Carroll to rejoin CCIW

Carroll University will rejoin the College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin for the 2016-17 academic year. Carroll, currently a member of the Midwest Conference, was a CCIW member from 1955-92.

In other conference shuffling news, Elizabethtown will join the Landmark Conference next season, McMurry and Belhaven were voted into the American Southwest Conference, Sarah Lawrence was accepted into the Skyline Conference, the NYU/NYU-Poly merger will start this season, and Wisconsin-Superior has applied for membership in the Upper Midwest Athletic Conference.

I’m sure there are others, but those are off the top of my head. I’ll try to get to any I overlooked before the 2014 season begins.

-Ricky Nelson

SAA to move into Pool A

The Southern Athletic Association will get a Pool A bid to the 2014 tournament now that it has completed its waiting period. The SAA will be among 44 conferences to receive an automatic bid in 2014.

I will update the FAQ page to reflect the Pool A change when this year’s Pre-Championship Manual is released. My preliminary assumption is that the bid allocation for 2014 will be 44 Pool A, 0 Pool B, and 20 Pool C.

Other D-III volleyball news from the latest championships committee teleconference memo:
• The D-III volleyball committee tabled a request to publish four sets of regional rankings instead of three.
• The committee also tabled a request to return to ranking eight teams in each region instead of the top 15 percent of each region.

-Ricky Nelson