Since the fact that it was being considered was hardly a state secret, the news wasn’t entirely shocking. Still, all things considered, to see someone share this story early on Friday morning was mind-blowing all the same.
From finally reaching the NCAA Tournament to Division III. That is the story of the University of Hartford, as it will turn out. The school will transition by the 2025-26 academic year, but no new athletic scholarships will be offered starting with the 2022-23 academic year. While unfortunate, in a sense it’s also not a very surprising development considering the Division I landscape.
Hartford has been in Division I for less than 40 years, moving up from Division II in 1985. They haven’t had a lot of close calls along the way; they have never won the regular season title in America East, and in fact have only finished second once, back in 2007-08 when they tied for that spot. They have finished third nine times, and prior to this past season, had only appeared in the championship game of the tournament only once, in 2007-08, although they were set to play in it a year ago before it was canceled.
The Hawks have not been the signature program of the conference by any means, and they have not had one conference award winner after another. Former NBA All-Star Vin Baker played his college ball there, most notably, and they have had some solid players come through who had plenty of success, and in my time that includes guys like Kenny Adeleke, Justin Bailey (a great shooter), Ryan Howse, Mark Nwakamma, Jerell Parker and Joe Zeglinski, among others.
Even with the lack of success and honors, it’s tough to watch a program make a move like this.
As the school is about two hours from where I lived for most of my years covering the sport, I made the occasional trip to West Hartford. Besides the occasional regular season game, one time I went there to cover the Connecticut 6 Classic, a nice tripleheader featuring the Hawks, Central Connecticut, Fairfield, Quinnipiac, Sacred Heart and Yale. Chase Arena at the Reich Family Pavilion was always a nice place to go for a game – quite cavernous, always feeling bigger.
Over a decade earlier, I made trips there as a manager at Northeastern while an undergrad, and one game there was especially memorable. On January 8, 1998, Hartford led by one in the final seconds. Lamont Clark fired an inbounds pass to Harold Miller in the vicinity of midcourt, put up a shot from just past there that hit the bottom of the net for a 69-67 Husky win. Miller, notably, grew up in Waterbury about a half hour southwest of Hartford, and while he often had plenty of family at his games, there were a few more than usual this time around given the proximity to home.
Certainly, you feel for head coach John Gallagher. The school’s all-time winningest coach in their Division I days, he’s poured his heart and soul and then some into building this program over the past 11 years. That’s what he does anyway, as he’s always been full of energy and doesn’t do anything halfway, but when you put 11 years into building something and get the results he has, seeing a development like this to hurt. He is a good man who has given everything he has to the program.
The result of his work has been the program’s greatest success in Division I, and that was true before their NCAA Tournament appearance this season. From 2017-19, they won 37 games, the most in any two-year stretch in Division I. The program’s only postseason appearances in Division I have come under Gallagher with two CIT bids as well as the NCAA Tournament bid this year.
In the end, this isn’t a story about a legendary program having to step down in competition. In the grand scheme of things in Division I, Hartford’s tenure has been fairly non-descript. This is not exactly Kentucky we’re talking about. And to be sure, there are plenty of Division I programs that have not made a big investment to be successful on the hardwood, to the point plenty connected to the sport wonder why one program or another is even in Division I. We have seen programs drop down before like this; I remember Birmingham Southern having a short but good run in Division I on the hardwood and dropping down to Division III back in 2006.
All of that said, this news is still unfortunate given the timing. It comes right after their first NCAA Tournament appearance and with the team appearing set to return most of the key players next season, meaning they should contend once again in America East. As the coronavirus and its effects have raged on, hitting college athletics programs all over, in a way the biggest surprise to this point is that there haven’t been more schools like Hartford making this decision. In due time, they may not be the last in the foreseeable future as the bottom lines of athletic programs continue to take hits.