St. Thomas continues to build through reclassification period
In its second year as a D-I program, the St. Thomas Tommies reached the semifinals of the Summit League Conference Tournament before losing to No. 1 seed and NCAA tournament hopeful Oral Roberts in a tightly-contested game Monday night.
The men's team entered the tournament as the fourth seed, coming off a season where they compiled an 18-13 record and a higher Ken Pom ranking than the Minnesota Gophers. The women's team finished 13-17, losing to Summit League power South Dakota State on Saturday.
Both teams can claim progress, but neither was playing for a spot in the NCAA tournament. That's because the Tommies are in a five-year waiting period after making the jump from D-III to D-I. The NCAA requires a reclassification period to make sure schools uphold the standards athletically and academically of a D-I program, but with the success of several programs, St. Thomas is ahead of schedule.
The process began in 2019 when St. Thomas was removed from the MIAC after winning the league's all-sports trophy for 13 consecutive years, in addition to 15 national titles in team sports since 1982. Although the Tommies initially explored making the jump to D-II, a report from the Associated Press said that Summit League Commissioner Tom Douple recruited St. Thomas as an attempt to add the Twin Cities market to the conference.
A potential move was unprecedented as only Buffalo and Dayton had made the two-level jump in 1993, but Dayton also was a D-I school in basketball, making for a smoother transition for the rest of their athletics. After some debate the NCAA granted St. Thomas a waiver to make the move to D-I, but it came with some provisions.
The NCAA had instituted a two-year waiting period for schools making a one-level jump but increased it to four years as some schools couldn't make the transition. In St. Thomas's case, they were given a five-year period because of the two-level jump.
"We had kind of mapped out what we felt was a stock from a startup standpoint where we had hoped we would be staffing-wise, financially, programmatically and from a facility standpoint over the course of five years," St. Thomas athletic director Dr. Phil Esten said of the agreement. "[But] some of our teams are experiencing competitive success sooner than others."
That group includes the St. Thomas football team, which went 10-1 and won the Pioneer Football League championship in its first season as an FCS school, though they could not compete in the FCS playoffs due to the reclassification period.
The same goes for the men's basketball team, who could be on the rise with freshmen Andrew Rhode (team-high 16.7 points per game), Ahjany Lee (5.4 ppg, 4.4 rebounds per game) and Kendall Blue (7.4 ppg).
The lack of an opportunity to compete in NCAA tournaments could be a turn-off for recruits, but Esten already believes that St. Thomas has more to offer in the long term.
"That's part of the conversation," Esten said. "I think along with that is also the ability to leave a legacy and the possibility to start something and be the foundation that'll last...for decades to come. ...When you're recruiting a kid at a university, part of it is about the competitiveness of the program, but it's also the degree and the residential experience in the university itself. That's where I think St. Thomas has got a distinct advantage over many and we feel great about what we have to offer students and student-athletes through a university standpoint."
Esten also noted the challenges of name, image and likeness (NIL) agreements which have changed the landscape of college sports since St. Thomas made the jump two seasons ago. In response, the Tommies have established the "Purple Playbook" which gives student-athletes a platform to use some of their name image and likeness to help promote themselves.
"We'll do anything that we can to connect our student-athletes with local businesses that are interested," Esten said. "But that's something we manage and think about every single day."
The transfer portal has also had a major impact across the country, but while the Tommies have used it to populate their rosters, establishing themselves as a D-I program is something that can keep student-athletes from transferring elsewhere.
"One of the challenges with that space is that we've got to continue to recruit our student-athletes," Esten said. "I feel if we provide a great culture for them if we provide a great experience both as a student-athlete and as a student at-large...we're more apt to be able to keep them out of the portal more than anybody else."
Part of that culture has been improving the facilities on the St. Thomas campus. In January, the university received a $75 million gift from alums Lee and Penny Anderson that will be used to build a new multi-purpose arena that will serve the hockey and basketball teams beginning in the fall of 2025.
But Esten said there are no facility or revenue requirements for a team to reclassify in the NCAA and most of the compliance areas are in the academic, financial aid and scholarship spaces.
"There certainly are expectations," Esten said of the requirements," For us, it's about providing an experience commensurate with the expectations of a division one institution, both from a student-athlete standpoint and from a fan experience standpoint. Whether that's Anderson Arena...or any of the other facilities in our programs, how do we continue to provide a great experience for our student-athletes, first and foremost? Then, secondly, our fans so that when our fans come, they have a great experience and want to continue to support the team in a meaningful way."
With most of the requirements unrelated to success on the field, court, or ice, the Tommies are left in a holding pattern until they're eligible for postseason play in the 2026-27 season. While the Tommies could request a waiver to expedite that process, several schools were denied their request last summer including Bellarmine, who won the men's Atlantic Sun Tournament last year but couldn't participate in the NCAA tournament or NIT tournament.
"My sense that is if [the reclassification period] gets shortened at all, it won't be through an appeal," Esten said. "Right now the NCAA is going through a transformation [with] a new president, dealing heavily with the [NIL agreements] and managing the transfer portal...so as the NCAA kind of sorts through standards to be a Division-I program, I think we'll start to have some conversations as to whether or not five years is the right number. I can't say with any confidence or certainty that it will get reduced, but I can say that we'll continue to have a conversation."
