Call them overachievers: The Screaming Eagles are officially Division I athletes, one year early.
The University of Southern Indiana announced June 24 that its appeal to shorten the school’s transition period to the NCAA’s top tier of athletes was approved by the Division I board of directors the day prior. The NCAA’s decision shaves the final year off a four-year reclassification process and makes all USI athletic programs eligible to qualify for and compete in Division I championships. USI, which joined and began competing in the Ohio Valley Conference in the 2022-23 season, is the Hoosier State’s 11th Division I athletic program.
USI’s decision to seek accelerated Division I membership in full was announced Feb. 13, nearly one month after the NCAA agreed to allow schools entering Division I to shorten their reclassification period to three years if all other criteria are met. To complete the move to Division I athletics, programs must participate in an academic review, complete an NCAA self-study program, and meet financial aid requirements, including scholarship offerings exceeding the 10th percentile of active Division I members, among other requirements. Athletic programs seeking to move from Division III to Division II still are held to the original four-year transition.
“We are very excited that the transition process for Division I is now complete, and our student-athletes can earn the right to compete in NCAA Championships,” USI Vice President and Director of Athletics Jon Mark Hall said in a June 4 press release announcing the news. “It has been a heavy lift for everyone on campus.”
Criticism of the NCAA’s lengthy reclassification period isn’t new, but the topic gained traction in Evansville when USI’s women’s basketball team earned both the OVC’s 2023-24 regular season and championship titles. Blocked from NCAA postseason play because it was only two years through its Division I transition, USI instead accepted an invitation to the Women’s National Invitation Tournament in March 2024 and again in 2025. (The WNIT is governed separately from the NCAA-sanctioned men’s NIT.) In both seasons, the Screaming Eagles made it to the second round of the WNIT and brought two new collegiate postseason tournament games — all broadcast on ESPN+ — to Evansville.
“We knew this going in (to Division I reclassification), and this is what we signed up for, but we hope that the NCAA will look at this because playing for championships is the ultimate experience for a student-athlete,” Hall told Evansville Living in 2024.
Making this month’s news sweeter? USI’s women’s basketball team didn’t qualify for the OVC tournament in its first season of Division I. Two years later, “We have shown we are well-positioned to compete at the highest level and appreciate the support of the NCAA,” new USI President Steven Bridges said in a statement on June 24.
Hopefully next on the local to-do list? Landing a deal for USI and University of Evansville basketball to face each other in a cross-town series.
Sportswriter Gordon Engelhardt contributed to this story.
