Small college news out of Rapid City

[jackmd]

Dakota Athletic Conference proposing merger with other conferences
By Jim Holland, Journal Sports Writer

Faced with a dwindling number of member schools, collegiate officials in the Dakota Athletic Conference are proposing a merger with other regional athletic conferences under the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics banner.

"NAIA schools are getting hard to come by (for scheduling)," said Hugh Welsh, athletic director and former men's basketball coach at South Dakota Tech. "We've got to do something."......

A third possibility would be a move to NCAA Div. II, and join forces with either the NSIC, or Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference.

Chadron State College, little more than 100 miles south of Rapid City, is an RMAC member.

"I wouldn't rule out Division II," said BHSU athletic director Steve Meeker. "We are attempting as a league to remain NAIA, if we can do that."

"That would open up scheduling with Chadron, Montana State-Billings, the University of South Dakota, or Northern State and other possibilities," Meeker said.

Dakota State's proposal to join the GPAC may be addressed at a conference meeting set for today........

Link to full story:

http://www.rapidcityjournal.com/arti...cal/news02.txt

[OK_Jackrabbit]

Re: Small college news out of Rapid City

Dakota Athletic Conference proposing merger with other conferences
By Jim Holland, Journal Sports Writer

Faced with a dwindling number of member schools, collegiate officials in the Dakota Athletic Conference are proposing a merger with other regional athletic conferences under the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics banner.

"NAIA schools are getting hard to come by (for scheduling)," said Hugh Welsh, athletic director and former men's basketball coach at South Dakota Tech. "We've got to do something."......

A third possibility would be a move to NCAA Div. II, and join forces with either the NSIC, or Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference.

Chadron State College, little more than 100 miles south of Rapid City, is an RMAC member.

"I wouldn't rule out Division II," said BHSU athletic director Steve Meeker. "We are attempting as a league to remain NAIA, if we can do that."

"That would open up scheduling with Chadron, Montana State-Billings, the University of South Dakota, or Northern State and other possibilities," Meeker said.

Dakota State's proposal to join the GPAC may be addressed at a conference meeting set for today........

Link to full story:

http://www.rapidcityjournal.com/arti...cal/news02.txt

And so the erosion of DII continues.

Nothing against Tech and BHSU, but they're not peers of USD, UND, and UNO in any sense of the word. Do you think they'll want to lower scholarship limits in DII? Let's see. They have no scholarships now... They probably want to be competitive... Yes, I'm thinking a lower DII scholarship limit would be great for Tech and BHSU.

[jackmd]

Re: Small college news out of Rapid City

And so the erosion of DII continues.

Nothing against Tech and BHSU, but they're not peers of USD, UND, and UNO in any sense of the word. Do you think they'll want to lower scholarship limits in DII? Let's see. They have no scholarships now... They probably want to be competitive... Yes, I'm thinking a lower DII scholarship limit would be great for Tech and BHSU.

I think its far-fetched that the DAC or GPAC would move as a whole to DII. Certainly some of the individual institutions will and have. Less than the erosion of DII it signals a desire to always move upward and be affiliated with peers. Achieve what is detemined to be your highest goal is important. That means DI for SDSU and perhaps DII for a school like Dakota St.

[filbert]

Re: Small college news out of Rapid City

And so the erosion of DII continues.

Nothing against Tech and BHSU, but they're not peers of USD, UND, and UNO in any sense of the word. Do you think they'll want to lower scholarship limits in DII? Let's see. They have no scholarships now... They probably want to be competitive... Yes, I'm thinking a lower DII scholarship limit would be great for Tech and BHSU.

Actually Tech is academically very much USD's equal--not in size but in overall quality. Tech along with SDSU and USD are SD's "research" universities. They're not as good an engineering school as SDSU of course, but they're still pretty good

[filbert]

Re: Small college news out of Rapid City

From the linked article:

Frontier Conference officials have reacted positively to the idea of a merger with the DAC, Meeker said.

Montana members of the Frontier include Carroll College in Helena, Montana State University-Northern in Havre, MSU-Western in Dillon, Montana Tech in Butte, University of Great Falls in Great Falls and Rocky Mountain College in Billings.

Also in the conference are Westminster College in Salt Lake City, Utah, Lewis and Clark State College in Lewiston, Idaho, and Eastern Oregon University in La Grande, Ore.

A thought: if a Frontier-DAC merger comes off, all the sudden it becomes less "geographically difficult" for the State U's to get into the Big Sky. If an NAIA conference can stretch from eastern Oregon to eastern North Dakota, surely a D-I conference could pull it off.

(I still would prefer the Mid-Con though . . . )

[West_River_Jack]

Re: Small college news out of Rapid City

NAIA D-1 vs D-II: It is somewhat interesting, although I don't know how important, to note that a DAC-10 merger with the Frontier Conference would also represent a status change for the DAC schools. The NAIA is also split into Division I and Division II. About 40% of the NAIA schools are D-I and the remaining 60% (very rounded estimates) are D-II. The Frontier Conference is Division I. The two Black Hills members of the DAC play some games against some of the Frontier Conference members each year. They both travelled to Montana to play a couple of them last weekend and came up short.

I am not an expert on the NAIA but I am not aware of any other NAIA D-1 conferences or schools in our geographic area. During last year's BHSU holiday doubleheader one of the participants came from an east coast NAIA D-1 school and BHSU held their own with them, coming up about one basket short. The east coast team was a final four team the year before.

Such a merger might complicate recruiting for the Black Hills schools as it would shift their exposure to the west, away from the majority of the South Dakota high school athletes. They could continue to play non-conference games with GPAC schools for that exposure but it would create a large conference as the Frontier is already at nine members and expanding that would leave fewer non-conference openings on the BHSU and SDSMT schedules.