NKU becomes Horizon League’s 10th member

May 12, 2015 at 12:05a.m.

Strollo: Norse good

geographical fit for

Youngstown State

YOUNGSTOWN

The Horizon League approved a 10th member, Northern Kentucky, on Monday, stabilizing the conference while adding a school that’s a good geographic fit for Youngstown State.

NKU, which is located just across the Ohio River from Cincinnati, will join the league in July and compete in 17 of the conference’s 19 sports. The Norse do not compete in men’s or women’s swimming and diving. NKU had been a member of the Atlantic Sun since 2012.

The Horizon League has lost Butler and Loyola in the last three years but added Oakland before the 2013-2014 season. The other members are Cleveland State, Wright State, Valparaiso, Detroit, Illinois-Chicago, Green Bay and Milwaukee. YSU and Valparaiso are the only conference teams that also compete in football, and the Crusaders do not offer scholarships in that sport.

“We’re excited about it,” YSU athletic director Ron Strollo said of adding NKU. “We think it’s a good fit geographically, just like Oakland was, and we think it’s a good fit with the sports makeup they have and the leadership they have. Plus it brings us into the Cincinnati market, so there’s a lot of great things about Northern Kentucky.”

NKU moved from the Division II Great Lakes Valley Conference to Division I in 2008, although it did not become a full-fledged member until 2012. The Norse already schedule Horizon League teams — YSU played NKU’s men’s basketball team last season and YSU’s women’s basketball team played the Norse in 2012 and 2013 — and the school’s athletic director, Ken Bothof, was the athletic director at Green Bay from 2002-2013.

“We made the move to Division I in order to align with similar aspirational institutions. The Horizon League member schools are located in areas that are ideal for student recruitment,” NKU president Geoffrey Mearns said in a statement. “In fact, seven of the nine schools are located within 300 miles of NKU’s main campus. The future of Norse athletics is bright, and the Horizon League is an excellent fit.”

Strollo does not expect the Horizon League to add any more teams in the near future “unless the school can really bring something,” whether it’s a new market or a stronger Ratings Percentage Index, which is a key tool in rating basketball conferences for the NCAA tournament.

“I think 10 [schools] is the right fit,” said Strollo, whose program has competed in the Horizon League since the 2001-02 school year.

“There may be varying opinions about that, but I can’t see us going to 12 [schools] unless those two institutions really improve our men’s basketball RPI and help us get two teams in the tournament or a better seed [in the tournament].”

The Horizon League lost its most high-profile member, Butler, after the 2012 season when the Bulldogs joined the Atlantic 10. (They left for the Big East a year later.) When Loyola left a year later, there was concern about the stability of an eight-team conference, especially since there was also a lot of league movement at the time nationwide.

But things have settled down over the past few years, something Strollo expects to continue.

“There’s obviously comings and goings but I feel good about the membership and where we’re at,” he said. “I think there was somewhat of a trickle-down effect [a few years ago] but I think that’s kind of over. Teams are kind of tied into their TV deals.

“In the world of athletics, you might see very little change over the next five or 10 years.”