The North Star Conference will survive despite the loss of Notre Dame and Dayton next year.

That is the consensus of NIU Women’s Athletic Director Susie Pembroke-Jones, volleyball coach Herb Summers and women’s basketball coach Jane Albright. While all three expressed regret over losing Notre Dame and Dayton, none painted a picture of doom for the NSC.

Pembroke-Jones pointed to the quality of NSC newcomers Wisconsin-Green Bay, Cleveland State and Akron, saying their presence next year would offset the loss of the two teams.

“We’ve been seeing tremendous improvement from Wisconsin-Green Bay,” Pembroke-Jones said.

In regard to Cleveland State she said, “Historically, they’ve had tremendous women’s basketball.” Summers noted that the CSU volleyball team was ranked in the top 20 nationally as recently as the late 1970s.

“Akron has nice total support for their women’s teams,” Pembroke-Jones added.

The fourth new NSC member will be Illinois-Chicago. Summers said they would be comparable to Notre Dame, this season’s conference volleyball champions.

“They’ve made a commitment to their volleyball program,” Summers said of UIC. “We’re going to compete with them for the championship (next season).”

Both Summers and Albright said the loss of Notre Dame would be felt more than losing Dayton.

“Losing a team like Notre Dame hurts a lot,” Summers said.

“Any time you lose a team like Notre Dame you can’t be happy,” Albright said. “We’re sorry to lose them. They’re an excellent natural rival.”

Albright said Dayton and Notre Dame left the NSC for the Midwestern Cities Conference mainly for the benefit of their men’s programs, not because of problems with the NSC.

“Neither of those teams wanted to get out,” she said. “I know their women’s coaches weren’t happy.”

Pembroke-Jones said the four incoming universities had to make certain commitments to their women’s basketball programs before being allowed into the NSC.

She said each school must offer a minimum of eight scholarships and, by the 1988-89 season, must schedule Division I opponents only. This would meet the NCAA’s requirements for attaining an automatic tournament berth, a goal the NSC would like to achieve for volleyball also.

“We’re looking for automatic bids in basketball and volleyball down the line,” Pembroke-Jones said. Albright said she hoped an automatic bid would “come within a year.”

Summers, when asked if he thought NIU might follow Notre Dame and Dayton to the MCC, said the university is committed to the NSC.

Though he said the NSC was not a strong volleyball conference, Summers said that did not mean NIU could not play a competitive slate of teams.

“The conference gives us a lot of flexibility to schedule better competition (outside the NSC),” Summers said.