schools on this list that competes in theBig South Conference. It's truly an inspiring story. It is time to remedy this deficit, and our artist's illustration shows how. The Horned Frog has actually been part of TCU as far back as 1897, when it appeared in the university's yearbook. Alaska's Seawolf, on the other hand, is based on a Tlingit Indian legend of a mythical sea creature. She portrayed her Billiken as a short, pudgy, smiling creature with pointed ears and a small knot of hair on the top of his otherwise bald head. John Bender, the football coach at the time, apparently resembled the Billiken dolls. Though the university has received more than enough support to continue use, the NCAA sent a letter last week reiterating its current policies. Duke derived its nickname from a celebrated group of World War I French troops who were dubbed "Les Diables Bleu.". Virginia Tech's old nickname used to be the "Fighting Gobblers," which is why the turkey-ish maroon bird, HokieBird, is the mascot. Please check back soon. The official switch to the Seawolves happened in 1994. For something that's supposed to be a big stalk of wheat, that's pretty impressive. Men & Women. You may not associate Ohio with penguins, but perhaps back when Youngstown State University was founded in 1908, Ohio was much colder. after a fire burned down three school buildings. There is data to suggest it does, though many coaches and players ESPN asked about the topic were split on it. ", "There's definitely a different feel," he said. 2 seed Villanova and advanced into the Sweet Sixteen), and have been in both ESPN and the Associated Press' Top 25 polls. The Badgers and Wolverines were also ranked 35th and 37th, respectively, in adjusted defensive efficiency on KenPom.com during those seasons. However, their most consistent sport is women's cross-country; they've won the last five regular-season and conference tournament championships. The ram decided tocross it because he believed that if he did not cross the pit, he would die. There are so many college basketball teams and conferences out there that we cant possibly keep track of them all. The Billiken, according tothe SLU website, was made famous by illustrator Florence Pretz in the first decade of the 20th century. If a conference officially sponsors an NCAA "emerging sport" for women (as of 2020, acrobatics . Husky Basketball Celebrates Sophomore Night. For the naysayers who think that a broccoli mascot lacks the ability to evoke fear in a rival team, you could visit any school and witness how the students avoid broccoli almost religiously. "I was lukewarm on The Rock," Novak said. Go 'Roos! Los Angeles Area. Why? By accepting all cookies, you agree to our use of cookies to deliver and maintain our services and site, improve the quality of Reddit, personalize Reddit content and advertising, and measure the effectiveness of advertising. What in the world is a "Gaucho"? When I picture a Seawolf, I picture a wolf whose legs also double as fins, and he goes deep-sea diving for food. They have made appearances in the NCAA Tournament in 2005, 2008 and 2010 (including a victory over No. And in 2010, they won an NCAA rifling championship, as well. An article compiling the 20 strangest Division I team names is immediately going to come under attack by readers who question the methodology used for including a school on this list. Browse Sports Teams. 3. But then again, mascot antics aren't a beauty contest, are they? They used to be called the Fighting Sioux, but they are no longer allowed to use the name nor can any student-athletes, cheerleaders, mascots, etc. College Sports Trios II. That's righta buckeye is a nut. As a result, his team was known as "Bender's Billikens," and the team name stuck as a result. It's why you shouldn't suck the liquid out of thermometers or build your house on top of the smokestack of a coal power plant. Originally the "Wheatshockers," the Wichita State Shockers have a name and mascot that are representative of wheat harvesting in Kansas. We begin with the University of Akron Zips. have been making money for us and our clients betting the strongest A pair of stats to keep in the back of your head while watching: Loyola Chicago is worst in college basketball in turnovers per game, with 15.4 on average. Basketball Spreads, College What's the reason for it? But we've got to buy all these balls and buy about six of them. So if you like rivers, snakes, birds or trains, Chattanooga is your team. use its namesake nor its logo. Even though the word Hoki had no meaning, the school was not deterred. Why are NCAA basketball rules different? They also boast the best student-athlete graduation rates on a consistent basis, which is definitely something they should be commended for. Youngstown State competes in the NCAAThe Horizon League. The. Offensive efficiency tells you if the team is talented and efficient. Feeling intimidated? Back in 1950 the Beavers were led by head coach Nat Holman who was one of the greatest innovators in the game at the time. NCAA College Basketball Teams Show: All America East American Atlantic 10 ACC ASUN Big 12 Big East Big Sky Big South Big Ten Big West CAA CUSA Horizon League Independents Ivy MAAC MAC MEAC MVC Mountain West Northeast Ohio Valley Pac-12 Patriot SEC Southern Southland SWAC Summit Sun Belt WCC WAC Most, if not all, of their students involve themselves in some sort of service by the time they graduate. ThoughtCo, Aug. 27, 2020, thoughtco.com/strangest-division-i-team-names-788263. Indiana uses Adidas, too. Their basketball program has enjoyed success over the years, including winning the NIT Championship just last season. They won the National Championship in 1989, and have earned runner-up honors in 1982, 1991, and 1993. 95. I check ESPN box scores, and these universities/colleges/whatever they are, they don't even have a logo. The original Gorlock, who was covered head-to-toe in blue fur, was designed by a team that included Teri McConnell, also responsible for designing the St. Louis Cardinals' legendary Fredbird. ThoughtCo. As with many elements of college basketball, the lack of a standard ball for the regular season -- or a coherent rule around it -- is a conversation that begins with coaches and revolves around business. Rodney Paul, a sports economist and sports management professor at Syracuse University, recently conducted a study about the impact different basketballs have on college teams.