New(ish) Conference Rivals

The news has been out for several weeks now, so this is more a reactionary post. Rumors were that a couple of other schools would be following the lone announcement, but since the October 10th news only the Little Rock Trojans are officially set to become the ninth member of the soon-to-be United Athletic Conference. I won't wait any longer and truth be told, the Trojans are worthy of their own entry.

This will only be a post to offer my perspective and some points. The first being, I wonder if there should be concern that rumors were swirling of three schools, but only one has made the commitment. Either way, I've alluded to this before, but I'm happy to share the conference distribution with fewer schools.

Second, it was very good to see a conference that the UT Arlington Athletic Department is a part of expand with a member school that is an existing member of Division I. For the Western Athletic Conference in its current geographic footprint to expand, the infill likely would have been Division II schools transitioning to DI. California Baptist, Grand Canyon, Tarleton State and Utah Tech all followed that pattern. While there have been some successes at these schools to varying degrees, I want all schools to have their sports programs compete now and who have a history of competing.

It doesn't hurt that UTA has a recent history with the Trojans. When the teams were members of the Sun Belt for the nine years they shared it as a home, there were some tremendous battles for conference titles. In 2015/16, UTA finished four games behind Little Rock in men's basketball. The Trojans won a game in the NCAA Tournament that year. The next year, UTA claimed the crown. In 2018/19, the two schools shared a co-championship in women's basketball. In 2016/17, the Trojans beat UTA by nine at home and finished in first place, three games ahead of UTA.

Geographically, it is harder to find a willing, DI school closer. It is a little over 300 miles campus to campus, arena to arena. While a roughly four- or five-hour trip to see a game is on the longer end of a drive for fans, it certainly is more likely or easier than any of the departing WAC schools. And that is a huge understatement.

Facility-wise, the Stephens Center is a high-quality arena that hosts both basketball teams and the volleyball squad. The non-UAC sport of wresting can have events there. It will automatically be a top third UAC venue.

Baseball leaves a bit to be desired. It is not in a great part of Little Rock and seats 500. The Louisiana Ragin' Cajuns play-by-play voice joked that who was throwing out the first pitch, the bloods or crips. 

The women's soccer team and track and field squad call the Coleman Sports Complex home and is a fairly standard venue in that regard. There are worse in the conference. I'd certainly rank Maverick Stadium higher.

A main drawback, and really the only one I see, is their sports offerings. They had only 13 Sun Belt affiliated sports when the teams shared a home. That doesn't look to be different in the new UAC. If they added softball, that would make this add have virtually no drawbacks.

I always wondered since it happened why Little Rock didn't follow UTA to the WAC when both were expelled from the SBC. The Trojans did well in the lower-rated Ohio Valley Conference. They won a commissioner's cup there, after battling Louisiana-Monroe for last in the Sun Belt version of the all-sports trophy. It only makes sense that they try to elevate their programs competitively after having such success in the current conference.

Maybe Little Rock needed the OVC to show their ability to start winning. Their baseball team was one win away from a Super Regional appearance and beat all three teams in the LSU regional this past season. I'm not sure they do that in the Sun Belt. It would be great if that carries over to the new league, plus all the other successes they have had along the way.

In short, this is a good move for the UAC. It shows stability and competitiveness after a period of uncertainty for UTA's home. It personally can benefit the Mavericks too. The move is slated for this upcoming summer, the same time as the Atlantic Sun schools joining. I look forward to the renewed rivalry.