This is news to me too...if that's the case, why don't St. Cloud, UMD, Bemidji, Mankato etc have to either demote hockey or promote their other sports?? Or is hockey an exception? I would say in the case of WBB, the dominance of the Northern Sun has everything to do with the dissolution of the NCC. The National Championship Mavericks are a former NCC team, that in my opinion, would have had a much harder chance of reaching the elite 8 with UND and USD still in their conference, not to mention NDSU and SDSU. Of the teams that advanced to the regional tournament, 3 were former NCC teams. I am not familiar with all of the Northern Sun teams, but the only one I thought I saw was MSU-Moorhead. Definitely still the aftermath of NCC dominance I think.