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Despite recent hoops success, FGCU dealing with conference instability

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In the weeks following Florida Gulf Coast’s run to the Sweet 16, things were looking good for the Atlantic Sun Conference. Seemingly far away from the influence of big-time college football that’s changed the way in which college athletics is shaped, the league looked ready to take full advantage of its recent on-court success.

But realignment has a funny way of changing things when you least expect something to happen. At the end of May it was announced that ETSU and Mercer would be leaving the league to join the Southern Conference, a reaction to the SoCon losing both the College of Charleston and Davidson (VMI also joined, leaving the Big South to do so).

With both A-Sun members deciding to restart their respective football programs, making the move to a league that sponsors the sport (at the FCS level) made sense. But where does that leave FGCU, which doesn’t have a football program? That’s a tough question for the powers that be to answer despite FGCU’s recent success, due to the absence of the sport that has called the shots of late.

But according to Seth Soffian of the Fort Myers (Fla.) News-Press, the hope for FGCU has to be that their accomplishments (even without football) will lead to more attention. But most important is FGCU’s need to make sure their current home regains stability, even with the possibility of more options down the line.

As the A-Sun evaluates its future amid an ever-changing landscape, FGCU appears to have options, more than just helping keep its current league viable.

“Right now everybody’s hoping things start to settle,” said FGCU athletic director Ken Kavanagh. “It’s been very disconcerting across the country, all these changes. You just keep working forward and hoping we’ve got the numbers we need (in the A-Sun). The situation is out of our control right now.”


For much of the conference realignment era (going back to 2004 when the ACC added Miami and Virginia Tech, with Boston College moving a year later), football’s been the sport that’s called the shots. But it hasn’t been until recently that basketball’s been impacted in a major way.

So while there really isn’t a whole lot a school like FGCU can do, what a non-football school can control is its on-court performance. Because even if that doesn’t result in a move to a conference of higher regard, it will serve to strengthen the school’s athletic department as a whole.

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