Much respect for the 8-1 start but "historic start" should include "for Stony Brook". I opened the thread looking for something that was really historic

I wonder if the guy from Dominican is the head coach I met in Columbus a couple of years back. Are they moving up a division? I think we talked about a jump to D2 or something like that.

Lontimelurker, Ohio Dominican did become Division II a few years ago. Oddly enough, Urbana University and Ashland University are also Division II but all three play in different conferences. I am not that well versed on all the ins and outs of Division II vs Division III. However, I believe Division II schools can give more scholarship money which they believe raises their profile. Conversely, I believe there are more Division II schools experiencing financial problems than those who are Division III schools.

In basketball NCAA II is alloted 10 scholarships versus the 13 of Men’s Division I, and zero for Division III. Ashland is a well to do private school that is in the GLIAC, ODU was in the GLIAC but left for the new GMAC. The GMAC is mostly Ohio private schools who are struggling financially. The GLIAC is comprised of mainly Michigan schools that are state funded on an entirely different funding model. NONE of the GMAC schools could compete in the GLIAC in competition or funding, so they all left and added Alderson-Broaddus out of WV. Urbana is in the Mountain East, which is a very good basketball conference but is also made up of very poor schools in West Virginia.

"very poor schools in WV"? I'm pretty sure my friends that are WV Wesleyan, University of Charleston, and Wheeling Jesuit grads would dispute that generalization.

Well, two of those three have endowments around $50 million. While that's not very much for a large state-supported school, it's not bad for a small private or parochial school.

Being someone who actually works in the conference and has worked in the GLAC, I can tell you their funding models for athletics pale in comparison to the Michigan Schools. But feel free to keep thinking what you guys would like.

This site says that University of Charleston's endowment was $41.2 million two years ago: https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/university-of-charle...

This site says West Virginia Wesleyan had an endowment of $47.4 million in 2017:
https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/west-virginia-wesley...

Interesting article about WVWC. While it points out some serious fiscal issues, I thought the following paragraph from the article also showed that the school still has a good deal of upside: "The college recently announced the conclusion of a successful capital campaign that raised more than $34 million and is in the third year of a $10 million Title III grant. Recent improvements to campus include a new welcome center, new dorm, new science center, two fountains and revamped athletic facilities, including a turf football field."

The article that headlined Gordon Gee was all about state-run higher education in West Virginia. All the schools we were discussing are private or parochial. And, let me add, that the comments from Gordon are typical "Gee Speak" so really hard to know what the substance behind them might be. The guy is a master of educational double-speak. He always has at least five agendas going at the same time, only two of which are visible. Hidden agendas are his trademark. Not saying there's not a serious problem to be addressed. Just saying that one can't get a handle on the real issues listening to blather from Dr. Gee.

No, my original post, was about the Mountain East in general, which is made up of mostly public schools in WV. Fairmont, WVSU, Shepherd University, Concord, Glenville, West Liberty. 6 of the 8 West Virginia Schools are public, Urbana, ND, and Wise are the others (Shepherd and Wise are leaving this year). The original post was about funding and why schools left leagues. The OHIO schools bolted from the GLAC due to travel and they no longer wanted to try and keep up with the Michigan schools which are funded on an entirely different model than those in OHIO. I never once criticized the academic reputation on any of those schools, even though that was the VERY first reply to my post was someone thinking I was attacking their academic profile! Not true. Then you want to come out with information on two of the leagues private schools to tell me about how great those finances are, even though, they have growing endowments, their budgets are struggling, as evidenced by the layoffs.

Loved Boals as a hard-nosed player when he was at OU and hoping he does well at Stony Brook. Would love to see him running the show in Athens some day.