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<\/a>UMPI Men’s basketball team competes against NVU-Lyndon in front of a packed crown on Senior Day 2022.<\/p><\/div>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0UMPI athletic administrator and men\u2019s basketball coach, Daniel Kane, recently made a huge announcement. UMPI will become a Division I school. \u201cWe are all beyond excited. It will be huge for the university to get this exposure,\u201d Kane said. UMPI will compete in the Atlantic Coast Conference for all athletics.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Their conference opponents will be many universities known for their athletic success. Duke University, North Carolina Chapel Hill, the University of Virginia are a few. \u201cAs the men\u2019s basketball coach, I personally can\u2019t wait. We get to go to Duke and UNC and compete against those powerhouses,\u201d Kane said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Also worth noting is the revenue that UMPI will bring in for traveling to those huge schools. One trip to Notre Dame will bring in nearly a quarter of a million dollars for the university. \u201cObviously the money will be a huge benefit. We hope we can use it to improve not just athletics but for every aspect of UMPI,\u201d Kane said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0UMPI sports information director and associate men\u2019s basketball coach Mark Knight talked about how they became a part of the ACC. \u201cIt was really luck. We knew that they were looking to expand and add a couple small schools. We put our name into the hundreds of DIII schools along the East Coast. Coach Kane and I presented to the Conference Expansion Committee in Greensboro. I guess our presentation stood apart from the rest,\u201d Knight said. UMPI will join Northern Vermont Lyndon, a fellow North Atlantic Conference member, in the ACC.<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u201cCoach Knight and I put together a presentation that centered around our area,\u201d Kane said. Their presentation brought out the charm of a rural area. And what becoming a DI school could do for everyone from this area. \u201cI think the committee loved that Presque Isle was small but had the essentials. We have an airport and a nice hotel for hosting highbrow teams,\u201d Knight said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0With upcoming renovations to Wieden Hall, the athletic facilities for basketball will be more up to date. \u201cWith the new gym, we can bring in the Blue Devils or the Tar Heels and give a great showing to our university,\u201d Kane said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0As for that money, Coach Kane and Coach Knight can envision a snowball effect. \u201cIf we upgrade the athletic facilities, we know this will attract more athletes to come here,\u201d Coach Kane said. The first goal is to get a turf field for soccer in the fall, and for baseball, softball and track and field in the spring. \u201cDI Athletes aren\u2019t going to want to come play here if we can\u2019t have home games in the spring. If we get fields that allow for more home games, we will get more talent,\u201d Knight said.<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Starting with athletic improvements, Kane and Knight hope this will cause a ripple effect for all of UMPI. \u201cI don\u2019t want to speak for the university. But I\u2019m sure we can afford to have an enrollment increase,\u201d Kane said. UMPI can still have a rural feel with a larger enrollment. \u201cIf we get bigger and more up to date, it could be great for this area,\u201d Knight said.<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Competing at an NCAA DI level will no doubt be huge for UMPI. It will put the small university on the map. With ESPN\u2019s contract with the ACC, they will televise or stream all games on a national level. \u201cIf we get people watching us on TV, maybe they will think, <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/i>\u201cHey, maybe being from a small town isn\u2019t that bad after all,\u201d<\/b> Kane said. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The NCAA Is Getting Its Northernmost Division I School\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The University of Maine at Presque Isle has an enrollment of around 1,100 students. It has just three resident dorms and 12 building structures. The small-town feel of UMPI is why many students choose to attend. Naturally, UMPI currently competes at an NCAA Division III level. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":221,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7381],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7081","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archives","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7081","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/221"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7081"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7081\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8174,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7081\/revisions\/8174"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}