Talk:NCAA Division I men's basketball alignment history

This list is inconsistent

In the introductory section, the page indicates that it includes only dates of when a program was eligible for the tournament or postseason play. This is reflected for some teams - for example, Abilene Christian becoming eligible again only in 2018, Omaha in 2016 (after having started their transition 4 years prior.) However, especially for newer teams, the list includes dates that the program merely started the transition, for example Cal Baptist's starting year is listed as 2018 (still not eligible as of 2021-22), Dixie State's is listed as 2020 (won't be eligible until 2024-25). Is there a reason for this or is this an oversight? Garrettcarrot12 (talk) 14:55, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

Adding frequent editors of this page. Please advise to the above if you can. Thanks! @Dale Arnett @SportsMaster @GWFrog @Pvmoutside Garrettcarrot12 (talk) 03:55, 27 December 2022 (UTC)

"... or the NIT..." Schools/teams become eligible for the NIT (and the lesser invitational postseason tournaments) when they begin transitioning to Division I. GWFrog (talk) 14:19, 27 December 2022 (UTC)

(1) No, they don't become eligible for the NIT on Day One, though they are eligible for The Basketball Classic and CIT. The NIT has been owned and operated by the NCAA since 2006 and thus is under the NCAA's transition restrictions. Bellarmine, which won last season's ASUN tournament, couldn't play in the NCAA or NIT because of this. It could have played in TBC or CIT, but chose not to. (2) I just did a little digging into the 2022–23 NCAA Division I Manual and found some interesting aspects of D-I bylaws that may touch on this issue.

• First, Bylaw 20.7.3.5.2 (page 394), applicable for all transitional schools, states that schools transitioning to D-I must meet all D-I membership requirements in Year Two (i.e., one year after starting the transition).
• Second, Bylaw 20.10.8.4.1.1 (page 404), which is specific to basketball scheduling, states that a reclassifying school is normally counted as a D-I opponent in Year Two, but can be counted from Day One if it immediately meets D-I scheduling requirements.

I need to think about this issue a bit more, but wanted to toss this out for your consideration. — Dale Arnett (talk) 18:28, 27 December 2022 (UTC)

Update: The NCAA has answered this question for us. Every year, it publishes a document containing the prior season's conference standings for all men's basketball conferences in all divisions; you can find the edition for the 2021–22 season here. (The NCAA has a similar publication for women's basketball, but for our purposes the men's publication is more appropriate, especially because the NCAA didn't sponsor women's sports championships until the 1981–82 school year.) It just so happens that pages 47–49 include the very subject of our page—the history of D-I alignment. While the NCAA did not split into divisions until 1956–57, the Associated Press divided schools into "Major College" and "Small College" when it first published its basketball polls in the 1947–48 season. The NCAA considers all schools that the AP classified as "Major College" before 1956–57 to have been Division I schools. The University Division, created in 1956, became Division I once the current three-division setup was established for 1973–74. Now that the background is out of the way, the NCAA only includes schools as D-I once they have completed transitions. So, Cal Baptist and North Alabama, which completed transitions in July 2022, are included with a start date of 2023—the NCAA consistently lists all seasons of D-I membership by the calendar years in which basketball seasons end. No school that started a transition after 2018 is included in this edition of the document—not Bellarmine, Lindenwood, Merrimack, Queens of Charlotte, St. Thomas, Southern Indiana, Stonehill, Tarleton, Texas A&M–Commerce, UCSD, or Utah Tech. — Dale Arnett (talk) 18:53, 27 December 2022 (UTC)

Thanks Dale. Is that permission (if you will) to go ahead and update this page then? I don't think our list is up to date with the file that you have provided nor the guidelines that you have just described. Garrettcarrot12 (talk) 18:05, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

If you haven't done so already, go for it. — Dale Arnett (talk) 20:48, 1 February 2023 (UTC)