Thomas More leaving the President's Athletic Conference after the upcoming season.

It makes sense. They were pretty far away from the other schools in that conference.

http://www.saintleolions.com/general/201...0525ec1mi4

Saint Leo, Florida Southern and Tampa are adding beach volleyball for their sports for women. Since D2 do not sponsor the sport, I assumed there could be enough teams to have at D1 level for Women's Beach Volleyball. University of Tampa are no stranger to D1. They were a member of D1 until the 1970s when they dropped down. They seemed to had a good football team at times in the past.

http://benueagles.com/news/2017/4/4/gene...ition.aspx

Benedictine University in Illinois is exploring to go from D3 to D2.

Clarification on Johnson & Wales Colorado... They are still listed as an NAIA member and NAIA teams and championships are still on their Fall 2017 schedule, so their move to D3 must be next year.

(07-06-2017 04:00 PM)teamvsn Wrote:  Clarification on Johnson & Wales Colorado... They are still listed as an NAIA member and NAIA teams and championships are still on their Fall 2017 schedule, so their move to D3 must be next year.

I sometimes get my reports from Senior Reports about schools applying where or not. The NCAA announcement for both D2 and D3 will be in the next a couple of weeks. I can't use Senior Reports since they stop covering the anouncements.

I follow Senior Reports too. They still cover individual school's announcements but the flow has gotten so low that announcements from the NCAA have gotten to be boring so he doesn't bother.

(07-06-2017 03:34 PM)DavidSt Wrote:  http://benueagles.com/news/2017/4/4/gene...ition.aspx

Benedictine University in Illinois is exploring to go from D3 to D2.

So the GLVC will be adding? Maybe S Indiana truly has DI interests from a conference.

(07-06-2017 05:52 PM)NoDak Wrote:  

(07-06-2017 03:34 PM)DavidSt Wrote:  http://benueagles.com/news/2017/4/4/gene...ition.aspx

Benedictine University in Illinois is exploring to go from D3 to D2.

So the GLVC will be adding? Maybe S Indiana truly has DI interests from a conference.

Or replacing St. Joseph's, Indiana who closed this year. GLVC could wind up replacing 3 schools since Bellarmine is also on the radar as well.

(07-06-2017 05:52 PM)NoDak Wrote:  

(07-06-2017 03:34 PM)DavidSt Wrote:  http://benueagles.com/news/2017/4/4/gene...ition.aspx

Benedictine University in Illinois is exploring to go from D3 to D2.

So the GLVC will be adding? Maybe S Indiana truly has DI interests from a conference.

The GLVC already has an opening since St. Joseph's closed

(07-06-2017 05:52 PM)NoDak Wrote:  

(07-06-2017 03:34 PM)DavidSt Wrote:  http://benueagles.com/news/2017/4/4/gene...ition.aspx

Benedictine University in Illinois is exploring to go from D3 to D2.

So the GLVC will be adding? Maybe S Indiana truly has DI interests from a conference.

The GLVC already has an opening since St. Joseph's closed

I think it's open season on Benedictine U for D2 or NAIA. They have a history, including branch campuses. Bene U Ill has been D3, but Bene U Springfield was NAIA until that campus ceased serving undergrads (and therefore athletics). Their facilities were in pretty bad shape so they decided to shrink rather than repair. And they just opened Bene U - Mesa AZ a few years ago, which is also an NAIA member, and they've been getting competitive quickly. One could make a case for having both in the NAIA for consistency and rivalry's sake. According to the release they are looking at D2, but that could change.

We have the D2 membership committee results:

http://www.ncaa.org/about/resources/medi...ivision-ii

No new applicants. The other big news is that Emmanuel and Spring Hill were removed from the process. They had already been held back a year once, and that's the maximum.

It seems they could re-apply and start the process all over again after a year. But will they?

All other schools in the pipeline advanced.

There will likely be appeals on the part of Emmanuel and Spring Hill. So it ain't over yet.

I wonder if anyone has ever thought about just merging the NAIA and NCAA, and letting all NAIA schools have membership in DIII (with no scholarship) or DII with waivers on the minimum number of sports?

What really is the big benefit to being in the NAIA over the NCAA, other than a lower minimum sports requirement?

I am wondering if NCAA D2 doing a Test Pilot of Hawaii- West Oahu to play basketball against? They are a four year school that just started to add sports the last few years. They could not go into the NAIA because of no schools in their state located there.

(07-14-2017 03:14 PM)MplsBison Wrote:  I wonder if anyone has ever thought about just merging the NAIA and NCAA, and letting all NAIA schools have membership in DIII (with no scholarship) or DII with waivers on the minimum number of sports?

What really is the big benefit to being in the NAIA over the NCAA, other than a lower minimum sports requirement?

Vastly cheaper, less complicated and more flexible. I don't see an advantage to D2 except for NCAA name recognition, and being only 1 step from NCAA D1 (which isn't even on the radar for most small schools).

Really. The rules for D2 are nearly identical to D1. So even if you're a small school, you still have to run your program as if your coaches will win $1m salaries if they win a national title, as if agents and boosters are plying your athletes with cash, cars and hookers, and spend as if you have a 100 million dollar endowment or 20k enrollees.

For those schools that can afford the money and other resources to pull it off, it's a dividing line against those that can't. Emmanuel's and Spring Hill's difficulties just go to show that the D2 committee is intent on being gatekeepers preventing those that can't/won't jump through those hoops from getting in. I predict that if they end up back in the NAIA, they'll take their NCAA sized budget, reallocate the dollars away from administrators and towards athletic scholarships, and be Top 10 programs. Spring Hill was always respectable, but Emmanuel was a door mat in their NAIA days.

(07-14-2017 03:45 PM)teamvsn Wrote:  

(07-14-2017 03:14 PM)MplsBison Wrote:  I wonder if anyone has ever thought about just merging the NAIA and NCAA, and letting all NAIA schools have membership in DIII (with no scholarship) or DII with waivers on the minimum number of sports?

What really is the big benefit to being in the NAIA over the NCAA, other than a lower minimum sports requirement?

Vastly cheaper, less complicated and more flexible. I don't see an advantage to D2 except for NCAA name recognition, and being only 1 step from NCAA D1 (which isn't even on the radar for most small schools).

Really. The rules for D2 are nearly identical to D1. So even if you're a small school, you still have to run your program as if your coaches will win $1m salaries if they win a national title, as if agents and boosters are plying your athletes with cash, cars and hookers, and spend as if you have a 100 million dollar endowment or 20k enrollees.

For those schools that can afford the money and other resources to pull it off, it's a dividing line against those that can't. Emmanuel's and Spring Hill's difficulties just go to show that the D2 committee is intent on being gatekeepers preventing those that can't/won't jump through those hoops from getting in. I predict that if they end up back in the NAIA, they'll take their NCAA sized budget, reallocate the dollars away from administrators and towards athletic scholarships, and be Top 10 programs. Spring Hill was always respectable, but Emmanuel was a door mat in their NAIA days.

You also have to look at where your peers/local teams are playing. If everyone you associate with is DII, then that probably makes the most sense for you, even with the added costs.

(07-14-2017 03:50 PM)dbackjon Wrote:  You also have to look at where your peers/local teams are playing. If everyone you associate with is DII, then that probably makes the most sense for you, even with the added costs.

Agreed. I was speaking broadly. There are some geographies where the NAIA doesn't have much of a footprint, like Colorado and Utah. Johnson & Wales - Denver is leaving for D3 and Westminster UT is in process for D2. Makes some sense. There are probably other places that aren't as obvious. The other side of the coin is that there are places where the NAIA is very strong, and it makes less sense to be D2, especially if you are a small school.

(07-14-2017 03:50 PM)dbackjon Wrote:  

(07-14-2017 03:45 PM)teamvsn Wrote:  

(07-14-2017 03:14 PM)MplsBison Wrote:  I wonder if anyone has ever thought about just merging the NAIA and NCAA, and letting all NAIA schools have membership in DIII (with no scholarship) or DII with waivers on the minimum number of sports?

What really is the big benefit to being in the NAIA over the NCAA, other than a lower minimum sports requirement?

Vastly cheaper, less complicated and more flexible. I don't see an advantage to D2 except for NCAA name recognition, and being only 1 step from NCAA D1 (which isn't even on the radar for most small schools).

Really. The rules for D2 are nearly identical to D1. So even if you're a small school, you still have to run your program as if your coaches will win $1m salaries if they win a national title, as if agents and boosters are plying your athletes with cash, cars and hookers, and spend as if you have a 100 million dollar endowment or 20k enrollees.

For those schools that can afford the money and other resources to pull it off, it's a dividing line against those that can't. Emmanuel's and Spring Hill's difficulties just go to show that the D2 committee is intent on being gatekeepers preventing those that can't/won't jump through those hoops from getting in. I predict that if they end up back in the NAIA, they'll take their NCAA sized budget, reallocate the dollars away from administrators and towards athletic scholarships, and be Top 10 programs. Spring Hill was always respectable, but Emmanuel was a door mat in their NAIA days.

You also have to look at where your peers/local teams are playing. If everyone you associate with is DII, then that probably makes the most sense for you, even with the added costs.

All of the above is true. The NAIA provides opportunity for a school to offer an athletic program on a lower budget with fewer regulations. But, some regions of the country have fewer NAIA schools than others, making travel costs more of an issue in certain areas.

There are 308 schools in DII alone for the upcoming year:

http://www.ncaa.org/about/resources/medi...ivision-ii

There are 249 total schools in the entire NAIA for the upcoming year, with varying levels of funding and program scope. Only basketball is divided into separate divisions.

http://www.naia.org/fls/27900/1NAIA/memb...utions.pdf

Pros for DII: Prestige of NCAA brand, association with peer institutions and rivals if they are also in DII.

Pros for NAIA: Lower budgets, different eligiblity rules, smaller pool of schools competing in various sports (increasing the ability to win national championships).