A New Era Begins For Bellarmine Athletics
New and exciting beginnings are taking place at the start of the 2026-27 school year for Bellarmine Athletics. Effective July 1, the Atlantic Sun Conference (ASUN) underwent a series of structural changes. The ASUN and what was formerly known as the Western Athletic Conference (WAC) – now the United Athletic Conference (UAC) – formed an alliance that will share operations but remain two separate conferences.
Devon Montgomery, assistant athletic director said, “The UAC and ASUN are in alliance and are now under the umbrella of UNISUN Sports. The UNISUN oversees the UAC and
ASUN.”
These two conferences are independent of each other with their own policies, structure and bids, and automatic qualifiers, Montgomery said. The main difference is the UAC schools all have football teams. Montgomery said this alliance will help Bellarmine financially because it will bring more national attention to the university, which could lead to more sponsorships.
Five ASUN schools left the conference on July 1: Austin Peay, West Georgia, North Alabama, Central Arkansas and Eastern Kentucky. The ASUN conference now includes Bellarmine, Florida Gulf Coast, Jacksonville, Lipscomb, North Florida, Queens, Stetson and West Florida.
Bellarmine Athletic Director Scott Wiegandt said: “There is a great group of presidents and athletic administrators that have the students’ best interests in mind. I am excited to see how Bellarmine adds to this opportunity. I am most excited about these conference changes because I believe it will give Bellarmine Athletics more opportunity to gain access to the NCAA postseason because of the size of the conference with only eight members. Plain and simple, we must beat seven other institutions (which we can) to get to the NCAA postseason.”
As for getting to the NCAA postseason, Bellarmine basketball head coach Doug Davenport said, “Instead of one out of 12 going to the NCAA tournament, it’s now one out of eight… but there are a third fewer schools, so it creates a little bit more of an opportunity for us to achieve our ultimate goal.”
Karl Ralamb and Nick Gnardellis, two Bellarmine baseball players, said they had mixed-opinions about the changes. Ralamb said, “It was fun playing someone in state, so kind of upset we don’t get to play [EKU] anymore.”
One change Gnardellis said he is happy about is the lack of road trips to Central Arkansas and North Alabama, which were typically 18 hours round-trip bus rides. “I’m pretty excited that we don’t have long bus rides anymore. We can just fly now,” he said.
Many Bellarmine athletes will no longer be spending their weekends on a bus but on plane rides to the ASUN schools in Florida, optimizing efficiency.
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