Expansion continues with Hampton joining the Big South

The other shoe is about to drop…

After USC Upstate announced their departure from the Atlantic Sun to the Big South yesterday, it seemed odd that the conference would stick at 11 members. Speculation arose that perhaps Presbyterian was leaving the conference or affiliate member Kennesaw State would join as a full member.

Neither of those two things happened and instead Hampton University will leave the MEAC and become the fourth Virginia school in the Big South.

Hampton will be the only HBCU, outside of Tennessee State, to play outside of the MEAC or the SWAC.

What this means for Longwood

This is about as good as it gets for the Lancers. It’s an opponent two and half hours away and likely will cut down on some travel to further away Big South schools.

The biggest winner though are the Longwood alumni and fans down in Hampton Roads. The Lancers have inexplicably not played in that area in over five years and now there will be a regular home game for those fans.

What this means for the Big South

This brings balance back to the conference after losing VMI and Coastal Carolina. The Big South is now back to four schools each in Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina.

It will be interesting to see if the conference brings back their divisional structure. I’m not sure it was a success before, but either way that structure will probably exist for scheduling purposes at the very least.

Those divisions would look like:

North: Longwood, Liberty, Radford, Hampton, Campbell, High Point
South: Gardner-Webb, UNC Asheville, Winthrop, Presbyterian, USC Upstate, Charleston Southern