I was literally just looking at the Atlantic Sun and thinking who they might add. Nova Southeastern is a perfect fit for them. Lincoln Memorial possibly too, both non-football schools. West Florida is probably a fit for the new UAC.
I have a feeling UNC Greensboro is on their way out of the SoCon, and the league may not want to add a non-football school. Not ruling it out, but I think that would be a consideration.
Still early for Nova. I think they might stay in D2 for another few years but with the way their school enrollment is growing and the town of Davie, FL is growing its not a matter of if but when.
West Florida will happen very soon. Its been obvious for a while now. I think they'll end up in the A-Sun but maybe because of football they go to the UAC instead. They will be D1 within 2-3 year s for sure though in my opinion. They just got awarded 2 million grant for a new football stadium back in April.
The largest division being D1 is pretty bad to be honest. So many schools will never win anything and are wasting their students money for title-chasing reasons. Its not like the fanbase increases either.
There are like 15 D1 conferences whose entire membership list would fit right in to D2 financially and competitively. The only reason I don't support us moving up is because we will either never win anything again, or the top teams will split anyway making the whole move pointless and expensive.
D1: 364 men, 362 women
D2: 300 men, 300 women
D3: 413 men, 422 women
D1 is a little bloated, but not significantly so when compared to the other divisions. If the power conferences ever separate then D1 will be right in line with D2 again.
Frankly, I think that D1 should shrink and be more of a super league, with more of the teams that are willing to pay the expenses and such, and the rest should go to D3, where it is closer to the "traditional" model of college sports. I feel like D2 is a weird mix of the worst of both, where the expenses are there but the revenue really isn't.
D1 probably shouldn't be more than about 100 basketball schools and maybe 70 football schools.
It’s a completely legitimate school. So are a lot of D3 schools. They’re just pretty poor with a $50 million endowment. That’s not the profile of a D1 school.
A $55 mil endowment in the lowest levels of D1 is not big but it's not something that would prevent you from being in D1. It's comparable to Merrimack, Mt St. Mary's, and Jacksonville. If they're going to be in the A-Sun or something like that, they should be able to hang.
Yep. The school has been around since the late 1800s and was cofounded by former Civil War general and Howard University namesake Oliver O. Howard so it’s no diploma mill as far as I can tell. Historically it was known for its arts/literature programs, but some quick googling does show that the Science, Law, Medical, and Vet schools are relatively newer so maybe that’s it?
Facilities seem good enough for D1 as far as I can tell from their website. So idk.
Idk the Harrogate area, is well. Dead. Its classic dying south I hate to say. I mean fucking beautiful but its so dead. There's literally not even traffic up there. Like I find that concerning when your talking about going D1 lol
Fair, but you can’t really hold that against the school itself since it was literally created for the purpose of establishing a university in that area - Howard undertook the process of founding the school as a indirect way for Lincoln to posthumously recognize eastern Tennessee for its pro-Union sympathies during the Civil War.
As far as I can tell, it looks like the University itself has been growing in enrollment/programs over time - though it does look like they have more graduate students enrolled than undergraduate students as far as I can tell, which is interesting, but my guess is that the push to D1 is in part to draw more students outside the area.
Current D1 schools don’t want to move down so as the power conferences expand in size the conferences near the bottom of D1 need to pull up schools to maintain a full conference.
I'm a fan of 24 Division I teams. There is something wrong with me. They include power conference teams, mid-majors and low majors. Two of them, Le Moyne and Incarnate Word, are unlikely to ever appear in the AP poll. Forget actually winning a title. But there is a different feeling I get watching these teams than Purdue, St. John's Georgia, Xavier, Texas A&M, NC State and Cal. Well, in recent years, maybe not Cal. The goal of seeing the kids on those two teams play in an NCAA tournament game and have people read the Wikipedia articles for their teams just to find out who they are is truly something special.Le Moyne is still in transition and won't be eligible for the NCAA tournament until 2027. But if they or Incarnate Word or any other underdog I follow made the NCAA tournament, I would be ecstatic. Once you get there, you never know. Just ask any Fairleigh Dickinson fan.
Reaching the tournament is an achievable goal for low majors. All they have to do is qualify for their conference tournament and beat a few teams that are a lot like them. These smaller D-I schools are looking for brand recognition to grow enrollment. They run on much smaller budgets than power conference schools. Early last season, Le Moyne played at Syracuse (less than four miles away), and they were in the game in the closing minutes. Not only did they get a nice payday for the buy game, they got television exposure, and the local media in central New York talked about the team. The value of all that.
Because these schools are struggling to increase enrollment, remaining price competitive is of paramount importance. It costs about $95k per year to attend Syracuse compared with $57k for Le Moyne. Obviously, the man thing the schools have in common is geographic proximity.
A year at Incarnate Word costs $56k. Across town, students can attend the much larger UTSA for $31k.
All the prices I quoted are for full-time students living on campus with no financial aid. These four schools are the only Division I institutions in these two metropolitan areas. It's easy to see that if Le Moyne is providing a high quality education, it is in a much better position to compete with Syracuse for students than Incarnate Word is versus UTSA. The smaller schools are very much aware of this and the need to keep it under control.
Le Moyne and Incarnate Word operate their athletic programs on much smaller budgets than power conference teams. Le Moyne is a non-football school. Incarnate Word has become an FCS power over the past several years. Both play their basketball games in small arenas. Many high school gyms are bigger and nicer than Incarnate Word's. Le Moyne's gym is over 60 years old, but they've renovated it and maintained it well.
If the high majors defect and form their own association, which I don't think will happen, it will be sad that Incarnate Word will no longer get a shot at upsetting a no. 1 seed in the first round, at least not one with a brand name.
I do realize that there are plenty of schools that milk their students for large activity fees that help finance athletics. I agree with you that college is already expensive enough. If they cannot afford to operate in Division I, they should go. Delivering an education must be the primary mission. The smallest of the low majors typically operate in a clear-headed manor on the smallest of budgets.
Having an A4 only tier in basketball would absolutely annhiliate my desire to watch college basketball.
Now cutting the NEC, OVC, Southland, maybe Horizon yes. Consolidating the America East/MAAC/Patriot, Big South/ASun/SoCon, and the SWAC/MEAC, and the WAC/WCC/Big Sky also yes. Even some of the better conferences have teams that absolutely could be cut. We should be able to cut 60-80 teams pretty easily which would go a long way.
Thanks. The beauty of social media is that everyone gets a platform to share on. The downside of social media is that everyone gets a platform to share on. For the time being I’m going to assume this is a rumor until something more substantive comes through.
As part of the unofficial mid major realignment group I'll just drop this tidbit here.
It isn't related to the topic in this thread but I can say that Bentley did meet with the NEC back in early July so if they wanted to move up by 2026-27 I have a strong suspicion they have a letter of an intent and could get around the moratorium that the NCAA have in place until 2027 if they wanted to.
Nothing is reported yet on social media except one post about on the D2 forum but reading in between the lines the NEC are believed to given themselves the flexibility with this possible option if they lost another school a la St Francis (PA) reclassifying to D3..
So what? Their basketball team hasn’t won less than 20 games in like 20 years with a bunch of 30+ win seasons in there, along with playing decently close exhibition games against teams like Butler and Auburn pre-COVID. Their other sports do pretty well in D2, as well. It’s not even like their enrollment is that small, they won’t even be bottom 10 in D1 for enrollment.
Yup. 14,000 students with an endowment of about $74 million (which doesn't sound like much, but there are quite a few D1 schools, even Group of Five football conference members, with lower endowments).
Nova Southeastern is an absolute powerhouse in athletics, and more importantly, has extremely nice facilities. Their basketball arena would be one of the best of the low majors
Nova Southeastern's basketball arena is one of those that makes me do a double take and have to remind myself they're D2, because it's really, REALLY nice
Lincoln Memorial have a strong basketball history, although not as a division 1 obviously, and their facilities are great for a non-division 1 school. It’ll be cool to see them make it.
Bellarmine and St Thomas are only other schools over the last 10-15 years I can think of that were powers at D2 and D3 and decided to make the jump. It doesn't happen often so its really interesting in that respect. Most of the time the bigger D2 schools (in terms of succecess in basketball and football) are happy to stay where they are.
If this is true, kudos to the new management strategy of the ASUN and UAC, which will permanently be under common direction next July 1.
I was impressed with what they did by reshuffling the schools. It keeps the WAC alive as a legal entity by changing its name to UAC, which allows the UAC to collect any money on WAC NCAA tournament credits. They also inherit the WAC's auto-bid status. They're going to manage both leagues in concert with each other, and that will help everybody in scheduling. The football schools (plus Texas Arlington) will be in one league, and the non-football schools will be in the other. That will go a long way toward preventing squabbles, when the pie gets sliced. Each conference will have its on media contracts. So, we know who gets what.
Both leagues could use an infusion of teams, and there aren't many hanging around in D-I that they could poach. So, if this rumor is true, they've picked up three quality D-II programs and can shepherd them to D-I status. It gives the ASUN and UAC nine teams each.
Why is Ferris State not D1? They compete at the highest level in D1 hockey, made Frozen Fours, and have sent guys to the NHL All-Star game and Stanley Cups. They won a D2 basketball title within the last 10 years. They also crush D2 football. They’ve been an absolute powerhouse with multiple titles and top 10 finishes over the last decade. I don’t get what’s holding them back from being D1 across the board. Money? Facilities? They’ve been way more successful than the directional schools in Michigan at their competition level.
I feel that Grand Valley would be a better school to go D1, but I think one thing that prevents them and Ferris State from moving up is the lack scholarship granting FCS Football Schools nearby.
While the Horizon League would be the ideal conference for them in all other sports, the closest Scholarship FCS programs are Youngstown State, Indiana State, and Illinois State, all of which compete in the Missouri Valley Football Conference which also contains North Dakota State, South Dakota State, and South Dakota, and is likely the top FCS conference in the country, which would be less than ideal.
The teams don't have to be successful in D-II to move up to D-I, although it helps. The main thing is the commitment the instiution is making. They may have to add more sports, and the compliance is more complicated. Aside from that, there needs to be money for a lot more scholarships.
The biggest reason a school reclassifies to D-I is the effect it hopes playing D-I sports will have on enrollment. One would hope that there is no plan to underfund the athletics department and end up with a basketball team that goes 0-31, even though that would lead to some brand recognition.
The transition period rules are a drawback. Student-athletes will lose access to NCAA championships for three years (after the NCAA legislation passed in January). Some reclassifying schools might have national title contenders in a sport. Maybe lacrosse, for example. Perhaps they won the D-II lacrosse title a few years ago and have reached the national quarterfinals ever since. It is a hard fall to find out you will now be playing a much more difficult schedule, and, even if you win, you won't get a shot in the NCAA tournament.
Winning D-II championships can be a rush for the school. If Ferris State reclassifies to D-I, that will all be gone. The institution needs to believe that D-I athletics is the best path for its long-term success.
Holy crap my school is going D1 LFG. I don’t pay much attention to it for basketball but this will be huge for football and the school in general. Go Argos!!!
Is it too much to ask for to have LMU join the Big South? The OVC football alliance thing, and now House, leave me wondering how viable the league is long-term.
A little bit late but yeah, a number of sources have reported this. The one I'm most curious about is Lincoln Memorial. It is a basketball first school and I think that would appeal specifically to the Atlantic Sun. Its also the school I think is least likely of this 3 to be D1 by lets say 2028-2030.
Nova Southeastern and West Florida will eventually make the jump in my view.
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u/dbbd70707 8d ago
I was literally just looking at the Atlantic Sun and thinking who they might add. Nova Southeastern is a perfect fit for them. Lincoln Memorial possibly too, both non-football schools. West Florida is probably a fit for the new UAC.