Niner's History Question

hello niners! i am a seahawk fan curious about this history of the niner’s program. i know you joined division 1 in 1970 and were an independent until 1976. during that time i was wondering what conferences you pursued and what ultimately led you to join the sunbelt. also, what are your opinions of the socon, both back then and now. thank you for any information you can provide and good luck in the nit!

[QUOTE=solohawks;306380]hello niners! i am a seahawk fan curious about this history of the niner’s program. i know you joined division 1 in 1970 and were an independent until 1976. during that time i was wondering what conferences you pursued and what ultimately led you to join the sunbelt. also, what are your opinions of the socon, both back then and now. thank you for any information you can provide and good luck in the nit![/QUOTE]

-1970: Joined Division I (known as UNCC then, not Charlotte)
-1974: Finished season 22-4. Robbed of a postseason bid
Bill Foster accepts coaching job at Clemson, leaving behind recruits Cedric Maxwell, Melvin Watkins, Kevin King, and Lew Massey
-1976: Lost to Kentucky in NIT Championship 71-67
UNCC becomes a founding member of the Sun Belt
-1977: Lost NCAA Final Four to eventual champion Marquette on the final play. A win would have set up a UNCC-Chapel Hill National Championship game

Since the socon’s last at-large bid was NC State way back in 1950, I think the opinion has been the same as it’s always been: that it’s a one-bid basketball conference. Nothing less, nothing more. Obviously, I think our opinion is higher for the socon as a football conference.

thank you for the info. is the lack of basketball focus what led you to join the sunbelt over the socon? was their ever any serious interest in the socon from either side, or was that never really an option?

[QUOTE=solohawks;306387]what led you to join the sunbelt over the socon?[/QUOTE]

The Sun Belt conference was basically the brainchild of Charlotte & South Florida and was formed from scratch. I assumed that it was created out of necessity. So it really wasn’t a simple matter of choosing one conference over the other.

I don’t know the history w/the socon in the 1970s - but someone else on here might.

Simply, the Sun Belt was CREATED with schools without football for the reason of getting a conference with an automatic bid to the NCAAs. As for the socon, they were NEVER in the equation with us or vice versa. Never. There is NO history in that respect, just in the respect that we historically have beaten their b-ball teams on a regular basis with them winning some versus us along the way.

For clarification, Bill Foster left after the 1974-75 season to accept the HC position at Clemson. My recollection is that we had a run of 6 straight 20-win seasons between Foster’s last 3 seasons here and Lee Rose’s 3 seasons as his successor.

49er1 is correct that we never sought affiliation with the SoCon. Back then all of its members were football schools as well, so we didn’t fit the profile anyway.

[QUOTE=solohawks;306380]hello niners! i am a seahawk fan curious about this history of the niner’s program. [/QUOTE]

Seattle or UNCW? Either way why do you care about the sunbelt?

uncw…i was mainly interested in your history with the socon and if there was one because we were having a discussion on the uncw boards on whether or not the socon would be a wise move; i do not think it would. since i respect charlotte’s history and current stature in basketball and our situations are similar, i was wondering what your history with them was and what you thought about them as a conference. through this post and other’s on the board, i got my questions answered, so thank you for the information.

[QUOTE=solohawks;306791]uncw…i was mainly interested in your history with the socon and if there was one because we were having a discussion on the uncw boards on whether or not the socon would be a wise move; i do not think it would. since i respect charlotte’s history and current stature in basketball and our situations are similar, i was wondering what your history with them was and what you thought about them as a conference. through this post and other’s on the board, i got my questions answered, so thank you for the information.[/QUOTE]

You guys are in a better spot right now.

[QUOTE=s9er;306792]You guys are in a better spot right now.[/QUOTE]

agreed

Before downplaying the SunBelt, if I am not mistaken it was a 4 bid league in the early 80’s.

i agree with you guys about us being in the caa. thanks for the information. also, with you guys adding football, do you think your administration would consider joining the caa for all sports until you are ready to transition to 1-a, or do yall prefer staying in the a10?

i agree with you guys about us being in the caa. thanks for the information. also, with you guys adding football, do you think your administration would consider joining the caa for all sports until you are ready to transition to 1-a, or do yall prefer staying in the a10?

While the A-10 has been down, it is still a little better overall in sports. Not ragging on CAA, but you cannot take a step down in order to try to transition up. I’m guessing it would be more like playing 1-AA, then joining a small conference for football only until we can realize any conference realignments.

[QUOTE=solohawks;307161]i agree with you guys about us being in the caa. thanks for the information. also, with you guys adding football, do you think your administration would consider joining the caa for all sports until you are ready to transition to 1-a, or do yall prefer staying in the a10?[/QUOTE]

The football model will likely be similar to the paths that UAB and South Florida took. In other words, Charlotte will probably be I-AA for a relatively short period of time … so moving all sports to a new conference would be kind of dumb. Plus, I’m hoping that the next conference move will be to bigger and better things, like with our old rivals that left C-USA to the Big East.

Richmond, Villanova, UMass, URI, etc. are all football-only members in the caa - so I dunno if the conference would refuse to compromise on an all-sports affiliation, anyway. It WOULD be preferable to follow conference standings rather than I-AA independent “standings”.

The CAA has football.
When is Wilmington getting a team?

The CAA has football. When is Wilmington getting a team?

not any time soon.

i honestly don’t know if the caa would allow you to be an affiliate member. with odu and ga st. adding football we will have 14 members. i don’t know how they plan to handle that. i would think the big south would welcome you while they could have you, especially since they are just now getting football member #6, but then i read they might not be interested so who knows. anyways, best of luck getting football finalized. you guys have always been a program i have respected and wanted uncw to emulate. good luck tonight!