In mid-March the St. Francis (PA) Crimson Flash had a chance to do one thing each small D-1 school basketball program desires 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 traditional sport that highlighted the great thing about the First 4 video games.
It was additionally in all probability 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 motive 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 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 at all times been difficult and is just rising in complexity primarily based on realities just like the switch portal, pay-for-play, and different shifts that transfer athletics away from love of the sport. For that motive, as a Board, we purpose to finest present sources and assist to our student-athletes on this altering atmosphere that aligns with our mission, Catholic establishment, and our group’s expectations.”
In loads of methods, it’s comprehensible for a faculty like St. Francis.
It was at all times one of many smaller D-I faculties, and in 2024, it had fewer than 2,000 college students enrolled. It’s also positioned 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 really perfect location, it does not have the services to compete with energy faculties and success has at all times been tough to come back by.
Regardless of being a D-I basketball faculty for the reason that mid-Nineteen Fifties, this yr’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 motive the Crimson Flash made it this season is as a result of they went on a very sudden convention event run to win the NEC title. They’d a dropping report through the common season (16-17) and haven’t truly had a profitable report since profitable 22 video games through the 2019-20 season. Total 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 comply with an identical path.
The shortage of upsets on this yr’s event is already being attributed to the NIL and switch portal panorama, making it almost unimaginable for smaller faculties to maintain the kind of high-end expertise who can swing a sport and result in a Cinderella-type run by means of the event.
St. Francis (PA) might simply be the tip of the iceberg for what’s about to occur in school sports activities with smaller faculties.
