Looks like the only luck that UNO athletics has is bad.They were wiped out by Hurricane Katrina but given a 5 year waiver (ends after next year)by the NCAA and the SBC to put the program back together.
Well,they have a 9 sport program on the way to 15 sports by 2010-2011 before being hit by "Hurricane Recession" which threatens not only to force them out of the Sunbelt but D-1.

UNO faces FY10 budget cuts that will certainly affect their athletic program severely.They will know how severe after the Louisiana legislature negotiates the University budget cuts starting in late April.
The UNO Chancellor has promised that the athletics department will be self sufficient but with a BB attendance of less than 1,000 per game and no FB revenue this situation looks very grim.

We will need to wait to see for sure later this spring but it looks like the Sunbelt will likely lose UNO,the question is whether they will bite the bullet this year or "kick the can" into next year.

The other question is which D-2 conference would make a better fit for UNO if they dropped from D-1?

I previously posted these three article in a package in another thread but they also fit in here.
Link at http://www.nola.com/sports/t-p/index.ss ... xml&coll=1

at http://www.boston.com/sports/other_spor ... uno_sports

and at http://www.neworleanscitybusiness.com/v ... ecID=32706