The difference is age.  Robinson was a d1 prospect before the HS injury and he left after one year in D3 to go to a Top 10 program, where he put in four years of work with full-time trainers and coaches to get his game to where it is.  A good shooter with size and mobility just isn't something we see much in d3, let alone one with the connections to make that kind of leap and to allow for the development time.  Totally unique scenario.  Unlikely to be replicated, especially in this day and age of immediate results.

Section 20.9 deals with conference membership in the NCAA - this is where the change from seven to six comes into play.  This only governs whether or not a conference is recognized as a member conference by the NCAA.  When it comes to membership, there's no sport specific or gender specific delineation.  Because Mount Mary has been a core member through 2024-25, the C2C grace period for membership doesn't start until this summer - with JWU-Charlotte and Regent coming on line, there's no danger of losing conference membership status.

However, Section 31.3.3 deals with eligibility for Pool A in individual sports.  This requires conferences to maintain six active member institutions, participating in the sport, that are eligible for the NCAA championship - which means Regent and JWU-Charlotte won't begin counting until they are full members, not once they achieve year 3 (that's only for conference membership in the NCAA).

There is one exception, though - conferences can avoid the waiting period for reinstatement (according to 31.3.3.1.1.1) if they have: 1) six core members sponsoring the sport, 2) each of those six has been in the conference for two years, and 3) all six are eligible for NCAA championships.

If nothing changes, the C2C is set to lose the AQ in men's sports in 2026-27 and in women's sports in 27-28 - however, if JWU-Charlotte and Regent progress to full membership in 2028-29, all the C2C AQs will be automatically restored.

The other scenario is simply to poach a school in the next 14 months for membership in 2026-27 and everything remains as it is now.

Neumann to the MAC in 26-27.  That puts the AEC down to 6.

https://d3sports.com/notables/2025/04/neumann-to-the-mac

From what we're gathering, a lot of the "merger" talk is politics and negotiation.  Kean's announcement was perhaps an attempt to set the expectation for what merger talks will look like.  It's likely NJCU's move here is something similar.  The only thing we know concretely is that the two schools will be discussing a merger with a tentative announcement by 2027 - nobody really know what that will look like and lots of interested parties are trying to shape the final result.

Quote from: WUPHF on April 11, 2025, 01:58:21 PM

Quote from: Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan) on April 11, 2025, 11:43:03 AMUW-Eau Claire averaged 900 per home game this year.  They charge $12/adult, $6/child for tickets.  That's a significant revenue stream - not to mention they're major sporting centers for decent sized towns.

That is an expensive ticket, but maybe that is the market.

I would be surprised if they are able to use that for anything other than covering department expenses.

I just used it as a comparison for all those schools who get $0 from ticket revenue.  A lot of people have asked how some of these schools can afford to travel so much or offer big guarantees for tournaments.  Ticket revenue makes a big difference (in addition to solid alumni/donor networks).

It's not unusual for some programs to have an alum from $15-20k for a weekend tournament across the country.  There's definitely a WIDE spectrum of resources in Division III.

Quote from: nescac1 on April 11, 2025, 11:31:22 AMWow that's crazy - I'd imagine that VERY few D3 schools have NIL money beyond what enterprising players can scrounge up themselves - most programs have no television revenue, no ticket revenue, and no or virtually no boosters, so I'm not even sure what that money would come from ...

You're operating in a New England/NESCAC framework.  A lot of schools around the country have large booster groups and quite a bit of ticket revenue.  Not sure too many are making much on broadcasting, but there are collectives at a lot of d3 schools that coaches use in recruiting.  We're not talking salaries like the d1 schools offer, but it can be a significant part of the consideration, like anything else in the financial aid package.

UW-Eau Clair averaged 900 per home game this year.  They charge $12/adult, $6/child for tickets.  That's a significant revenue stream - not to mention they're major sporting centers for decent sized towns.

Quote from: Pat Coleman on April 11, 2025, 10:56:26 AMTrying to hew to arbitrary standards makes me wonder if they think it will move them up some ranking.

Probably - and also likely why they're reluctant to add to that 300m long term debt to build more housing.

NYU definitely has NIL money to offer transfers.  I'm not sure what level that works out to be and how often than makes a difference, but it's certainly going to keep them competitive for players who can be admitted.

Remember, d1 removed the scholarship limits on their rosters, so there are (typically) three walk-ons at the end of every D1 bench who might be looking to come to d3 if they don't get a scholarship on their current team.

Middlebury is a very strange situation.  The administration and faculty/staff have been fighting for years about compensation.  The big issue is that they've been pulling 7-8% annually from the endowment and they want to lower that.  When I was there last year, I asked about it (because the student newspaper had almost nothing else in it) - people just kept responding "5% is standard," even when I pointed out their endowment growth, on average, was much larger than 8% annually and it probably wasn't going to bankrupt them.

I guess there are a lot of industry SOP that these schools follow that don't make sense to me.  I wouldn't look at this as anything of significance compared to the financial issues at other places.

Middlebury is overflowing their ability to house students, so I don't think their future is in much jeopardy.

Quote from: Ron Boerger on April 08, 2025, 02:30:40 PMYou may be wondering "how significant is a $6M increase in the NCAA's budget for Division III?"  According to the NCAA Division III 2024-25 Facts and Figures document, the 2024-25 budget was $45.1M, so this would represent about a 13% increase. 

And that's after they'd already increased the budget for this year in anticipation of this new revenue.  We were operating at just above $30m quite recently.

Quote from: Tigerfan on April 08, 2025, 02:21:11 PMI wonder how much Guilford's financial difficulties played into Coach Palombo's decision.  It seems like an odd move for such a distinguished coach.  This is a big loss for Guilford.

I'm sure the financial situation wasn't unimportant, but it's a pretty nice gig working with a former assistant, on a D1 salary, in the same town Kimbrough is in.  Lots of things to make it attractive.

I might've agreed before seeing the team in person at NYU.  Despite the lopsided result and the pretty terrible first half, I was VERY impressed with a number of the underclassmen in that second half.  They got big minutes in an important game and played very well under pressure.  I agree, the talent level needs to improve, but I think Kimbrough has a lot to work with.  As good as the ODAC is, it's hard to know for sure if these guys can remain at the top, but I think they're in better shape than the stat sheet might indicate.

Quote from: NEPAFAN on April 02, 2025, 11:48:27 AMTheir basketball HC resigned in Mid March...reading the tea leaves?

But they also hired a new WBB coach already, so who knows?

Keystone is still required to tell all applicants that their accreditation is in limbo, since they have this fall deadline still in place to prove they should keep it.  That's definitely going to hurt recruiting.  I suspect they won't have sports anyway - looks like this non-profit takeover if their exit strategy and I can't imagine that includes keeping sports, but I've been surprised before.