“That’s the purpose, to win a championship once more and go to March,” Minor, a 6-foot-8 ahead, mentioned after posting 19 factors and seven rebounds within the win. “I’m simply grateful. We will’t management whether or not or not we go this 12 months, however subsequent 12 months we’ll be capable to be eligible. So I’m simply blessed.”
Eleven colleges, together with Merrimack, are at present in some section of transferring to Division I and topic to the decades-old transition rule. However why isn’t a workforce adequate to win its convention event allowed to compete within the sport’s largest occasion? The rationale for the rule, an N.C.A.A. spokeswoman mentioned in an e-mail, is to permit these colleges to get to Division I requirements for amenities, scholarship necessities and different points of their athletic packages.
“Initially, N.C.A.A. members in Division I instituted a two-year course of for reclassification, however that was doubled when groups started to make the soar and have been unable to maintain Division I membership as a result of they made the transfer too quickly and couldn’t sustain financially,” the spokeswoman, Meghan Durham, mentioned. “It’s meant to guard universities from taking up extra expense than they will deal with.”
Merrimack Coach Joe Gallo led the Warriors to an NEC regular-season championship in 2019-20, once they turned the primary workforce to win a convention title within the first season of transitioning to Division I. Since becoming a member of the NEC, the Warriors have received a league-best 64 p.c of their regular-season convention video games. Their win over Fairleigh Dickinson was their eleventh in a row, they usually might add to that complete in the event that they selected to play within the Faculty Basketball Invitational, which isn’t run by the N.C.A.A., however Gallo mentioned, “I believe we’re executed.”
Evidently, Gallo isn’t an enormous fan of the N.C.A.A. transition rule.
“I hope transferring ahead for the youngsters’ sake, one thing is completed about it, as a result of for 4 years what you’re doing is, you’re taking a child’s complete profession out of the equation,” Gallo mentioned within the lead-up to the convention title sport. “You’re mainly telling a child, ‘You may’t compete within the postseason to your complete profession.’”