President Ron Daniels will announce on Monday morning that Hopkins is set to join the Big Ten as an affiliate member in men’s and women’s lacrosse, according to ESPN partner Inside Lacrosse. The University said it was pursuing conference affiliation a little over two weeks ago, after a special committee formed by the president recommended bringing to a close 130 years of independence in men’s lacrosse.
The women’s program will take the plunge in the spring of 2014 while the men’s program will follow in the spring of 2015. The University of Maryland, an intrastate Hopkins rival, has also inked a deal to join the Big Ten in 2015 after a messy divorce from the Atlantic Coast Conference.
NCAA rules and regulations require conferences to have six or more men’s lacrosse programs in order to be eligible for an automatic qualifier for the NCAA Men’s Lacrosse Championship tournament each year. Even with the addition of the University of Maryland and Rutgers University, which is leaving the Big East, to the roster of men’s lacrosse programs at Penn State, Ohio State, and the University of Michigan, the Big Ten would only have been able to field five men’s lacrosse teams.
Hopkins will join as the much sought-after sixth member.
At the moment, it is unclear how the Hopkins women’s lacrosse program fits into the deal with the Big Ten. Only a few weeks ago President Daniels wrote in an email to the University community that Hopkins intended to compete as an independent in women’s lacrosse regardless of whether the men’s program became an affiliate member of a conference.
It is also unclear whether all of the conditions set forth for Hopkins by the president’s special committee have been met by the Big Ten. The criteria include an initial membership term of five years, an opt-out opportunity after three years, and the power for Hopkins to preserve its existing television broadcasting relationship with ESPNU.
The men’s lacrosse team this year failed to qualify for the NCAA tournament for the first time since 1971. Being left out of the postseason for the first time in 42 years was seen as further proof that the men’s lacrosse program could no longer sustain its status as an independent.
The president formed a special committee in March to study whether the men’s lacrosse program should maintain its independent status or affiliate with a conference. Both Athletics Director Tom Calder and Men’s Lacrosse Head Coach Dave Pietramala agreed with the committee’s conclusion that conference affiliation was necessary in an era of more and more automatic qualifiers for the NCAA tournament.