Bellarmine

The Bellarmine Knights are the athletic teams that represent Bellarmine University, located in Louisville, Kentucky, in NCAA intercollegiate sporting competitions. Bellarmine's 22 athletic teams compete at the Division I level. The Knights are members of the ASUN Conference for most sports. The Knights had been members of the Division II Great Lakes Valley Conference (GLVC) from its formation in 1978 until joining the ASUN in 2020. Sprint football, a weight-restricted form of American football, will become Bellarmine's 23rd varsity sport in 2022. On June 18, 2019, it was officially announced that the Knights would join the ASUN beginning in the 2020–21 school year, starting a four-year transition to NCAA Division I. Four Bellarmine teams in sports that are not sponsored by the ASUN have varied homes. Bellarmine has been a member of the Southern Conference (SoCon) for wrestling since it joined the ASUN. The Knights had also been SoCon members in men's lacrosse, a sport in which they have competed as Division I members since the 2005 season (2004–05 school year), before the ASUN reinstated men's lacrosse in the 2022 season. Men's and women's swimming and diving joined the Coastal Collegiate Sports Association, a league with which the ASUN is a partner. Field hockey became a Division I independent for 2020–21, and joined the Mid-American Conference as an affiliate member in July 2021. During the transition period, Knights teams other than men's lacrosse are ineligible for NCAA-sanctioned postseason play. Men's lacrosse is not subject to this restriction because it had been a D-I member before the transition.