NCAA Division I school NJIT announced on Friday that the school will join the America East Conference, effective for the 2020-2021 season. NJIT will officially become the America East’s 10th member institution on July 1, 2020.
The school will depart the ASUN Conference, which now drops to 8 teams. Bellarmine University in Louisville will join the conference next season, returning the conference to 9 schools, and its men’s and women’s swimming programs will join the CCSA.
NJIT is one of the few schools in the NCAA that sponsor only a men’s swimming & diving program, but no women’s team. Both programs were “suspended” in 2010; the men’s team was reinstated about a month later, but the women’s team never was.
The ASUN did not sponsor a swimming & diving championship; NJIT’s men’s team instead has competed in the CCSA since the 2013-2014 season. This is the school’s 3rd conference in 9 seasons: they were members of the Great West Conference until it folded in 2013.
Joining the America East Conference will dramatically reduce travel costs for NJIT. While the school is the America East’s first program in New Jersey, it is the 2nd in the New York area, with the whole conference residing from Baltimore through Maine – about a 600-mile spread. In the ASUN, NJIT was by-far the furthest-north school in the conference, about 400 miles from the next-closest program in Lynchburg, Virginia. The ASUN has 1 school in Virginia, 1 school in Tennessee, 1 school in Georgia, 1 school in Alabama, and 4 schools in Florida.
By comparison, the distance from NJIT in New Jersey to Florida Gulf Coast in Fort Myers was almost 1,100 miles.
With the exception of the University of Maine, all of the schools that are full-time members of the conference are now within a 5-hour bus ride of NJIT.
New America East Conference Map (Primary conference)
Virginia Military Institute (VMI) is also an associate member, having joined the conference in the 2017-2018 season. Stanford, Cal, UC Davis, and Monmouth are also associate members in field hockey.
ASUN Conference Map
The NJIT men finished 5th out of 7 teams at the 2020 CCSA conference championships. The CCSA was founded as a swimming-only conference, and has since expanded to also support women’s beach volleyball.
The move comes as athletics departments around the country look for ways to reduce budgets as a result of the financial strain caused by the global coronavirus pandemic.
The addition of NJIT will give the America East Conference 5 men’s swimming & diving programs, in addition to 7 women’s programs.
2020 America East Swimming & Diving Championships Men’s Final Standings
- UMBC – 1,051
- Binghamton – 807
- Maine – 575
- Virginia Military Institute – 468
NJIT should be competitive at the top end of the America East standings. Their relay times from the 2020 CCSA Championships would have placed in these positions at the America East meet:
- 200 medley relay – 2nd
- 400 medley relay – 4th
- 200 free relay – 3rd
- 400 free relay – 4th
- 800 free relay – 2nd
A few of NJIT’s sports programs will continue to compete in other conferences. For example, the men’s volleyball team will continue to play in the volleyball-specific EIVA. The America East Conference also doesn’t sponsor men’s or women’s tennis.
Nice to see some of my writing make an appearance 🙂
Great news for NJIT! They will be competitive in America East. With a good dual meet series going with Binghamton recently, this is a move that will benefit all schools in the conference!