The state of University of South Dakota athletics stood at a momentous crossroads recently that saw both the end and the beginning of things overlapped in one celebratory blast.

It happened just seconds after the USD women defeated the University of North Dakota in Vermillion to win the North Central Conference basketball tournament title two weeks ago. As the Coyotes celebrated at midcourt (and after the UND players returned to the floor after making an inadvertent early exit), the public address announcer began reading a statement that recapped the trailblazing advances in female athletics made by the NCC over the last three decades, and all the nation-class glory that eventually came with it. The statement was read because it was all ending at that very moment. These words served as a eulogy for the league.

The 86-year-old conference was mothballed right before my eyes there on the DakotaDome floor. Yes, there are still spring sports left to go that will fall under the NCC banner, but those sports lack the wonderfully frenzied, communal spirit that emanates from college football and basketball. So, as far as many fans were concerned, the North Central Conference effectively ceased to exist at that final buzzer of USD's victory.

As I type these words, the Coyote women are in Kearney, Neb., for their first, last and only trip to the NCAA Division II Elite Eight national tournament. The one certainty that will follow this adventure is that, starting next week, Division II will be in the rearview mirror for USD basketball.

During that DakotaDome post-game ceremony a couple weeks ago, I wondered if any of us there really appreciated the historic passage that was at hand. Probably not, because there was a lot of excitement and satisfaction - as well as anticipation for regionals - in the air. No one had time to look back across more than 80 years of history. The weight of what was ending was understandably obscured at that light moment.

So, too, was the immensity of what is about to begin.

The death of the NCC means a rebirth for the USD and UND programs, which head to Division I next year. Coyote fans will recognize that fact because next year will be so unrecognizable.

The ancient rivalries forged by decades of familiarity are mostly gone. Next year will see USD teams playing hodgepodge schedules that will lack the time-honored structure and rhythms that became so ingrained with NCC affiliation. The football team will be in the Great West Football Conference, which will seem alien and jarring. There will likely be many road games in every team sport, and there may be contests in which the Coyotes may be outclassed by a Division I opponent one night, then outclass an NAIA foe the next. There may be events scheduled against schools that many fans will have never heard of or cared about. The electric game-day emotions that erupted naturally when facing familiar rivals will be replaced by something else - what that will be, I'm not really sure. It will be an awkward stage of development and competition, a bit like wandering through a desert.

A lot really did end and begin on that Sunday afternoon two weeks ago when the NCC was laid to rest.

One other thing that did end is worth considering this week as the USD women compete at the Elite Eight and, at the same time, the annual rite of March Madness plays out across the country.

The Coyotes made the D-II postseason tournament as NCC champions, ruling a league that has established itself over the decades as one of the nation's best in Division II. In most any sport, few D-II leagues could claim themselves better than the North Central Conference and the teams that comprised it. In this area of the country, the NCC was once our Division I.

But that's finished, at least in basketball. In years to come, whenever teams from USD and UND, as well as South Dakota State and North Dakota State, make the NCAA postseason, they will be viewed as one of those "no-name" teams that are always found at the lower end of regional brackets - those faceless schools, many of which you only hear about in March, that slip into the tourney on automatic bids and are usually dismantled in the first round by one of the nation's elite top seeds.

That's the oceanic destiny for which we've traded the small but serviceable pond of the D-II North Central Conference.

It's not that I'm upset that USD is going Division I. In fact, I think it was inevitable and necessary. But I also feel a twinge of regret and a small sense of mourning for what we're saying goodbye to now. Like it or not, things will never really be the same again.