Point Park extended invite to MEC

[Fightingscot82]

Considering what just happened with AB I’m a bit surprised the MEC is in a hurry to invite another small school in a tight financial situation. Perhaps Point Park made a very persuasive pitch that moving to D2 could help them out financially and the MEC thought it was worth a shot bringing them up though.

AB makes Point Park look like Penn State from an operational perspective. Their challenge is finances and enrollment. They're not "in trouble" like AB (or Wheeling) they're just dealing with enrollment declines similar to many others. Privates that rely on tuition and use coupon code tuition discounting to attract students are having to discount above 50% on average to get kids in the door. That's not sustainable. Point Park has its performing arts program and as someone said an above average journalism program, but everything else is rather common and unremarkable. The last two presidents have clashed with employees because pay and benefits are below average (including no university parking). I personally know their new president and he's got his work cut out for him but he's also a management consultant by trade who started out working at colleges, whereas their last two presidents have come from the financial operations side. He may be able to get more creative in trying to stabilize things and I assume this is a less difficult strategy.

[boatcapt]

Clearly the MEC has changed its admission requirements. Apparently gone is the requirement for a school to have a football program or to commit to starting one.

While Point Park is experiencing an enrolment decline, it doesn't seem to be any more significant than other schools and it was starting with a pretty hefty enrolment number. I know you can cut and parse enrolment numbers in a million different ways and I'm loth to trust school provided numbers, but Park shows 3340 FTE's in 2019 and 2779 in 2023. I believe that would make Park the top school in the MEC enrolment wise.

Park seems to have a capable basketball team at least last few years. Baseball seems to be their marque sport were they are one of the top squads in the NAIA.

I note that they have a new president who plans to start six new athletic programs (among them tennis, lacrosse and wrestling) as one of the methods for increasing enrolment.

While they are a fine addition to the new non-football requiring MEC, the conference still needs at least one football playing program.

Looks like Kevin Reynolds is indeed the head basketball coach at Point Park. Doing quite nicely I might add...Turned Point from a .500 (or less) team and turned them into a 23-7 squad last year (Points first 20 win season in 16 years) and is backing it up this year with Park standing 14-1 on the season. They actually played IUP in an exhibition at IUP on Dec 10. Lost 74-64. Buuuuttttt...Since they were "stepping up," I guess we should use the same descriptive that DII's use when they play a D1 exhibition...Point Park gave IUP "all they could handle" before "loosing late."

[boatcapt]

They were in NDC's old NAIA conference. That said, I really can't tell you much about them (I guess being largely forgettable isn't necessarily a good thing). If I remember correctly, I think they play all their outdoor sports at off-site rented facilities.

"Renewing old rivalries from the NAIA days"...Wasn't that one of the reasons sighted back in the day by the "NDC to the GMAC" disciples?? Well...HERE YOU GO!!

[Stea1th]

While I don't think this is a particularly strong addition, and the lack of on-campus facilities makes it a bit quirky, PP is only 2 hours from NDC - making it the closest school in the conference. So, that is at least a good thing.

[boatcapt]

Some have been speculating about Salem and adding them to the MEC. Saying that their "stepping in" for AB this season was somehow a dress rehearsal. Salem stands 3-9 on the season thus far vs MEC opponents which would slot them in behind NDC and above Wheeling...effectively in the bottom tier of the conference.