NCAA Division II Conferences: A Comprehensive Overview
NCAA Division II (D-II) represents the intermediate tier of competition within the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). This article delves into the structure, characteristics, and notable aspects of Division II conferences.
Historical Context
Before 1973, the NCAA's smaller institutions were collectively known as the College Division. In 1973, the NCAA transitioned to a numeric designation system, splitting the College Division into two distinct entities.
Division II: A Closer Look
Currently, Division II comprises 303 full members, seven reclassifying members, and two provisional members. These institutions often consist of public universities with an enrollment of fewer than 15,000 students, alongside numerous private institutions. A significant portion (30%) of Division II schools have a student population below 2,499. Only a small number of institutions, 18 in total, exceed 15,000 undergraduates, with just five surpassing 25,000, led by Simon Fraser University.
Division II boasts a diverse membership, including active member institutions in Alaska and Hawaii. Notably, it is the sole division with member institutions in Puerto Rico and an international member institution. Simon Fraser University, located in Burnaby, British Columbia, holds the distinction of being the first institution outside the United States to join the NCAA. After the Division II Membership Committee approved its application in Indianapolis, Indiana, from July 7-9, Simon Fraser commenced a two-year candidacy period on September 1, 2009. Prospective members are required to complete a minimum of one year of provisional status before attaining full-time Division II membership.
Unique Features of Division II
One distinctive aspect of Division II is the "National Championships Festival," an annual event inspired by the Olympics. A designated city hosts national championship finals across various sports over several days. The festival incorporates formal opening and closing ceremonies, with competitors accommodated in a central hotel, fostering a village-like atmosphere. The inaugural festival took place in Orlando, Florida, in 2004, featuring spring sports. It has been an annual event since the 2006-07 school year, with the exceptions of 2009-10, 2021 and 2022 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Sports Sponsorship Requirements
Division II institutions must sponsor a minimum of five sports for men and five for women (or four for men and six for women). Each sex must have two team sports represented, and each playing season must be represented by each sex. Teams comprising both men and women are classified as men's teams for sports sponsorship purposes. Specific contest and participant minimums exist for each sport. In football, men's and women's basketball teams, a minimum of 50 percent of their games must be against Division II, Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), or Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) opponents. For sports other than football and basketball, there are no scheduling requirements, provided that each contest involves full varsity teams. Women's rugby is the only NCAA sport where contests against club teams can count toward a team's contest minimum, with a maximum of two such contests per school year. There are no attendance requirements for football or arena size requirements for basketball.
Financial Aid and Scholarships
Division II imposes maximum financial aid awards for each sport, along with a separate limit on financial aid awards in men's sports. Division II athletics programs are funded within the institution's budget, similar to other academic departments. Athletic scholarships are available in most sponsored sports at most institutions, albeit with stricter limits on the number offered in any one sport compared to Division I. For instance, Division II schools can provide financial aid in football equivalent to 36 full scholarships, while Division I FBS schools can offer 85. Some Division II conferences further restrict the number of scholarships to a lower level.
Division II scholarship programs often attract student-athletes transferring from Division I schools. These transfer students are not required to sit out a year before resuming sports participation, as is typically the case when transferring between Division I institutions. Notable exceptions to this rule include:
- Football players transferring from a Division I FBS school to a Division I FCS school, provided they have at least two remaining seasons of athletic eligibility. This also applies to players transferring from scholarship-granting FCS schools to non-scholarship FCS schools.
- First-time transfers, provided the player's former institution grants a scholarship release. Before the 2021-22 school year, this applied to sports other than football, baseball, men's and women's basketball, and men's ice hockey; it was extended to the remaining sports effective in 2021-22.
- Student-athletes in any sport who complete a bachelor's degree and have remaining athletic eligibility can transfer to another school and be immediately eligible, provided they enroll in a separate degree program at the new institution.
Recent Conference Changes
The Mountain East Conference is the newest D-II conference, established in 2012 after the football-sponsoring schools in the West Virginia Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (WVIAC) opted to form a new league, leading to the WVIAC's dissolution. The Heartland Conference ceased operations at the end of the 2018-19 school year. In August 2017, eight of its nine members announced their departure to the Lone Star Conference (LSC). Newman University, the remaining Heartland member, became a de facto member of the Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association (MIAA) at that time. The Great Northwest Athletic Conference (GNAC) discontinued its football program after the 2021-22 school year.
Scholarship Limits and Equivalency Sports
The NCAA imposes limits on the total financial aid each Division II member can award in each sport. All Division II sports are classified as "equivalency" sports, meaning the NCAA restricts the total financial aid a school can offer in a given sport to the equivalent of a set number of full scholarships. This contrasts with Division I, where some sports are "head-count" sports, limiting the total number of individuals who can receive athletic aid. Scholarship limits in bold are identical to those for Division I members in the same sport for the same sex. Many of these sports have a single championship open to schools from all divisions (e.g., bowling and rifle), or a combined Division I/II national championship and a separate Division III championship (e.g., women's ice hockey and men's volleyball). If the NCAA sponsors a Division I championship but not a Division II championship in a given sport, D-II members can compete in the D-I championship and operate under D-I scholarship limits. Men's ice hockey is an example, as it has not had a Division II championship in the 21st century.
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The NCAA classifies teams consisting of both men and women as men's teams for sports sponsorship and D-II scholarship limitations. Three NCAA sports are open to competitors of both sexes. In rifle, there is a single team championship for all divisions, and men and women compete as equals.
Competition with Other Associations
Many Division II schools frequently compete against members of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), which comprises colleges and universities offering athletic scholarships similar to NCAA Division II across the United States and Canada.
In football, D-II teams once played games against schools now in Division I FBS. However, this practice has ended because FBS schools cannot use victories over schools below the FCS level for establishing bowl eligibility under current NCAA rules. Today, D-II "money games" are exclusively against FCS schools, whose postseason eligibility is less seriously impacted by scheduling a D-II opponent. The D-II school is almost invariably the visiting team, invited to play with the knowledge that it will likely be defeated but will receive a substantial monetary reward to help finance the season and other sports.
In recent years, "money games" in men's basketball have included preseason exhibitions against D-I programs, typically in the same region, which do not count in official statistics for either team. The University of Kansas assists the state's four Division II members by rotating them onto the Jayhawks' exhibition schedule annually. Occasionally, Division II teams win these exhibition games against well-respected Division I programs. In 2009, a Division II team beat the eventual Big East regular season champion. In 2010, two other Division II teams beat teams that reached the NCAA Division I tournament. In 2011, another Division II team defeated a Division I team that finished in the top half of the Pac-12 Conference.
In basketball, the Maui Invitational, a well-known early-season tournament for D-I men's teams, is hosted by D-II member Chaminade. Chaminade competed in every tournament through 2017 but now competes only in odd-numbered years. The now-defunct Great Alaska Shootout, which had men's and women's tournaments, was also hosted by a D-II member, Alaska-Anchorage.
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Matches between different collegiate divisions in non-revenue sports are often competitive. In some sports, such as ice hockey and men's volleyball, there is no Division II national championship. In hockey, many schools whose athletic programs are otherwise Division II compete in Division I, and men's volleyball has a truncated divisional structure with a Division III championship but no Division II championship. In any sport without a Division II national championship, Division II members can award the same number of scholarships as Division I members. For example, during the 1970s, NCAA golf tournaments in California often featured Division I and Division II schools competing together, and Division II schools sometimes won those tournaments.
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