I think Cumberlands is pretty happy in the NAIA along with their rivals in the Mid-South conference. The Carnegie data is a little misleading. They have only 1410 undergrads on campus:
https://www.ucumberlands.edu/about/quick-facts

As for your other question, why would they? D2 has rules about playing non-D2s, and if they allowed selected western D2s out of the rules then everyone else would want to be as well (to get easier schedules?). I think SOU and EOU are pretty happy in the Frontier. D2 has an advantage in scholarships, that translates to tougher games and more losses for SOU and EOU, and that would joepardize their post season hopes. So why on earth would they want want you're proposing?

Virginia-Wise Moves To SAC

One of the MEC schools Virginia Wise is moving to the SAC. I suspect Frostburg State will replace them.

UT-Tyler Accepted To Lone Star Conference 2019/20


UT-Tyler did got an invite to join the Lone Star Conference.

Quote:Patterson added UT Tyler has been accepted into the Division II Lone Star Conference effective Sept. 1, 2019, and football is not part of the equation at this time. Lone Star Conference schools are located in Texas, Oklahoma and New Mexico.

(04-15-2018 06:32 PM)DavidSt Wrote:  UT-Tyler Accepted To Lone Star Conference 2019/20


UT-Tyler did got an invite to join the Lone Star Conference.

Quote:Patterson added UT Tyler has been accepted into the Division II Lone Star Conference effective Sept. 1, 2019, and football is not part of the equation at this time. Lone Star Conference schools are located in Texas, Oklahoma and New Mexico.

Time to re-read the story. The NCAA accepted for review their proposal to join Div II. If the review is favorable, and they are accepted into DII, then the Lone Star Conference will take them in. It is not a done deal yet.

(04-15-2018 08:34 PM)NotANewbie Wrote:  

(04-15-2018 06:32 PM)DavidSt Wrote:  UT-Tyler Accepted To Lone Star Conference 2019/20


UT-Tyler did got an invite to join the Lone Star Conference.

Quote:Patterson added UT Tyler has been accepted into the Division II Lone Star Conference effective Sept. 1, 2019, and football is not part of the equation at this time. Lone Star Conference schools are located in Texas, Oklahoma and New Mexico.

Time to re-read the story. The NCAA accepted for review their proposal to join Div II. If the review is favorable, and they are accepted into DII, then the Lone Star Conference will take them in. It is not a done deal yet.

Well, yes and no. From the D2 Application Instructions:

Quote:Conference Membership.
An institution must demonstrate at the time of application that it has received a bona fide invitation for membership from an active Division II conference before applying for Division II membership.

While the Lone Star has not officially invited UT Tyler to join they are sponsoring UT Tyler's application. I know of only one instance where I believe one conference sponsored the new member's application but the school accepted another conference's official invitation during its Year 1 process. Like you said, mostly the public formal invitation comes with the NCAA's approval of the new member application.

(04-15-2018 08:34 PM)NotANewbie Wrote:  

(04-15-2018 06:32 PM)DavidSt Wrote:  UT-Tyler Accepted To Lone Star Conference 2019/20


UT-Tyler did got an invite to join the Lone Star Conference.

Quote:Patterson added UT Tyler has been accepted into the Division II Lone Star Conference effective Sept. 1, 2019, and football is not part of the equation at this time. Lone Star Conference schools are located in Texas, Oklahoma and New Mexico.

Time to re-read the story. The NCAA accepted for review their proposal to join Div II. If the review is favorable, and they are accepted into DII, then the Lone Star Conference will take them in. It is not a done deal yet.

D2 have the same rules as D1. You have to have a conference invite before you get accepted into D2.

(04-12-2018 04:16 PM)teamvsn Wrote:  

(04-12-2018 03:45 PM)Fresno St. Alum Wrote:  

(04-12-2018 03:12 PM)teamvsn Wrote:  

(04-12-2018 02:02 PM)MWC Tex Wrote:  

(04-12-2018 12:07 PM)teamvsn Wrote:  Columbia International in SC has applied to the NAIA:

https://www.ciurams.com/news/2017/12/15/...rship.aspx

They are about 1000 students, currently members of the NCCAA. Their history is as a bible school.

The NAIA convention starts tomorrow (Friday) and we'll hear more about who is accepted for 2018. Rumor is nine applicants, the NAIA wrote in a blog earlier this year that there were "at least 8" so the rumor is credible.

The big news from the NAIA convention is that the Council of Presidents will be voting to combine NAIA basketball divisions I & II. Basketball is the only sport in the NAIA with divisions. The difference between the divisions is only scholarship levels. 6 for II and 11 for I. All questions regarding scholarship levels and championship tournament format will be addressed after the vote; the only question considered at this time is whether to combine the divisions.

I hope that the basketball divisions do get combined. Each division had a 32 team tourney. I don't think it made that big of a difference between the two divisions. It would be a good to get the tourney to the familiar 64 team model that NCAA has. I wonder if they may just keep the 11 scholarship max.

Of the 20 conferences in the NAIA, there was pretty much an even split between the 2 divisions. I don't think there is enough schools/conferences to warrant such a split. If the combine does happen we may see some movement of some schools to different conferences. One for instance could be Eastern Oregon and College of Idaho joining the Frontier Conference for all sports (Frontier is a D1 conference while EOU & C of I was D2). Southern Oregon could remain a football affiliate but stay in the CCC for all other sports as traveling up I-5 is a lot easier than getting across the state to play EOU and CofI.

I've written a series of articles on the possible merger. 3 so far, the last installment will be tomorrow.

http://www.victorysportsnetwork.com/Clip...isions.htm

http://www.victorysportsnetwork.com/Clip...pation.htm

http://www.victorysportsnetwork.com/Clip...format.htm

I also hope they keep it at 11. There's very little competitive difference between DI and DII already so the higher limit won't hurt the DII schools. But from what I've heard they are looking at 8.

So what do you say, is it going to happen. NAIA under 1 Bball umbrella? Will we see conf. changes from schools if this happens. Aren't there a couple that are D-I indy or were just for bball but in their "D-II" conf. for other sports

I suspect it will happen. But if it doesn't, I think it will be because of uncertainty over the scholarship issue.

I do think there will be conference changes as a result within 5 years or so. The conferences will get smaller footprints with less overlap. I could still see the GSAC and the CalPac remaining mostly as-is because of the difference in athletic commitment among schools in those two conferences. But there are others where there's a lot of geographical overlap but not much difference in quality between the members.

There used to be some schools that were just basketball but the NAIA has changed their rules and I can't think of any that remain. One was Life, who expanded sports, and another was Mountain State that closed. There were also some that were DI independent basketball and DII everything else, but I can't think of anyone like that anymore either. One was Robert Morris Chicago and another was WV Tech; both are now all DII. There are very few DI independents at all. There are a lot more DII independents, and a few of them might join a DI conference if the distinction were to be dropped. Maybe Ozarks (Branson MO) and Crowley's Ridge (AR) to the AMC, and Stillman to the Gulf Coast. (DavidST, don't reference this as a rumor! It's just idle speculation)

It passed:

http://www.victorysportsnetwork.com/Clip...isions.htm

The first year this will be effective is 2020-21. I'm trying to find out the timeline for when the scholarship and tournament format issues will be decided.

(04-16-2018 11:51 AM)teamvsn Wrote:  

(04-12-2018 04:16 PM)teamvsn Wrote:  

(04-12-2018 03:45 PM)Fresno St. Alum Wrote:  

(04-12-2018 03:12 PM)teamvsn Wrote:  

(04-12-2018 02:02 PM)MWC Tex Wrote:  I hope that the basketball divisions do get combined. Each division had a 32 team tourney. I don't think it made that big of a difference between the two divisions. It would be a good to get the tourney to the familiar 64 team model that NCAA has. I wonder if they may just keep the 11 scholarship max.

Of the 20 conferences in the NAIA, there was pretty much an even split between the 2 divisions. I don't think there is enough schools/conferences to warrant such a split. If the combine does happen we may see some movement of some schools to different conferences. One for instance could be Eastern Oregon and College of Idaho joining the Frontier Conference for all sports (Frontier is a D1 conference while EOU & C of I was D2). Southern Oregon could remain a football affiliate but stay in the CCC for all other sports as traveling up I-5 is a lot easier than getting across the state to play EOU and CofI.

I've written a series of articles on the possible merger. 3 so far, the last installment will be tomorrow.

http://www.victorysportsnetwork.com/Clip...isions.htm

http://www.victorysportsnetwork.com/Clip...pation.htm

http://www.victorysportsnetwork.com/Clip...format.htm

I also hope they keep it at 11. There's very little competitive difference between DI and DII already so the higher limit won't hurt the DII schools. But from what I've heard they are looking at 8.

So what do you say, is it going to happen. NAIA under 1 Bball umbrella? Will we see conf. changes from schools if this happens. Aren't there a couple that are D-I indy or were just for bball but in their "D-II" conf. for other sports

I suspect it will happen. But if it doesn't, I think it will be because of uncertainty over the scholarship issue.

I do think there will be conference changes as a result within 5 years or so. The conferences will get smaller footprints with less overlap. I could still see the GSAC and the CalPac remaining mostly as-is because of the difference in athletic commitment among schools in those two conferences. But there are others where there's a lot of geographical overlap but not much difference in quality between the members.

There used to be some schools that were just basketball but the NAIA has changed their rules and I can't think of any that remain. One was Life, who expanded sports, and another was Mountain State that closed. There were also some that were DI independent basketball and DII everything else, but I can't think of anyone like that anymore either. One was Robert Morris Chicago and another was WV Tech; both are now all DII. There are very few DI independents at all. There are a lot more DII independents, and a few of them might join a DI conference if the distinction were to be dropped. Maybe Ozarks (Branson MO) and Crowley's Ridge (AR) to the AMC, and Stillman to the Gulf Coast. (DavidST, don't reference this as a rumor! It's just idle speculation)

It passed:

http://www.victorysportsnetwork.com/Clip...isions.htm

The first year this will be effective is 2020-21. I'm trying to find out the timeline for when the scholarship and tournament format issues will be decided.

Nice! Good to hear it passed.
Keep us informed about the details.

http://www.naia.org/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_...1523899251

NAIA will sponsor men's volleyball as a championship sport next year.
Could play a role not only in recruiting but perhaps some more realignment.

I wonder if College of the Ozarks pulling out as the D2 tournament host made some things change with the divisions.

(04-16-2018 12:23 PM)MWC Tex Wrote:  http://www.naia.org/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_...1523899251

NAIA will sponsor men's volleyball as a championship sport next year.
Could play a role not only in recruiting but perhaps some more realignment.

Maybe eventually. At the moment participation in Men's Volleyball (as an "invitational sport") is pretty low. 34 Schools this year. And since there's no restrictions on schools being "associate" members of other conferences for individual sports, there isn't a need to switch conferences based on the needs of a single sport. So for example the Mid-South is going to officially support men's volleyball next year but only 3 "real" Mid-South teams will be participating. The rest come as associates from the Sun, Appalachian and River States conferences.
http://www.mid-southconference.org/article/6460.php

I don't see men's volleyball affecting alignment anytime in the near future. There's no reason to. Single sport affiliations are too easy.

(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.

Not an expert on NAIA but wouldn't this decision push the top NAIA schools into the arms of NCAA D2?

(04-16-2018 06:49 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  Not an expert on NAIA but wouldn't this decision push the top NAIA schools into the arms of NCAA D2?

It's a concern. But the stats suggest that there aren't many NAIA DI schools that are actually funding their scholarships to the limit, and I haven't heard of many complaints about lowering them. The greater and more immediate concern was that if this didn't happen, a couple of NAIA DI conferences would step down to NAIA DII, and that would force some drastic changes for the 32 team DI tournament because there would be only about 80 teams left.

Personally I would have liked to see the scholarship limits remain high...11, or at least 10. Mostly for flexibility and marketing purposes. But the NAIA might have their own research that says the NAIA would be more attractive to NCAA D2 schools thinking of moving if there was one NAIA division in basketball and lower scholarship limits.

From what I heard from coaches, they were less concerned about the official scholarship limits than they were about the exemptions. One kind of exemption is the academic exemptions, which for example allows a player who gets a 3.5 GPA or higher to not have his scholarship - athletic, academic or otherwise - to count against the official total. That's a great thing, IMHO. But there are also exemptions for transfers not yet on a team raising their grades to become eligible, and for JV players, and for redshirt players. These other exemptions theoretically allow for some schools to really go nuts with building their pipeline of not-yet-playing athletes and not have it count against them.

We have 3 years before the merger takes place. I am hoping they will use this time to tweak these rules, perhaps restrict/eliminate some of the exemptions and in turn raise the official maximum from eight.

I just realized I didn't post an update here on the scholarship and tournament format issues.

The scholarships are set to 8 (as I referred to above).

The tournament format is to be determined, probably sometime this summer, by the Championship Committee.

(04-16-2018 07:10 PM)teamvsn Wrote:  I just realized I didn't post an update here on the scholarship and tournament format issues.

The scholarships are set to 8 (as I referred to above).

The tournament format is to be determined, probably sometime this summer, by the Championship Committee.

So 2 less than D2. But as you stated, it seems to be fine with everyone and as you mentioned, athletes with good grades won't count to the limit and there are always a few good student athletics on teams.

Any idea what the Men's volleyball limit will be?

This sounds like a good thing. If Graceland can win a Division I national championship with 6 scholarships, the NAIA can make this work.

I hope they keep the 32-team tournament in Kansas City. It is still the core event of the NAIA.

(04-16-2018 08:03 PM)MWC Tex Wrote:  

(04-16-2018 07:10 PM)teamvsn Wrote:  I just realized I didn't post an update here on the scholarship and tournament format issues.

The scholarships are set to 8 (as I referred to above).

The tournament format is to be determined, probably sometime this summer, by the Championship Committee.

So 2 less than D2. But as you stated, it seems to be fine with everyone an as you mentioned, athletes will good grades won't count to the limit and there are always a few good student athletics on teams.

Any idea what the Men's volleyball limit will be?

I haven't seen an actual number but I assume it will be the same as for Women's VB, which is 8.

https://www.playnaia.org/page/scholarships.php

(04-16-2018 06:37 PM)teamvsn Wrote:  

(04-16-2018 12:23 PM)MWC Tex Wrote:  http://www.naia.org/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_...1523899251

NAIA will sponsor men's volleyball as a championship sport next year.
Could play a role not only in recruiting but perhaps some more realignment.

Maybe eventually. At the moment participation in Men's Volleyball (as an "invitational sport") is pretty low. 34 Schools this year. And since there's no restrictions on schools being "associate" members of other conferences for individual sports, there isn't a need to switch conferences based on the needs of a single sport. So for example the Mid-South is going to officially support men's volleyball next year but only 3 "real" Mid-South teams will be participating. The rest come as associates from the Sun, Appalachian and River States conferences.
http://www.mid-southconference.org/article/6460.php

I don't see men's volleyball affecting alignment anytime in the near future. There's no reason to. Single sport affiliations are too easy.

But next year they will have 6 more teams to bring to 40 teams which is the minimum to sponsor a championship. Could affect the 2 Calif. Conferences since they overlap. But the single division in basketball will be the catalyst.

(04-16-2018 11:30 PM)teamvsn Wrote:  

(04-16-2018 08:03 PM)MWC Tex Wrote:  

(04-16-2018 07:10 PM)teamvsn Wrote:  I just realized I didn't post an update here on the scholarship and tournament format issues.

The scholarships are set to 8 (as I referred to above).

The tournament format is to be determined, probably sometime this summer, by the Championship Committee.

So 2 less than D2. But as you stated, it seems to be fine with everyone an as you mentioned, athletes will good grades won't count to the limit and there are always a few good student athletics on teams.

Any idea what the Men's volleyball limit will be?

I haven't seen an actual number but I assume it will be the same as for Women's VB, which is 8.

https://www.playnaia.org/page/scholarships.php

I would assume that also since the NAIA pretty much keeps things even between men's and women's sports.
It be double over what is allowed in D2. Which may affect the recruiting between the two divisions.