In mid-March the St. Francis (PA) Crimson Flash had a possibility to do one thing each small D-1 faculty basketball program goals of: play in an NCAA event sport. They ended up dropping a heartbreaking, 70-68, choice to Alabama State in a First 4 sport in Dayton. It was nonetheless an enormous second for this system and a basic sport that highlighted the fantastic thing about the First 4 video games.
It was additionally in all probability the final time — at the least for the foreseeable future — that St. Francis will ever have that chance.
Precisely one week later, this system made the surprising announcement on Tuesday that it’s dropping from Division I athletics all the way in which right down to Division III.
The first cause given: The altering faculty sports activities panorama that’s now being pushed by NIL and the switch portal.
Here’s what faculty chairman Rev. Joseph Lehman said in the school’s statement regarding the decision:
“This was not a simple nor a fast choice for the Board of Trustees. The governance related to intercollegiate athletics has all the time been sophisticated and is barely 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 goal to greatest present sources and help to our student-athletes on this altering atmosphere that aligns with our mission, Catholic establishment, and our group’s expectations.”
In numerous 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. Additionally it is positioned within the small city of Loretto, Pennsylvania, with a inhabitants of simply 1,168 folks, and is hours away from one other main metropolis. Pittsburgh is roughly two hours away, whereas Philadelphia is 4 hours away. It would not have the cash or name-brand energy to draw gamers, it is not in a great location, it would not have the amenities to compete with energy faculties and success has all the time been troublesome to return by.
Regardless of being a D-I basketball faculty because the mid-Nineteen Fifties, this 12 months’s event look was solely the second in program historical past (having additionally gone through the 1990-91 season). It didn’t win a sport in both look.
The one cause the Crimson Flash made it this season is as a result of they went on a very surprising convention event run to win the NEC title. They’d a dropping document through the common season (16-17) and haven’t really had a profitable document since profitable 22 video games through the 2019-20 season. General this system has had just six winning seasons since the 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 event is already being attributed to the NIL and switch portal panorama, making it practically not possible for smaller faculties to maintain the kind of high-end expertise who can swing a sport and result in a Cinderella-type run via the event.
St. Francis (PA) may simply be the tip of the iceberg for what’s about to occur in faculty sports activities with smaller faculties.
