In mid-March the St. Francis (PA) Purple Flash had a chance to do one thing each small D-1 school basketball program goals of: play in an NCAA match recreation. They ended up shedding a heartbreaking, 70-68, resolution to Alabama State in a First 4 recreation in Dayton. It was nonetheless an enormous second for this system and a basic recreation that highlighted the great thing about the First 4 video games.
It was additionally most likely the final time — not less than for the foreseeable future — that St. Francis will ever have that chance.
Precisely one week later, this system made the stunning announcement on Tuesday that it’s dropping from Division I athletics all the way in which all the way down to Division III.
The first cause given: The altering school sports activities panorama that’s now being pushed by NIL and the switch portal.
Here’s what faculty chairman Rev. Joseph Lehman mentioned within the faculty’s assertion concerning the choice:
“This was not a simple nor a fast resolution for the Board of Trustees. The governance related to intercollegiate athletics has all the time been difficult and is just rising in complexity based mostly on realities just like the switch portal, pay-for-play, and different shifts that transfer athletics away from love of the sport. For that cause, as a Board, we purpose to greatest present sources and assist to our student-athletes on this altering setting that aligns with our mission, Catholic establishment, and our group’s expectations.”
In a variety of methods, it’s comprehensible for a faculty like St. Francis.
It was all the time one of many smaller D-I faculties, and in 2024, it had fewer than 2,000 college students enrolled. It’s also situated within the small city of Loretto, Pennsylvania, with a inhabitants of simply 1,168 individuals, and is hours away from one other main metropolis. Pittsburgh is roughly two hours away, whereas Philadelphia is 4 hours away. It does not have the cash or name-brand energy to draw gamers, it isn’t in a great location, it does not have the amenities to compete with energy faculties and success has all the time been tough to come back by.
Regardless of being a D-I basketball faculty for the reason that mid-Nineteen Fifties, this 12 months’s match look was solely the second in program historical past (having additionally gone throughout the 1990-91 season). It didn’t win a recreation in both look.
The one cause the Purple Flash made it this season is as a result of they went on a totally surprising convention match run to win the NEC title. That they had a shedding file throughout the common season (16-17) and haven’t really had a successful file since successful 22 video games throughout the 2019-20 season. Total this system has had simply six successful seasons for the reason that 1990-91 season.
The larger-picture query is that if different smaller faculties in St. Francis’ place will observe the same path.
The dearth of upsets on this 12 months’s match is already being attributed to the NIL and switch portal panorama, making it almost unattainable for smaller faculties to maintain the kind of high-end expertise who can swing a recreation and result in a Cinderella-type run by the match.
St. Francis (PA) may simply be the tip of the iceberg for what’s about to occur in school sports activities with smaller faculties.
