The latest round of college realignment might not make any major headlines, but the transformation of the Coastal Collegiate Sports Association (CCSA) into the ASUN (formerly the Atlantic Sun Conference) has serious implications for the swimming and diving world.
The move means that the SMU men will have a new home after spending the past few years with Cincinnati as their lone rival in the American Athletic Conference (AAC). With the Bearcats leaving the AAC for the Big 12 this year, Florida Atlantic was slated to replace Cincinnati as the second men’s swimming and diving program in the AAC. Now SMU and Florida Atlantic will join former CCSA members Queens, Old Dominion, Gardner-Webb, and Bellarmine in the ASUN.
A budding SMU-Queens rivalry in the pool was not on our bingo card last year, when Queens was still a Division II program coming off its seventh national crown in a row. There’s a chance that the Queens men, the defending CCSA champions, only get one season with SMU in the same conference before the Mustangs jump to greener pastures.
The CCSA was initially formed as the Coastal Collegiate Swimming Association in 2008 as a swimming and diving-only conference developed by the ASUN, Big South, Mid-Easter, and Southern Conferences. In 2015, the CCSA added beach volleyball and rebranded as the Coastal Collegiate Sports Association. Last year, the conference featured 17 members, including nine women’s swimming and diving teams and five men’s programs.
While the men’s side of the CCSA-turned-ASUN is growing, the women’s side is losing runner-up James Madison, Georgia Southern, and Old Dominion to the Sun Belt Conference as well as Campbell to the Coastal Athletic Association (CAA). News came Thursday that the Sun Belt will host a women’s swimming and diving conference championship in 2024 after previously sponsoring the sport from 2001-13.
Women’s teams in the ASUN
- Bellarmine
- FGCU
- Gardner-Webb
- Liberty
- UNC Asheville
- North Florida
- Queens
Men’s teams in the ASUN
- Bellarmine
- Florida Atlantic
- Gardner-Webb
- Old Dominion
- Queens
- SMU
Liberty, winners of the last four CCSA women’s team championships, has joined Conference USA, which had a conference championship meet until 2022. Conference USA partners with the CCSA on beach volleyball, though, and so far seems content to do the same on swimming & diving with the ASUN.
With most of these schools in continued states of flux as to conference affiliations and the desire to move up the collegiate ladder, both conferences will probably see more changes in the next few years.
Cursed