Jul 28, 2008 - 04:06:25 CDT
FARGO (AP) - For the athletic programs at the University of North Dakota and the University of South Dakota, there's no place like home while looking for another.The two Dakota schools, which this fall will begin the second of a five-year transition to Division I, are new members of a revamped Great West Conference at least for the next three years.
Is it possible the two schools could eventually join the Summit League reuniting with century-old rivals North Dakota State and South Dakota State?
Long before the announcement earlier this month that the Great West would expand from football to multiple sports, both UND and USD submitted letters expressing interest in joining the Summit.
Brian Faison, hired as UND's athletic director last spring, stresses the Great West is his immediate focus. But he acknowledges the Great West could become a stage to prove its worth to the Summit.
"We need to compete for championships," Faison said. "We want to be as competitive as we can be so we can be attractive as we can be for any potential conferences."
Said USD athletic director Joel Nielsen: "There is a mind-set out there that it may be easier to move to a conference if you are already in a conference. It's that old saying, 'It's easier to get a job if you have a job.' The Summit League is still a league we are quite interested in."
But is the Summit interested in UND and USD?
Not right now.
The Summit, which has had 27 members in its 26-year history, is trying to shed its image of instability by focusing on the recently adopted Summit Plan. It targets the league to become one of the premier mid-major conferences in the country.
"We want to build the rankings of what we have now. That is our focus," said NDSU President Joe Chapman, one of 10 school presidents who have the final vote on league expansion.
Summit commissioner Tom Douple maintains expansion is always an agenda item for discussion.
"And I'm sure it always will be," Douple said. "But we are comfortable with the number of teams we have right now. It's a good fit for us."
In the meantime, UND and USD will be monitoring the ever-changing landscape of Division I - precipitated mostly by a migration of nearly 30 schools in the last nine years, increasing membership to more than 330.
That's why the NCAA has a moratorium on accepting new members or conferences for the next three years. The moratorium does not affect schools like UND and USD that have already begun the transition to Division I.
But what the NCAA decides to do after the moratorium could determine whether the four Dakota schools will compete in the same league again. As charter members of the Division II North Central Conference, they competed in the same league from 1921 to 2004.
"Anything is possible," said SDSU athletic director Fred Oien. "Certainly they could be considered. They are both capable institutions."
There is an NCAA stipulation for conferences that could reduce UND's and USD's chances of becoming Summit League members.
It's called the AQ rule, guaranteeing a conference an automatic qualifier for NCAA tournaments in most sports, including the lucrative men's basketball tournament.
"It's everything," Sun Belt Conference commissioner Wright Waters said of the AQ rule. "This is the way you pay conference bills."
For a conference to be guaranteed an automatic qualifying spot for most sports, it needs six core members schools that have been Division I members for eight years and playing together in the same league for five years.
For men's basketball, a conference needs seven core members. The Summit League is currently clinging to that AQ with seven core members. If one member left, the league could risk losing big money such as the nearly $1.1 million it received from the 2007 men's basketball tournament. Because of an agreement when it joined the Summit, NDSU won't see any basketball money until 2011.
"You definitely want to insulate yourself from those problems," said Southern Conference commissioner John Iamarino. "It would be suicide not to have your place at the basketball tournament. Sixty-three percent of all of our revenue as a conference comes from the basketball tournament."
That's a big reason conferences have been expanding, many seeking to set 10 core teams. The Summit won't have 10 core teams for another four years when NDSU, SDSU and Indiana Purdue-Fort Wayne meet the AQ requirements.
"If we would lose that AQ, I don't think the NCAA will rush out and reinstate that AQ," said NDSU athletic director Gene Taylor. "They would fill that spot for the men's basketball tournament in a heartbeat."
If the Summit League were to expand, it would prefer to look for schools with automatic qualifying status not transitional schools like UND or USD.
"If a school brought that with them, we would probably look at them," NDSU's Chapman said.
That's easier said than done, considering the limited number of independent schools looking for conferences.
The best hope UND and USD have of beating the AQ rule is if the Summit League loses a couple of teams by the time its AQ has been built up to 10. By then, UND and USD will have Division I status and need only another five years of conference membership to help pad the Summit League's AQ requirement.
"It really may depend how desperate conferences will get," said Utah Valley athletic director Michael Jacobsen, whose program is also a Great West member looking for a more established conference. "If one or two moves are made, then it can become a domino effect. We just need to be patient."
In its 26-year history, the Summit has had 27 different members nine joining the league in the past 11 years. Western Illinois is the only charter member.
With the moratorium in place for three more years, the NCAA plans to re-evaluate what a Division I member should look like.
Big Sky commissioner Doug Fullerton says the moratorium was not written for schools like NDSU and UND, who have reputations nationwide of having adequate budgets to fund a Division I program.
The moratorium talks, which begin this fall, will examine the possibility of increasing standards to become Division I.
Many, including NDSU's Taylor, think the NCAA will require a minimum budget to become Division I.
With rising travel costs, conferences may be forced to adjust. That's why some think the Summit, if it would expand to 12 teams with UND and USD, would break off into two divisions.
One option would be to put the four Dakota schools, Missouri-Kansas City and Southern Utah in one division. Oral Roberts, Centenary, Western Illinois, IPFW, IUPUI and Oakland would form another division.
"Travel will drive what the conferences will do and how they are structured," said Faison, supporting the argument that the four Dakota schools being travel partners would cut costs. "That would certainly be an interesting combination. We just have to be patient and see what happens."
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