Feel really sorry for the Saint Francis community.  There's a lot of old basketball tradition there; glad that they went out on a high note.

With next year's changes to the NIL (a cap of $20.5 million across all sports at a school), an A10 school is now going to have to ante up a minimum of $1,000,000 a year in NIL to compete in men's basketball at the league level.  I'm anticipating that some A10 schools will cross the $2 million threshold.  The power schools are going to be spending around $5 million in NIL to build a roster.

With these changes, I don't think that Saint Francis will be the last school getting out of the Division 1 basketball game.  It's going to be interesting to see if schools like La Salle and Fordham survive the expense to compete in the A10.  As Dukes fans, we are so very fortunate that we have Ken Gormley as president who had the vision to position Duquesne Athletics as a pillar of success for the University; and for Dave Harper's execution of the initiative.  Fasten your seatbelts; more turbulence to come.

I hate everything about this. A shame that SFU needs to make this choice.

It only mentions basketball; are they able to keep football and other sports in D1?

Last edited by Face (3/25/2025 12:53 pm)

That puts the NEC auto bid in football in danger.  Or the NEC could stop kicking out schools  that want to leave and still play NEC football.   Like Sacred Heart.& Merrimack.

Last edited by DuqBlue (3/25/2025 2:00 pm)

At the A-10 tournament, I unexpectedly spent time with folks who run the NIL collectives for 4-5 member schools. (Sorry, none of them were from DU.) According to these people, two schools spent at least $700K on just one player, while three broke the $2 million mark for their entire rosters. None of them spent less than $1.5 million. 

All of these folks are colleagues of an old friend who is a big deal in university fundraising circles as a lobbyist. I was kind of thrust into these conversations. At first, I was interested in learning how it all worked, but I was left disgusted. This crap couldn't have less to do with the stated institutional goals of these universities. 

The most disconcerting part of this experience is that nobody seems to agree on the current "rules."  I am obviously a very passionate Duquesne fan & I still pull pretty hard for my hometown Bonnies except when they are playing my beloved Dukes. If things escalate in the ways they seem destined to, I am not sure if my degree of fandom could remain the same.

PhoenixRising2 wrote:

Feel really sorry for the Saint Francis community.  There's a lot of old basketball tradition there; glad that they went out on a high note.

With next year's changes to the NIL (a cap of $20.5 million across all sports at a school), an A10 school is now going to have to ante up a minimum of $1,000,000 a year in NIL to compete in men's basketball at the league level.  I'm anticipating that some A10 schools will cross the $2 million threshold.  The power schools are going to be spending around $5 million in NIL to build a roster.

With these changes, I don't think that Saint Francis will be the last school getting out of the Division 1 basketball game.  It's going to be interesting to see if schools like La Salle and Fordham survive the expense to compete in the A10.  As Dukes fans, we are so very fortunate that we have Ken Gormley as president who had the vision to position Duquesne Athletics as a pillar of success for the University; and for Dave Harper's execution of the initiative.  Fasten your seatbelts; more turbulence to come.

Look at this situation at Indiana State.  Last year this team reached the NIT Finals.  Right now, no players left on their roster.
https://x.com/SkimMilkey/status/1904610810309058664

Every post makes me wish even harder for an ignore feature on this board. PSA: Don’t Drink and Post.

Because of the wild posts, I couldn't resist looking up some stats from the 6 years & 188 games RE led Duquesne.
-Teams averaged 76.7 points per game while giving up 74
-Scored 100 or more points 10 times
-Scored 90 or more points 23 times 
-Home game average attendance is 3,088
(Even after taking out the 2 Covid/renovation seasons, that is 28% better than KD's numbers. That's pretty sad given the shiny new arena he had to work with.)
-Winning percentage .527  99-89 overall 46-50 in conference

I must admit that I was surprised by just how much scoring his teams did, particularly over the first three seasons. It was certainly nowhere near 90 points per game, let alone 100, but still. I didn't remember it that way at all. 

Damian Saunders is still my all-time favorite Duke, with senior-year Ajax running a close second.

What a shame it is that RE didn't turn all those points into more wins. Ugh!

luckymcd wrote:

This is disappointing news for the continued changing culture of college athletics, but even moreso for the possible effect on Dukes football; which I hadn't even thought about until DuqBlue's post. I say we send them out in style and bring back the Steel Bowl next season. I'd love to make it an annual event, but I really don't think that's in the cards. If it's done right, the big programs have no reason not to do it on at least a one-time basis. So here's my proposal for the 2025 Steel Bowl:

The four biggest programs in the area host four smaller schools in early season home games. St. Francis comes to the Coop, Robert Morris plays at the Pete, Akron plays WVU at the Coliseum, and Penn State hosts Bucknell. Then the weekend before Thanksgiving all eight teams come to PPG with winners playing winners and losers playing losers in quadrupleheaders on Saturday and Sunday. With the eight schools being in different conferences and all games being played within ten days it can be an exempt multi-team event. So the three games only count as one towards the maximum by the NCAA. Unfortunately the same team can only play in the same MTE once in a four year period. That's why I say an annual event really isn't in the cards.

There could be a City Game and Backyard Brawl in the same weekend. Coach Dru could end up coaching against his alma mater. St. Francis and Robert Morris could meet in an old conference matchup for the last time. Akron and WVU matchup in the Huggins Bowl (though something tells me he wouldn't be invited).

The four big programs get a home game, rivalries could be renewed, everyone gets to be home for Thanksgiving, and it only counts as one game for the administrators. Bring Dick's Sporting Goods in as a sponsor and there could be some decent SWAG and exposure too. It all makes too much sense not to do it. Of course in today's world that probably means the chances of it happening are next to none.

NEC football can easily recover from this by allowing Sacred Heart and Merrimack back in.  They both play independently after NEC kicked them out.  The NEC has kicked out numerous schools who left NEC for all sports but wanted to play NEC football.   RMU (they are back again out of NEC necessity), Bryant and Monmouth all were shown the door when they would have kept playing NEC football. 

It’s just an odd stance for a conference that does not have an abundance of football playing schools to take. 

I hope the alumni of SFU can save D1 sports for them.

Last edited by DuqBlue (3/26/2025 6:41 pm)