America Northeast Conference

The Northeast Conference was riding high.  Fairleigh Dickinson had just pulled off one of the biggest upsets in NCAA Tournament history.  The Knights, who didn't even win the NEC Tournament and had already played in the First Four, beat Purdue to become just the second 16-seed to beat a 1-seed and the first NEC team ever to reach the Round of 32.  It was, without a doubt, the biggest win in conference history.

That high lasted less than a week.  On March 20, just days after FDU's incredible victory, fellow NEC member St. Francis Brooklyn announced that it was eliminating all varsity sports at the end of the current season.  Not just dropping down from Division I to a lower level.  Getting rid of varsity sports entirely!  Most St. Francis Brooklyn teams have already played their final season, and the Terriers' men's basketball team, one of just four programs to have played Division I men's basketball since the first NCAA Tournament in 1939 that has never made it (William & Mary, Army and the Citadel are the others), now never will.

St. Francis leaving is a major blow to the conference.  The NEC is already one of the lowest-rated Division I conferences.  Its champion often ends up in Dayton for the First Four.  Now, the NEC will be down to just eight members, one of which (Stonehill) is ineligible for the NCAA Tournament after moving up for Division II.  Next season, Merrimack will have completed its transition and become eligible, so the NEC will have seven tournament-eligible members in 2023-24.

As recently as 2020, the NEC had 11 members.  Then Robert Morris left for the Horizon League, Mount St. Mary's went to the MAAC and Bryant joined the America East.  Now the NEC is losing a charter member in St. Francis Brooklyn.  And it wouldn't be shocking if they aren't the last.

It would be easy to say that the NEC should look for expansion candidates to replace St. Francis and get the numbers back up.  There's one problem with that, though.  The NEC is one of the weakest conferences!  That's why its members keep leaving.  They're going to better leagues.  So, really the only place the NEC can go is to find Division II schools looking to move up to Division I.  That's how they got Merrimack and Stonehill.  But that wouldn't completely solve the problem, since any D-II school that does join the NEC would still have to go through the NCAA's four-year transition process.

Two years ago, a similar situation occurred in the America East Conference.  Hartford won its first America East Tournament and made its NCAA Tournament debut.  Just when everyone at Hartford was feeling great, the school announced that it was going from Division I to Division III.  The Hawks left America East at the end of last season and played as an independent this year, their final season as a Division I program.  In 2023-24, Hartford will officially be a Division III school.

Hartford wasn't the only school that left America East after the 2021-22 season.  Stony Brook did, as well, joining the CAA.  America East membership only dropped by one, though, since Bryant came over from the NEC, leaving the league with nine full-time members this season.  So, even with the two departures, America East membership essentially held steady.  And, I wouldn't be surprised if they end up poaching another NEC school.  Merrimack is already an America East associate member in men's lacrosse.

What happens if one or both of these leagues has its stability threatened, though?  Right now, everything seems to be calm, but this is college athletics we're talking about here.  Everything is always in a state of flux.  And it would be very easy to envision the outlier schools (Saint Francis U in the NEC, UMBC in America East) looking for a conference a little closer to home that they might see as a better fit.  There are only so many Division II institutions looking to move up to D-I that would be able to fill that void.

So, even though it's an admittedly crazy idea on the surface, I think an America East-NEC merger would be mutually beneficial.  It would be the opposite of the Big East and the American or the WAC and the Mountain West.  With the constant movement in college athletics, the stability of smaller conferences can be threatened.  That's especially true when you have two smaller conferences in the same general area that has schools other leagues might be interested in poaching (where the interest would likely be mutual).

I'm not saying a merger will or even should happen.  It's definitely something that's worth thinking about, though.  Because, again, constantly having to look to the Division II ranks for new members anytime somebody leaves is not sustainable.  It could also potentially impact the quality of the league, neither of which is very highly-rated to begin with.  In fact, they both rank towards the bottom among the 32 Division I basketball conferences.

Would a merger solve all of the problems?  Of course not!  But a merged league would be much more capable of losing a member or two without immediately having to scramble for a replacement.  There are currently nine teams in America East and eight in the NEC.  That would create a 17-member "America Northeast Conference" (working title).  While that number seems high, remember that the SEC and Big Ten will each soon have 16 members.  And, should it happen, a 17-team league can afford to lose a member or two while remaining competitive.

Increased competitiveness would be another benefit of a merged league.  Both the NEC and America East have a similar problem in that area.  Neither league is very balanced.  The good teams are significantly better than the bottom teams, with nobody really in the middle to level the playing field.  That's why neither league is viewed very highly nationally.  Beating a bunch of bad teams doesn't exactly help the tournament champion's resume, as the NEC's repeated trips to Dayton will attest.

Now, a merged league wouldn't necessarily be better top to bottom.  But the potential for it to be is definitely there.  There would be more good teams, and those good teams would get the chance to play each other, so it would have to help at least a little.  And, who knows?  Maybe playing more good teams in their conference would make some of the bottom teams better.  Which, in turn, would make the entire conference stronger.  And potentially raise its profile.

While I don't see an America East/NEC merger as imminent or even particularly likely, we all know how volatile college sports has become with all the realignment.  So I wouldn't be surprised if something does happen eventually.  Because it may reach a point where that's the only way to survive.