NCAA Conferences | Big West, CAA, C-USA
Back with some more conferences! Here we talk about the Big West, Colonial Athletic, and Conference USA. For a better idea of our NCAA D1 Conferences Series structure, look below to find the two already posted.
Big West
(Click here to find more information about the conference)
As the name suggests, the Big West Conference is based in the Western United States, with most schools in California and one school in Hawaii. Being one of the very few conferences not to sponsor football, the other varsity teams at each school come into the limelight. It was formed in 1969 as the Pacific Coast Athletic Association and was later renamed to its current name in 1988. Here’s a graphic of the schools in this conference with Men’s Tennis programs.
Conference Summary
UCI, UCSB, UCSD, and UC Davis are all tied for 17 sports programs in total, with the first three having 8 Men’s and 9 Women’s teams and UC Davis having 7 Men’s and 10 Women’s teams respectively.
This conference happens to be one of the more prestigious academically, with 4 of the 7 colleges in this list falling within the top 50 in the U.S. News & World Rankings.
Despite having relatively strong players present at each school, none of these schools were able to crack the top 50 in the 2020 season.
UC Santa Barbara has found the most success over the last two years by winning its conference. However, Cal Poly is definitely a big contender.
Colonial Athletic Association
(Click here to find more information about the conference)
Formally known as the Colonial Athletic Association (CAA for short), this conference has schools ranging all the way from Massachusetts to South Carolina. It was originally founded in 1979 as the ECAC basketball league but switched its name in 1985 by adding championships in other sports. The split between private and public schools is relatively even, so the tuition may vary, but most of these schools offer a more campus-y vibe. It is important to note that they also have an associate conference just for football alone, where schools that have most of their teams in other conferences, compete in this one for that sport alone. Here’s a graphic of the schools in this conference with Men’s Tennis programs.
Conference Summary
The University of Delaware has the most sports programs with 8 men’s teams and 12 women’s teams.
Of the tennis schools, the College of William & Mary holds the highest ranking and lowest acceptance rate, although Northeastern University sits higher in both regards despite having no Men’s tennis program.
Every now and then, one of these schools will crack the top 50 and remain in the 40-50 range of the national rankings - they are similar to the Big West schools where they sit right on that edge.
The typical winners of the conference include Elon and UNC Wilmington, although William & Mary and Drexel tend to be close competitors every year.
Conference USA
(Click here to find more information about the conference)
One of the newest conferences on our list, this one was formed in 1995 by a merger of two older conferences (whose names aren’t that important). The schools in this one are all primarily located in the southern United States and participate in all sports, with the most popular one being football. All of these schools are in relatively rural or suburban settings and have lower tuitions, due to the vast majority of them being public. Rice University tends to be a bit of an outlier in a few respects, which will be covered below. Here are the schools in the conference with tennis programs:
Conference Summary
The University of Charlotte has the largest athletics program with 9 men’s teams and 9 women’s teams respectively.
Since all of these schools are public, they tend to have larger populations, exceeding 8,000 students, except for Rice.
None of these schools have outstanding academic reputations besides Rice, which has consistently maintained a very low acceptance rate and high ranking in most lists.
None of these schools have any current nationally ranked tennis programs, although in previous years they tended to follow very similar patterns as the previous two conferences in this blog, and normally have at least 2 teams ranked in the top 50 every year.
Middle Tennessee was the last winner of the conference. However, Rice, Old Dominion, and Florida Atlantic are all in very close competition with them.