ASUN Conference

The conference was first formed on September 19, 1978, as the Trans America Athletic Conference, at the Dallas-Fort Worth Regional Airport Marina Hotel.[3] Its charter members were Oklahoma City University, Pan American University (later renamed University of Texas-Pan American), Northeast Louisiana University (now known as the University of Louisiana at Monroe), Houston Baptist University (now Houston Christian University), Hardin-Simmons University, Centenary College of Louisiana, Samford University, and Mercer University, all of whom were previously D-I independents. None of the eight charter members remain in the conference today.

Almost immediately after its formation, the conference experienced a shake-up in its membership. Oklahoma City departed to become a charter member of the Midwestern City Conference (known today as the Horizon League), while UTPA returned to D-I independent status— both had only played a single season in the infant league. The TAAC was quick to replace the outgoing members with Northwestern State University and the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, along with Georgia Southern University in 1980, but this instability would prove to be a trend through the coming years— over the next 20 years, the conference would accept 16 new members, with many of these leaving after only playing a handful of seasons. 1982 saw the departure of another charter member, Northeast Louisiana, to the Southland Conference. Additionally, it saw the arrival of Nicholls State University, who was originally planned to join the TAAC as a full member. However, due to an oversight by the NCAA, adding in a new program who had not competed in Division I for at least 5 years would result in the offending conference forfeiting their automatic bid to the NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament. To get around this, the TAAC announced that Nicholls State would compete as a provisional member, ineligible for the men's basketball tournament until it completed its D-I transition in 1985.[4] However, it, along with Northwestern State, left the conference in 1984 to join the Gulf Star Conference instead.

The remainder of the 1980s saw mostly growth for the conference, adding Georgia State University in 1983, Stetson University in 1985, and the University of Texas at San Antonio in 1986. However, near the end of the decade, the conference was hit with 5 departures over 4 consecutive years, beginning with Houston Baptist transitioning to the NAIA in 1989. This was followed by Hardin-Simmons dropping to NCAA Division III in 1990, UTSA and Arkansas-Little Rock leaving for the Southland and Sun Belt conferences in 1991, respectively, and Georgia Southern leaving for the Southern Conference in 1992. In the midst of this, the conference began to relentlessly pursue expansion throughout the 90s to offset these losses, adding Florida International University in 1990, Southeastern Louisiana University and the College of Charleston in 1991, the University of Central Florida in 1992, Florida Atlantic University in 1993, Campbell University in 1994, Jacksonville State University in 1995, Troy State University in 1997, and Jacksonville University in 1998. Of these 9 schools, though, only 2 ended up staying with the conference for longer than 15 years.

The turn of the millennium saw another charter member in Centenary depart in 1999 for the Mid-Continent Conference (now the Summit League); the league was able to offset this with the addition of Belmont University in 2001. Around this same time, the conference sought to rebrand itself, changing its name from the Trans America Athletic Conference to the Atlantic Sun Conference. The newly rebranded A-Sun continued to expand into the 2000s, adding Gardner-Webb University in 2002, Lipscomb University in 2003, East Tennessee State University, Kennesaw State University, and the University of North Florida in 2005, and Florida Gulf Coast University & the University of South Carolina Upstate in 2007. It also lost its fair share of members as well— largely some of the aforementioned members that had been added during the 90s, such as FIU, Florida Atlantic, and Troy to the Sun Belt, Georgia State to the Colonial Athletic Association, and UCF to Conference USA, but it also saw the departure of Samford to the Ohio Valley Conference, leaving Mercer as the only remaining charter member.

The start of the 2010s gave the A-Sun a bit of a reprieve from conference realignment, losing only Campbell and Belmont in 2011 and 2012 to the Big South and OVC, respectively, and only adding recent D-I upgrader Northern Kentucky University in 2012. 2014 saw the departure of its final charter member, Mercer, to the Southern Conference in 2014; however, the Bears continued to compete in the ASUN as an affiliate for beach volleyball, and added men's lacrosse to its ASUN membership in 2022. The A-Sun continued to expand and contract slowly through the mid-2010s, losing only Northern Kentucky and East Tennessee State (along with Mercer), and only adding the New Jersey Institute of Technology in 2015.

This slow pace didn't stay for long, however. The second half of the decade saw the conference rebranding a second time, to simply the ASUN Conference[2] Two years later, the University of North Alabama arrived from the Division II Gulf South Conference,[5] and Liberty University left the Big South for the ASUN.[6] More recently, Bellarmine University joined from the Division II Great Lakes Valley Conference[7] and NJIT left for the America East Conference in 2020–21.[8]

On January 22, 2020, it was announced that the Coastal Collegiate Sports Association and the ASUN would merge to create a new Division I multisport conference.[9] The timeline below was released with the announcement of this merger and expansion plan:

• June, 2023 – ASUN Conference expands to 20 members.
• Before July 1, 2023 – ASUN transfers rights to the ASUN name and marks to the CCSA.
• July 1, 2023 – ASUN 7 joins the CCSA. The CCSA adopts the ASUN name as a multisport conference. The 13 remaining members would adopt the name United Athletic Conference.

The ASUN had planned on expanding to 20 members and then splitting the conference similar to how the Original Big East Conference was split in 2013 into the American Athletic Conference and the New Big East Conference. The new ASUN Conference governed by the CCSA would have made up of the ASUN 7 including all of the members that would have been in the ASUN Conference for at least 8 years to meet the requirements for a new multisport conference. The members would have included Florida Gulf Coast University, Jacksonville University, Kennesaw State University, Lipscomb University, New Jersey Institute of Technology, University of North Florida, and Stetson University. The United Athletic Conference (not to be confused with the United Athletic Conference, the football merger between the Western Athletic Conference and the ASUN in 2023) governed by the original ASUN Conference would have included Bellarmine University, Liberty University, University of North Alabama, and ten other undisclosed schools that would have joined through expansion.

On November 16, 2020, The ASUN Conference announced that, due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the quickly changing landscape in conference realignment, the creation of a new multisport conference would not be possible at the time of the release or with the aforementioned timeline.[10] This comes after the news that NJIT would be leaving the ASUN for the America East Conference in 2021, weakening the ASUN 7 and lowering the chances that a new conference would be created with only six members.

Arguably its biggest move in recent years was the announcement that the conference would be adding the University of Central Arkansas, Eastern Kentucky University, and former member Jacksonville State University, as incoming members on January 29, 2021, with the intent of sponsoring football in the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) in 2022.[11] However, with these three schools joining in 2021, the league partnered with another conference beginning to sponsor football also in 2022, the Western Athletic Conference (WAC), to allow the three teams to join the WAC as football affiliates for 2021, branding it interchangeably as the "ASUN–WAC Challenge" and "WAC–ASUN Challenge"; the two leagues will receive a combined bid to the FCS playoffs.[12][13]

As soon as it was announced, however, the football league was thrown into jeopardy, as Jacksonville State announced it would be leaving once again in 2023 for Conference USA, an FBS conference. Liberty was also invited to C-USA for 2023, but had already competed as an FBS independent for some time and was not included in the ASUN's new football league.[14] With the WAC also losing Sam Houston, another football-sponsoring school, to C-USA, the two conferences announced they would be renewing their alliance for the 2022 season.[15] On September 17, 2021, the ASUN announced Austin Peay State University, a football-sponsoring school, as a new member for the 2022–23 season.[16] In May 2022, local media in Charlotte, North Carolina, also reported that Queens University of Charlotte would start a transition from the Division II South Atlantic Conference as a new ASUN member, also effective on July 1 of that year.[17] The ASUN officially announced this move on May 10.[18]

The ASUN also expanded its associate membership in the 2020s. The conference started the decade with five associate members—Coastal Carolina in both beach volleyball and women's lacrosse, Mercer in beach volleyball only, and Akron, Kent State, and Howard in women's lacrosse. All of the women's lacrosse associates left by the 2021–22 school year. Akron and Kent State left after the 2020 season when their full-time home of the Mid-American Conference began sponsoring the sport. Coastal Carolina also left after the 2020 season for the SoCon. Howard moved several sports not sponsored by its full-time home of the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference to the Northeast Conference, with women's lacrosse moving after the 2021 season. Coastal Carolina moved beach volleyball to C-USA after the 2020–21 school year.

However, the 2021–22 school year saw the arrival of eight new associates, as well as the return of former women's lacrosse associates Coastal Carolina and Delaware State for that sport. ASUN beach volleyball added Charleston, Stephen F. Austin, and UNC Wilmington. The largest change in associate membership involved the relaunch of ASUN men's lacrosse. Full member Bellarmine was joined by five new associates—Air Force, Cleveland State, Detroit Mercy, Robert Morris, and Utah.

The ASUN lost five beach volleyball members for 2022–23. The conference's four associates in that sport left for the Sun Belt Conference (SBC), which added that sport. Charleston, Stephen F. Austin, and UNC Wilmington all left the ASUN after a single season and Mercer also moved beach volleyball to the SBC.[19] Also, departing full member Jacksonville State moved beach volleyball to its future home of C-USA a year before its all-sports move to that league.[20]

Also for 2022–23, Mercer moved men's lacrosse into the ASUN after the SoCon shut down its men's lacrosse league, and new D-I member Lindenwood became an associate in both men's and women's lacrosse.

On October 14, 2022, Conference USA and Kennesaw State jointly announced that KSU would start a transition to FBS after the 2022 football season[21] and join C-USA in 2024.[22]

ESPN reported on December 9, 2022, that the ASUN and WAC had agreed to form a new football-only conference that plans to start play in 2024. The initial membership would consist of Austin Peay, Central Arkansas, Eastern Kentucky, and North Alabama from the ASUN, and Abilene Christian, Southern Utah, Stephen F. Austin, Tarleton, and Utah Tech from the WAC. UTRGV would become the 10th member upon its planned addition of football in 2025. The new football conference also reportedly plans to move "from what is currently known as FCS football to what is currently known as FBS football at the earliest practicable date."[23] On December 20, the two conferences confirmed the football merger, announcing that the new football league would start play in 2023 under the tentative name of ASUN–WAC Football Conference. This was followed in April 2023 by the new league rebranding itself as the United Athletic Conference (UAC). The UAC is playing a six-game schedule, and initially planned to start full round-robin conference play in 2024, although this is likely to change with two schools joining by 2025.[lower-alpha 1] Neither conference's announcement mentioned any plans to move to FBS.[24][25][26]

On September 1, 2023, it was announced the ASUN would undergo another rebranding to reinstate the use of the name Atlantic Sun. The conference still uses "ASUN" as its official abbreviation.

The ASUN added men's and women's swimming & diving for the 2023–24 season, taking most of its initial membership from the Coastal Collegiate Sports Association, which had been founded as a partnership of several all-sports conferences, including the ASUN, as a home for that sport (the CCSA's scope would later expand to include beach volleyball). Two associate members came from the American Athletic Conference, which dropped men's swimming as a sponsored sport after the 2022–23 season. The initial membership for that sport is:[27]

• Two full members, Bellarmine and Queens, compete in both the men's and women's leagues.
• Two other full members, Florida Gulf Coast and North Florida, sponsor only the women's sport.
• The two full men's members were joined by associate members Florida Atlantic, Gardner–Webb, Old Dominion, and SMU. SMU will only compete in the 2023–24 season, after which it will join the Atlantic Coast Conference, which sponsors the sport for both sexes.
• Gardner–Webb is also an associate in women's swimming & diving; it was joined in that status by former full ASUN member Liberty and UNC Asheville.

Notes

Departing members highlighted in red.

Notes

School names and nicknames listed here reflect those used during the schools' time in the TAAC/ASUN. One school has changed both its name and nickname, and three others have changed only their nicknames.

Four former full members are now associates:

• Florida Atlantic, which left the ASUN in 2006, rejoined for women's swimming & diving in 2023.
• Gardner–Webb, which left in 2008, rejoined for men's and women's swimming & diving in 2023.
• Mercer, which left in 2014, has been a men's lacrosse associate since 2022. It was also an associate in women's lacrosse from 2014 to 2017 and beach volleyball from 2014 to 2022.
• Liberty, which left in 2023, remains an associate in women's lacrosse, and became an associate in women's swimming & diving when the ASUN added that sport in 2023–24..

Notes

Notes

Full members  Full members (non-football)  Assoc. members (football only)  Assoc. members (Other sports)  Other Conference  Other Conference 

• Northeast Louisiana became the University of Louisiana at Monroe (Louisiana–Monroe) in 1999.
• Pan American, later known as Texas–Pan American or UTPA, merged with the University of Texas at Brownsville in 2015 to create the new University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV). The new school inherited UTPA's athletic program.

Men's varsity sports not sponsored by the league which are played by ASUN schools:
Future member West Georgia in gray.

In addition to the aforementioned sports:

• Queens sponsors men's rugby and triathlon, neither of which has NCAA recognition of any type. It also considers its male cheerleaders to be varsity athletes.

Women's varsity sports not sponsored by the league which are played by ASUN schools:
Future member West Georgia in gray.

In addition to the aforementioned sports:

• Bellarmine considers the members of its all-female dance team to be varsity athletes.
• Queens considers its cheerleaders and dance team (the latter all-female, though listed on its athletic website as coeducational) to be varsity athletes.

This is a partial list of the last 10 champions. For the full history, see ASUN men's basketball tournament.[53]

This is a partial list of the last 10 champions. For the full history, see ASUN women's basketball tournament.[54]

• ASUN Conference baseball tournament