I would be curious to hear people’s thoughts on the best teams that didn’t reach the championship game at NCAAs. For me, it’s Stanford in 2013 and 2014. Taking a look at the team’s roster, the talent they had is staggering.
Alex Bowen
Bret Bonanni
Drew Holland
Nick Hoversten
Jackson Kimbell
BJ Churnside
Forrest Watkins
Paul Rudolph
Connor Stapleton
Conner Cleary
In my case, I think it’s more the Stanford teams from that era than the specific teams from 2013 and 2014. They had two players on the national team in Alex Bowen and Bret Bonnani and one of the best goalies in Drew Holland with talent all around. The fact that this wasn’t enough to make it to the championship game at least one year during their times on the Farm is pretty shocking. To me, it’s crazy that Alex Bowen, Bret Bonnani, and Drew Holland never played in a NCAA title game.
I would be curious to hear other’s picks. This doesn’t need to be a team from a specific year but could be a set of teams from a program though I would also be interested to hear people’s thoughts on the best teams that didn’t make it in a specific year.
The USC 2019 team had Daube, Mercep, and Porter… all ended up being olympians in Paris. Lost to Stanford in a great semi. They should have had Marko Vavic but believe he was suspended due to Varsity Blue scandal.
UCLA 2016 team had Danner, Irving, Robert’s, Roelse, Ramirez, etc. Lost a great semi to Cal who had Hooper and Cupido, plus Andric was playing out of his mind in cage
If we’re choosing the most talented team not to make an NCAA championship game, I’d take Stanford’s 1979 team. In that year, Stanford lost to a great UCSB team 10-9 in the semifinals. Stanford’s 1979 team had four future members of the Water Polo Hall of Fame (coach Dante Dettamanti, center Jody Campbell, attacker James Bergeson, and attacker Alan Mouchawar) and America’s greatest collegiate goalie (Foothill’s John Gansel, the only 4x 1st team college All-American goalie). Gansel stopped playing water polo shortly after graduating from Stanford to attend medical school. UCSB’s 1979 team also had four future members of the Hall of Fame (goalie Craig Wilson, center Greg Boyer, Guy Baker (inducted as a coach), and Aaron Cheney (inducted as a referee)), and other excellent players, including John Dobrott, Dave Hendrickson, and Mike Yates. While Dettamanti was UCSB’s head coach from 1974 through 1976, he recruited several of the players who played on UCSB’s 1979 team. Stanford won the NCAA championship tournament in 1978, 1980, and 1981.