This is a list of defunct National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) men's college basketball conferences in the United States. The NCAA is divided into three divisions, based on school size and enrollment. Each division is made up of several conferences for regional league play. Over time, these conferences will disband due to lack of teams, joining of their teams to other conferences, lack of budget, merging to another conference, stopped sponsoring basketball or simply a command from the NCAA.
College basketball was started in 1895 with its first ever game between Hamline and Minnesota. It was later developed in 1896 with its first game in a five player format with Chicago against Iowa. Almost all schools are independent at that time until since the formation of the Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the United States (now NCAA) in 1906. But even before the development, conferences began to form, such as the Intercollegiate Conference of Faculty Representatives (now Big Ten Conference) in 1896 which is the oldest active conference in the NCAA, and the Eastern Intercollegiate Basketball League formed in 1901, which was folded into the Ivy League in 1955.
As of July 2019, there are 30 defunct conferences in total: 20 conferences in Division I, six in Division II and four in Division III. The defunct conference that was active for the shortest period is the Northern California Conference, formed in 1937 and ended in 1939; the longest-lived defunct conference is the West Virginia Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (WVIAC), which has a span of 89 years (1924 to 2013). The most recent conference to dissolve is the Division II Heartland Conference, which disbanded at the end of the 2018–19 school year, with seven of its nine members joining the Lone Star Conference and the other two moving to the Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association.
Division I Conference Founded Dissolved Members Map RefAmerican South Conference 1987 1991 7 American West Conference 1993 1996 4 Big Eight Conference 1907 1996 8 Border Intercollegiate Athletic Association 1931 1962 6 East Coast Conference 1958 1994 6 Eastern Intercollegiate Basketball League 1901 1955 8 Eastern Intercollegiate Conference 1932 1939 6 Great Midwest Conference 1991 1995 7 Great West Conference 2004 2013 5 Gulf Star Conference 1984 1987 6 Middle Atlantic States Conference North 1946 1949 6 Metropolitan Collegiate Conference 1965 1969 10 Metro Conference 1975 1995 7 Metropolitan New York Conference 1933 1963 11 Middle Three Conference 1943 1952 3 New Jersey-New York 7 Conference 1976 1979 7 Northern California Conference 1937 1939 5 Pacific Coast Conference 1915 1959 9 Southwest Conference 1914 1996 8 Western New York Little Three Conference 1946 1958 3
Notes
Division II Conference Founded Dissolved Members Map Ref Heartland Conference 1999 2019 9 Indiana Collegiate Conference 1951 1979 8 Indiana Intercollegiate Conference 1922 1950 7 Mason-Dixon Conference 1940 1974 10* North Central Conference 1922 2008 8 West Virginia Intercollegiate Athletic Conference 1924 2013 15
Division III Conference Founded Dissolved Members Map RefLake Michigan Conference 1974 2006 8 Northern Illinois-Iowa Conference 1969 2006 6 Texas Intercollegiate Athletic Association 1976 1996 9 Wisconsin State University Conference 1913 1997 8
See also
List of defunct college football conferences
References