New LIU College team

[Almostflipped]

https://www.rowingnews.com/2021/05/13/l ... ds-rowing/

Apparently LIU is looking to add a new varsity team for the 2022-2023 season. They used to have a club team in the early 2000's that fell apart. Be interesting to see them bring it all back.

[Rocket-Sauce]

Now the NEC has 4 Varsity Rowing programs out of 10 Full Member Institutions -and 3 are within the last 2 years:
Bryant -new Varsity status
LIU -brand new program
Merrimack -moved to DI in 2019-2020
Sacred Heart

[WingedFoot]

Now the NEC has 4 Varsity Rowing programs out of 10 Full Member Institutions -and 3 are within the last 2 years:
Bryant -new Varsity status
LIU -brand new program
Merrimack -moved to DI in 2019-2020
Sacred Heart

What are the possibilities? Can a 12th conference emerge? What would the ncaa implications be?

Sacred Heart is already in the MAAC. It seems natural to me that these programs would end up in the MAAC with Sacred Heart if NEC doesn’t want to sponsor the sport?

[Slim]

12th conference would increase the field to 24 teams. That would be great for the regatta - 4 heats of 6.

[asdad123]

Can't they just choose to expand the field?

I don't love the idea of more 5-7 team conferences.

[Slim]

The field is number of conferences x2

[asdad123]

The field is number of conferences x2

Is that all NCAA sports?

It seems like a logical move to make it 24 regardless of the number of conferences

[dresser]

I think number NCAA qualifiers are a percentage of total division teams, around 25%.

[bz]

The size of an NCAA championship is not two times the number of conferences that could be entitled to an AQ. Bylaw 31 governs these types of things. The size is generally a function of the number of institutions that sponsor the sport and the NCAA has already been quite generous in the size of the field for rowing (22 teams x 23 per team) based on their formulas. One bylaw states that 50% of the field is to be reserved for at large selections. If there were to be 12 conferences that could have an AQ, one option is a play-in tournament between two conferences as determined by the national committee. Another option is the national committee deciding which conferences get an AQ based on the previous year performance. Field size expansion is also a possibility, but not a given.

Bill Zack