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Okay, there was no Media Day for the two independent teams, but I did not know what else to title this.
COMMENTS FROM DAVID
-Hartford is in year 3 of reclassifying as a D3 school. They are still technically D1…but only technically. They were a rather sub-par 12-20 last year (although they were a respectable 9-9 in America East play), and nearly every player who saw regular minutes is now gone. This has been a rather unfortunate story. It was only two years ago that we saw Hartford make the NCAA Tournament. The decision for them to transition down to D3 is questionable at best, unbelievably stupid at worst, and if you follow them on Twitter is not a decision that has been widely accepted by those who support the program.
-Chicago State will also be an Independent this year after playing in the WAC and finishing in last place for about the last nine or ten years. It has been a while since Chicago State was considered to not be one of the ten worst programs in all of D1. Their 30-game schedule this year has them playing just eight games at home, and only four of those are against other D1 opponents. They did win seven games a year ago, which was a seven game improvement from what they had done the previous year (to be fair, the previous year was the COVID year where they only played nine games and cancelled all the rest)!! They have a lot of new transfers, many of whom saw limited minutes at other D1 programs. The optimistic way to put this is to say that it is a roster of guys who will have the opportunity to see more minutes than what they did at their previous programs and become contributing players!