I completely agree with the idea that there are too many teams at our level that are just trying to somehow out-recruit and out-play bigger and better funded schools at the same game. Which generally ends the same way...
I think a team with a "gimmick" (and I mean that in a respectful way) could do well in the AE. Whether it's the Princeton offense, or the old Loyola Marymount run all night, or even a Grinnell raining three-point attempts or something else -- if you do something different and do it very well, it will give all the traditional teams fits.
But it takes a certain humility -- both from the school and the coach, to do that. To admit that they are never going to be successful without doing something unconventional / unorthodox. The odd thing is, once you have success with the unorthodox thing then you start to build a name and more conventional athletes want to play for you. For a long time, nobody did this better in college sports than Wisconsin -- they turned unconventional success in both basketball and football into long time powerhouses.
