It's a wide world in Division III

The athletics building at Emory University is a big place, designed to serve many needs on a campus with about 7,000 undergraduates and even more grad students. Emory athletics photo

By Ryan Scott
D3hoops.com 

ATLANTA — One of my great joys in life is driving. 

I love a road trip. I like the peacefulness and solitude of a long, straight highway. It’s an oasis of peace in a constantly rushed world. I love seeing new places and exploring new parts of the world. I’ll never turn down a chance to drive anywhere (except maybe Connecticut).

So when I discovered I had to be in Atlanta last week, I checked out the possibility of driving. Guilford had a home game the night I’d be driving through Greensboro, and Emory was hosting Chicago and WashU. Things could not have been more perfect.

The trip, however, was far from simple. No hot water in one hotel. No water pressure in another. A GIANT foreign object bouncing off my windshield and leaving a softball sized circle of cracks. Still, I got to drive — and I got to see some fantastic basketball.

My gracious hosts may not have seen it that way. Guilford struggled with a super-talented and relentless Mary Washington squad that plays mostly freshmen and sophomores. If they figure out which point guard will step up to replace grad student Zack Blue, it’s a Top 25 squad in 2025-26 for sure.

Emory, who I couldn’t stop telling folks in Atlanta was likely the No. 1 team in the country, lost twice. Even the Emory women, who pulled out a great victory over Chicago on Friday, could not hold home court against WashU on Sunday — the disappointed body language from coaches, players, and fans was more than tangible.

During halftime of that Sunday women’s game, WashU men’s basketball head coach, Pat Juckem, asked me what my big takeaway was from this Southern Swing I was privileged to take (big thanks to D3hoops.com and your Patreon contributions that allowed me to spend two extra days traveling and catch these games). I didn’t have much of an answer for him at the time.

I noted how difficult it is to integrate transfers into teams with existing cultures. Guilford has four major transfers, all super talented, but seem to really be struggling with lineups and chemistry. The performance on the floor is not yet the sum of the individual parts. If anyone can figure it out, it’s Tom Palombo, one of only two active coaches with three Final Four appearances.

The same struggles were evident at Emory, as well, who added Hanna Malik from Washington & Lee. She’s got a tremendous opportunity to study public health on the campus that houses the CDC headquarters, but she’s also got to adjust to a new role, a new coach, new teammates. Star players, with years of experience doing one thing, adapting to new environments. At the time, it seemed like the theme of the trip.

Upon reflection, though, I think the theme might’ve been the stark contrast between the future of the schools I got to visit, and the division we all love.

I drove by Guilford the first time. I had to turn around and go back to pick out the small street that leads onto campus. Yes, there’s a sign. I knew where I was. Guilford wasn’t hidden, but it did look small. No fence on the outside, almost dwarfed by the shopping centers and suburbia surrounding campus. Even the gym, which looks so cavernous on livestream, is built into the side of the hill — seemingly too small for basketball as you approach from the outside.

Yes, the men’s basketball team was in the Final Four last year, but the financial struggles of the school have been well documented. Not to belabor the point, after my meditation on my own alma mater’s closing last week, but we are far from done with closure. I was asked what number of lost schools this summer would surprise me; my answer was more than 20. I sure hope Guilford is not among them, but it’s a real worry all over the division.

Talk like this can produce panic — and I don’t want to cause any. I have no inside information and just about every Division III school is working through a changing enrollment and economic landscape right now. Financial difficulties do not equal closure — far from it — but they do provide a stark contrast with the “haves” exemplified by Emory.

It's a colossal institution overlooking a very tony part of Atlanta. The drive in is riddled with speed humps and impossibly small traffic circles all designed to make it impossible to top 15 mph and disturb the peace of Tudor mansions less than five miles from the city center.

The athletic center, like Guilford, is built into the side of the hill. The outside view is largely concrete, walking over from the parking garage, you see the stadium bleachers built onto the side of the building. Entering the door, however, reveals the single most impressive facility I’ve ever seen.

Four stories, largely open in the middle, revealing a ceiling 60 feet high. Glass walled offices, meeting rooms, and dance studios as you converge in the center and descend a massive spiral staircase to reveal an olympic sized swimming pool on one side and an arena boasting four full basketball courts on the other. Pool and ping-pong tables dot the lounges and hallways — workout equipment and weights to support the 6,900 undergraduate students, plus grad students and countless faculty and staff constantly utilizing the space.

I didn’t even get to the roof, which boasts tennis facilities and two more basketball courts for general use. As an elite, top-ranked research institution, recruiting likely takes little more than getting players on campus and accepted to school. As one alum in attendance told me, “This is what an $11 billion endowment gets you.”

That’s always been a core part of Division III. Big schools and small, technically all playing by the same rules. Technically. Of course, there have always been built in advantages, but they’ve not always been reflected on the court. Two years ago, Lancaster Bible (enrollment 1,500, endowment $16m) took down NYU in the tournament (enrollment 28,000 undergraduates, endowment $6b — with a B).

The equality was something to be honored and respected. Because the Division I men’s basketball tournament pays the bills, access to Division III is pretty open. $2,000 per school for membership; tournaments paid for by the central fund. If you can succeed on the court, you can compete with anyone.

But just as the economic pressures are driving the haves and have-nots apart in Division I, different, but equally important financial disparities are the future of Division III. The first is simply survival — which schools will stay open. Which will be able to fund athletics or to do so at the level required by the NCAA — with important standards for administrative support that are vital to a healthy program, but may be beyond the budget of a struggling college.

Despite what you’ll hear from the most optimistic of prognosticators, I suspect it’s a question of if, not when, the D-I power schools jettison everyone else and hoard their massive earning potential for themselves. Yes, Division III gets a piddly 3.18% of revenue, but it’s a 3.18% those big boys would rather keep.

When that time comes, the financial divide will be the difference. Elite schools in Division III can afford $100,000 each to participate in a full self-funded organization, to run championships and manage the mission of truly amateur athletics. A lot of small schools just can’t.

Emory is offering free food for UAA home games this year — they had a food truck outside Friday night handing out cheesesteaks to the 2,000 people who braved the cold to cheer on their Eagles. Even at a modest $5 a pop, that might dwarf the entire season’s travel budget for a small GNAC team in New England (when I went to ENC, the rule was no more than two hours away and never, ever an overnight).

I don’t want to bemoan these disparities, but they do exist. Different schools have different environments, serving different populations, with different missions. It’s not that either is good or bad; they just are. That reality will become more and more a factor as we move forward. It’s more than the wild west out there; literally anything is possible.

I think, if pressed to answer Juckem about my conclusion after a glorious road trip through the southeastern part of Division III, I’d simply say: enjoy it. Let’s revel in the Division III we’ve come to know and love. Let’s get out to games and cheer on the camaraderie and collegiality we see across the country. We are all in this together, but that may not always be true.

Don’t take it for granted.

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