(04-16-2018 02:37 PM)MissouriStateBears Wrote:  I wonder if College of the Ozarks pulling out as the D2 tournament host made some things change with the divisions.

The timeline suggests "no". The task force put forth it's proposal for the merger at last year's conference (April 2017) but CofO pulled out of the tournament last Fall.

The real motivation was:

* Two conferences (who happen to also sponsor football) wanted to step down to NAIA DII, presumably to save scholarship money (and spend it on football?).
* This would have made NAIA DI less viable to support a 32 team national tournament (with around 80 teams left).
* There's already a lot of parity across the divisions. While NAIA DI allows a limit of 11 full ride scholarships, the NAIA's research shows that the average allocation including exemptions is 7.6 and falling. NAIA DII's limit is 6 full ride scholarships including exemptions, but is actually 6.1 and rising. It has become a common thing for top DII teams to beat top DI teams. The DI national champion this year did it with around 6 scholarships. Having two divisions has become pointless.