The Atlantic Sun Conference, branded as the ASUN Conference, is a collegiate athletic conference operating mostly in the Southeastern United States. The league participates at the NCAA Division I level, and does not sponsor football. Originally established as the Trans America Athletic Conference (TAAC) in 1978, its headquarters are located in Macon, Georgia.
The conference has seen several changes in its membership in recent years. First, the 2014 departure of East Tennessee State University and Mercer University to the Southern Conference left the ASUN with eight members. Northern Kentucky University (transitioning from NCAA Division II sports to Division I) left the conference to join the Horizon League and was replaced by the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT), previously the only Division I basketball independent, in 2015. The ASUN membership expanded to nine members in 2018. The University of South Carolina Upstate (USC Upstate) left the ASUN to join the Big South Conference after the 2017-18 season, but two new schools joined. The University of North Alabama arrived from the Division II Gulf South Conference, and Liberty University left the Big South for the ASUN.
Video Atlantic Sun Conference
Membership history
Current members
- Liberty has an enrollment over 115,000 but the majority is online. Enrollment figure in chart represents residential enrollment.
Associate members
Future associate members
Former members
- 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:
Former associate members
Membership timeline
- 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.
Maps Atlantic Sun Conference
Sports sponsored
The ASUN sponsors championship competition in eight men's and eleven women's NCAA sanctioned sports.
In 2008, the ASUN, in an agreement with the Southern Conference (SoCon), Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC), and Big South Conference, formed the Coastal Collegiate Swimming Association (CCSA) for schools sponsoring men's and women's swimming and diving within the associated conferences. For the past several years, the ASUN's Commissioner has served as the president of what was initially a swimming & diving-only conference. In 2014 the CCSA expanded to include several other schools from other conferences, and the following year the conference added beach volleyball (women-only at the NCAA level) as a sponsored sport, changing its name to the Coastal Collegiate Sports Association. Currently the conference has 22 member schools, with eight men's swimming and diving teams, 11 women's swimming & diving teams, and eight beach volleyball teams.
The most recent change to the roster of ASUN sports took place after the 2013-14 school year. Under a cooperative agreement between the ASUN and SoCon, the two leagues agreed to split lacrosse sponsorship. The SoCon took over the ASUN men's lacrosse league, while women's lacrosse sponsorship remained with the ASUN. The full alliance in women's lacrosse amicably ended after the 2017 season, with the SoCon sponsoring that sport from the 2018 season forward, but the two leagues continue in a cross-scheduling agreement.
More recently, on September 13, 2016, the ASUN and Big South announced a football partnership that allows any ASUN members with scholarship football programs to become Big South football members, provided they are located within the general geographic footprint of the two conferences. At the time of announcement, the only ASUN member with a scholarship football program, Kennesaw State, was already a Big South football member. Should any ASUN member add scholarship football, or any non-scholarship football program of an ASUN school (at the time of announcement, Jacksonville and Stetson) upgrade to scholarship football, that team will automatically join Big South football. North Alabama will join Big South football under the terms of this agreement; although the school's home state of Alabama had no schools in either conference at the time it was announced as a future ASUN member, three of its neighboring states were home to six of the ASUN's eight members at that time.
Men's sports
Men's varsity sports not sponsored by the league which are played by ASUN schools:
Women's sports
Women's varsity sports not sponsored by the league which are played by ASUN schools:
Facilities
All Sports Championships
The Jesse C. Fletcher and Sherman Day Trophies are awarded each year to the top men's and women's program in the conference. The Bill Bibb Trophy, combining the men's and women's results for the best overall program, was first awarded in 2006-07. East Tennessee State won this overall trophy seven of the nine years it has been awarded; Florida Gulf Coast won in 2012-13, 2014-15 and 2015-16.
Championships
Basketball
Baseball
- Atlantic Sun Conference Baseball Tournament
Notes and references
External links
- Official website
Source of article : Wikipedia
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