Winning in transition: the case for Cal Baptist

Cal Baptist leads the WAC by a half-game over preseason favorite New Mexico State with six conference matches left.

No matter what happens until then, the Lancers' season will end on November 13.

Previously a powerhouse in the PacWest conference of NCAA Division II, Cal Baptist is in the beginning of a four-year transition to becoming a full member of Division I. Beginning in the 2022-23 school year, CBU will be fully eligible for postseason events, by the time all current players will be gone, except potentially fifth-year seniors.

Why can't they go to the postseason now?

Cal Baptist won the DII Learfield Director's Cup in the 2017-18 school year, given to the top overall athletic program in the country (Stanford regularly wins it in DI). The 2017 CBU volleyball team went 29-1 in their final year in the Pacific West, with their only defeat coming in the West Region final, DII's equivalent of the Elite Eight.

Despite that, the Lancers (17-5, 8-2 Western Athletic) were picked to finish eighth in the 9-team WAC by the coaches before the season. It looked short-sighted at the time. It looks downright ridiculous now.

There's two scenarios that I could see the NCAA's reasoning for making this rule.
  1. If a team is transitioning to a lower level of competition, then the four-year window of transition makes sense. The players were recruited with the incentives available at a higher level, so it would give a significant advantage to a team reclassifying down, such as Savannah State, which will begin moving down from DI to DII next school year.
  2. It seems to depend on the sport as well, but sometimes, when teams are in transition, their schedule is a mixture of teams from their old classification and their new one for a year or two (more than just an exhibition game or two). Even with a full conference schedule, if a team isn't playing a full Division I schedule, then I could understand making them ineligible for at-large bids, since it's hard to judge their true strength. But that rarely, if ever, would cause an issue, because teams in transition are almost never good enough to be potentially receiving at-large consideration (CBU's strong debut season has their RPI at 85, which is still well outside of at-large territory).
Neither of those scenarios is remotely applicable here. The fact that CBU is in postseason contention despite a roster consisting of mostly players recruited to play DII athletics makes it more impressive.

It's not as bad as it could be. The players knew it was coming, so they could transfer to another school and be eligible for postseason play without waiting if that was a priority for them. Postseason isn't everything; the Lancers still have a very good shot at winning a WAC regular season title, which thankfully won't also be taken away by a ridiculous technicality if it happens.

The NCAA does a lot of good things for players. There's also a number of things that don't help the athletes, but at least have some group it benefits (*cough* pay the players *cough*). But this directly hurts a team. It hurts the conference - the 6-team WAC tournament will have a significantly weaker field as a result.

Get rid of this absurd red tape.

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