NCAA_Men's_Division_I_basketball_alignment_history

NCAA Division I men's basketball alignment history

NCAA Division I men's basketball alignment history

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This is an NCAA Division I men's basketball alignment history. NCAA Division I is the highest level of competition in the National Collegiate Athletic Association, the main governing body for U.S. college sports.

For its first half-century of existence, the NCAA, founded in 1906 as the Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the United States and adopting its current name in 1910, was a single body for competitive purposes. It did not split into separate divisions for competition and governance purposes until 1956, when it established the University Division and College Division. In 1973, the University Division was renamed Division I, while the College Division was split into today's Divisions II and III. However, the NCAA now considers the 1947–48 season as the first in which an equivalent to today's Division I existed in basketball. This particular season was the first in which the Associated Press published college basketball rankings, with the news service choosing to publish separate rankings for what it called "major colleges" and "small colleges". The AP's "major colleges" of 1948 correspond directly to today's Division I, with "small colleges" corresponding to today's Divisions II and III.

Teams in italics are no longer in Division I. Seasons are listed by the calendar year in which they end—for example, if a school's first Division I season was the 1991–92 school year, it will be listed as having begun in 1992.[1]

Dates used reflect when the school first became eligible for NCAA-sponsored postseason play—either the NCAA tournament for men or women, the NIT since it was acquired by the NCAA in 2005, or the WBIT upon its launch in 2024. Note that it is possible for a school that is not eligible for NCAA postseason play to play in a tournament not operated by that organization. For example, South Dakota State's women's team, which was not eligible to compete in the NCAA tournament until 2009, played in the WNIT, which is not an NCAA-controlled tournament, in 2007 and 2008. Similarly, the Omaha men's team played in the 2014 CIT before becoming eligible for NCAA postseason play in 2016. The Tarleton State men's team played in the 2023 CBI and the 2024 CIT before becoming eligible for NCAA postseason play in 2025.

School names listed here reflect those in current use, which may or may not reflect names used in an institution's earlier history.

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

I

J

K

L

M

N

O

P

Q

R

S

T

U

V

W

X

Y

See also

References

  1. [1]
    "2021-22 NCAA Men's Basketball Conference Standings: Division I Alignment History" (PDF). NCAA. 2023. pp. 47–49 (58 total). Retrieved March 28, 2023.
  2. [2]
    The Indiana University and Purdue University systems will dissolve IUPUI at the end of the 2023–24 academic year in favor of separate IU- and Purdue-affiliated institutions. The athletic program will transfer to the new IU Indianapolis, which will inherit the vast majority of IUPUI's continuing student population.
  3. [3]
    Before the 2019–20 academic year, Long Island University operated two athletic programs. The program of the Brooklyn campus, historically known as "Long Island", "LIU", and finally as "LIU Brooklyn", was classified as a "major college" program before the basketball team was shut down in the wake of a point shaving scandal, and returned to the University Division (the predecessor to Division I) in 1969. In July 2019, LIU merged the Brooklyn athletic program with the Division II program of its Post campus. The unified LIU program inherited the Division I membership of the Brooklyn campus.
  4. [4]
    Purdue Fort Wayne did not exist as a standalone institution until 2018. It inherited the athletic program of the former Indiana University – Purdue University Fort Wayne (IPFW), with Purdue Fort Wayne being the larger of IPFW's two spinoff institutions.
  5. [5]
    known as Dixie State before 2022
  6. [6]
    UTRGV did not begin full operation until 2015, but inherited its athletic program from the University of Texas–Pan American, one of the two institutions that merged to form UTRGV.
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