Jan. 28, 2022 — What’s the NCAA equalizing?

Just a few days in the past, the NCAA wrapped up its annual conference in San Antonio.

One of many stories that was adopted was the ultimate report of the NCAA Division I Transformation Committee. The committee has been engaged on responding to modifications inside faculty sports activities during the last 5 years, together with NLI offers, massive cashflows from main networks, and the wants of student-athletes.

However for the aim of at this time, I wish to consider one section of this. Within the report, the committee says this:

To make sure that NCAA Division I championships present national-level competitors among the many greatest eligible student-athletes and groups, the Transformation Committee recommends that the governing sport and oversight committees for Division I Championship staff sports activities sponsored by greater than 200 establishments ought to totally take into account find out how to accommodate entry for 25 % of energetic member establishments in good standing with Division I membership necessities. Their issues ought to account for impacts on the timing of the postseason, the overall size of the postseason, needed format modifications, broadcast and different companions, finances sources, and host entity occasion administration.

There’s lots to unpack right here.

First off, for these tournaments like basketball and soccer, which used to have good 64-team brackets feeding down right into a Last 4, these days might be lengthy gone. Search for 88-team brackets in males’s basketball, 83-team brackets for ladies’s soccer, and different ersatz numbers which is able to change on the whim of universities which can wish to depart a specific NCAA division to economize (see: College of Hartford).

Second, there’s going to be quite a lot of “what about-isms” for different NCAA member establishments. What about, for instance, the massive variety of Division III schools? Will this Division I transformation filter right down to the opposite two NCAA divisions? Are their postseasons going to tug on for weeks due to a 110-team bracket for NCAA Division III girls’s soccer? Certain, there is just one spherical greater than for a 64-team bracket, however the administration for 46 play-in contests ought to make athletic administrators across the nation wince.

Third, what about area hockey? Proper now, the NCAA Division I event stands at 18 groups, Division II is six, and Division III is at 26 groups. Underneath the NCAA proposal (ought to it will definitely be utilized to each sport and never simply Division I faculties with greater than 200 groups), the Division I championship would have 19 groups, Division II would stay at six, and Division III would have 39 groups.

Lastly, what of girls’s lacrosse? If the Transformation proposal utilized to the game, the NCAA Division I championship would have 29 groups, the identical as in final 12 months’s bracket. Division II can be at 26, which can be the identical as in final 12 months’s bracket. And like in area hockey, Division III would obtain a giant bump to to 73, up from the present 46.

As this area has been saying for a while, there has all the time been an fairness drawback on the subject of Division III area hockey and lacrosse. Groups in Division III aren’t allowed the identical publicity as their Division I and II counterparts. And if you happen to’re in a non-traditional space of the nation, you will be denied entry into the bracket even in case you have an almost-perfect season.

Readers, what are your ideas?