Lindenwood Lions

The Lindenwood Lions play Division I basketball out of Hyland Arena in Saint Charles, Missouri, as members of the Ohio Valley Conference. Lindenwood is one of the great overachiever stories in recent college hoops: a program that dominated Division II before jumping straight into March Madness contention at the D-I level. The Lions play an aggressive, well-coached style that already produced a Sweet 16 upset within a few years of the move up.

Lindenwood University was founded in 1832, originally as a school for girls, and has grown into a comprehensive university in Saint Charles, Missouri. Under coach Brad Soderberg, the men's basketball team won back-to-back NCAA Division II national championships in 2014 and 2015, going a combined 51-0 across those two seasons. Lindenwood jumped to Division I in 2017 and reached four straight NCAA Tournament appearances from 2018 to 2021, highlighted by a 2020 upset of #3-seed Purdue en route to the Sweet 16. It remains one of the fastest and most successful D-II-to-D-I transitions in recent memory.