2025-26 Denison Big Red Women
095 · 2026-03-22 · medium
Why D3? Let's rephrase the question: Why D1? The "top level" of the National Collegiate Athletic Association is the college basketball that sucks now: the airport-terminal transfer portal, the pro-to-college pipeline, and the living hell of Charles Barkley and Dick Vitale talking simultaneously. When someone says take me out coach, that's code for someone took the under on my points and rebounds at DraftKings and call the Feds immediately. None of these problems exist in NCAA Division III, where every single scholarship is merit-based. Past playing experience might come up at a job interview, or during an awkward pause at the company picnic, but that's not who you are as a human being. Division III players are interesting and well-balanced, the type who still read books well into their forties. Division III is all about programs and systems, well-kept secrets and hidden treasures, and coaches tend to stick around until they retire. You might see them on a weekly basis, drawing up napkin plays on a back table at the local pizza restaurant, and they remember your name when you wave to them. You sold them your used Nissan Sentra back in 2011, and it's still running. Division III is a dizzying panoply of 425 schools, six thousand student-athletes at a time, and the Pixelvision-adjacent technology finally exists to follow all the action at home... or, at least, until whatever financial Jenga tower that keeps FloSports alive falls apart. The men's side of things occasionally gets overly serious, kicking and screaming and whatnot, but women's D3 hoops is arguably the only pure love-of-the-game national basketball association we have left. The recently-concluded 2026 tournament was arguably the most exciting Bracket of my basketball lifetime, so here I am, I'm making that argument. New York University hadn't lost a game since March 2023; despite two consecutive national titles, the only way for the Violets to get any kind of national attention was to lose. And indeed, their 91-game win streak ended in the final four to the University of Scranton Royals, who were 32-0 and had beaten Pittsburgh in an exhibition last fall. You'd want the two unbeatens meeting in a title game, but that's why you'd suck shit as a Hollywood scriptwriter. Denison University, a hilltop liberal arts college 27 miles east of Columbus, had only ever won national titles in swimming and/or diving. The Big Red women's team had never made it past the Sweet 16; after winning the regular season at 24-2, they lost to DePauw in this year's North Coast Athletic Conference semis. With an at-large invite to the NCAA Division III tournament, they beat Southern Virginia, Trine, John Carroll, Washington & Lee and Wisconsin-Oshkosh on the way to the Big Game. On Saturday night in Salem, Virginia – in front of a D3-sized crowd of 1,533 – Denison held Scranton to a single point in the second quarter, withstood the Royals' big push in the third, dropped a late 14-0 run, and won 55-41 to claim the school's first-ever hoop chip. File this away now. When you tune into ESPN Plus in early November, and you see your first jersey patch ad, just remember everything that's there for you in the basketball beyond. Why D3? Because it's better.
