Next season Division III basketball will have 45 conferences when the Atlantic East begins play. The Atlantic East brings together five teams from the CSAC -- Cabrini, Gwynedd Mercy, Immaculata, Marywood and Neumann -- and Marymount and Wesley from the CAC.

Starting a new conference creates new opportunities for the teams entering it and new challenges for the conferences that lose members to it. We spoke with leaders on both sides of the Atlantic East launch to give you an inside look at the reasons why conferences start, grow and shrink.

• D3sports.com: Keep track of all the conference moves
• Around the Nation: Complexity of the conference shuffle (Jan. 2017)

Gwynedd Mercy athletic director and women's basketball head coach Keith Mondillo explains the factors that led his school to seek a new home, including aspirations for multiple bids to future NCAA Tournaments. Then we talk with CAC Commissioner Jeff Ligney about how that conference is responding to news that it is losing two more members beyond Wesley and Marymount.

Music credit: Audionautix.com