Imagine being a high school senior on the basketball team that committed to the newly added Division 1 program, the University of Mercyhurst, to continue their athletic career. When you get there, you and your college basketball team aren’t eligible for major tournaments and trophies. Well this is a real thing that has gone around NCAA Division 1 Basketball for years. New teams that make the transition to Division 1 cannot compete in things like March Madness or the NIT for five years due to restrictions for newly added teams.

In 2023, the Merrimack Warriors took down the Fairleigh Dickinson Knights in the title game for their conference title, which in theory would have given them an automatic bid into March Madness. Merrimack was named conference champions, but the runner-up, Fairleigh Dickinson got the automatic bid due to Merrimack having to serve their 5th and final year of competitive restrictions. Fairleigh Dickinson went on to upset number one seed Purdue, making it the second time a 16 seed has knocked off a one seed in March Madness history, when it shouldn’t even have been them.

So what’s the reason behind this? It can’t be because they think former Division 2 and Division 3 aren’t good enough to compete right away because of what happened with Merrimack in 2023. Do they want to give the newly added schools time to build up their roster with Division 1 recruiting? That is not fair either to the players already there, who will spend their full 4 or 5 years of eligibility not being able to compete for anything. It would make them want to transfer so they can get that March Madness experience of a lifetime. If a college team was eligible to make the jump from Division 2 or 3 to Division 1, why should they be restricted? Overall, I’m behind the fact that this rule is unreasonable and unfair to coaches, programs, and athletes.