The Stonehill Skyhawks are college basketball's newest Division I citizens, and the 2026–27 season is the one the whole climb was for. After four years of transition, Stonehill is finally, fully eligible for the NCAA Tournament and the NIT — the first season the program can actually play its way into March. For a school with one of the proudest Division II pedigrees in the Northeast, the wait is over.
The pedigree is the foundation of everything. Before the jump, Stonehill — then the Chieftains, now the Skyhawks — was a Division II heavyweight: NCAA tournament Final Fours in 2006 and 2012, Elite Eight runs in 2006, 2012 and 2016, and Northeast-10 conference titles in 1981, 1982, 1989 and 2012. This was a program that knew how to win in March, just at a different level. When the school announced the move to Division I and the Northeast Conference in 2022, it was betting that the winning culture would survive the leap.
The man leading the climb has lived every step of it. Chris Kraus, now in his 14th season, is a former Skyhawk himself — he played at Stonehill from 2003 to 2006 — and worked his way from assistant to head coach in 2013. The 42-year-old Canadian guided the program through its last great D-II runs, earned NEC Coach of the Year honors in 2023 after a stunning debut Division I season, and has been the steady hand through the transition's turbulence. His career record sits near .500, which undersells how hard the job has been: building a Division I roster while ineligible for the postseason, selling a vision with no tournament carrot to offer.
The arc tells the story of a rebuild in real time. Year one in the NEC: 14-17, tied for second — a stunning arrival that won Kraus the Coach of the Year award. Year two: 4-27, the bottom falling out. Year three: 15-17, the climb back. Last season, 2025-26: 12-21 overall, 8-10 in the NEC, tied for sixth — competitive most nights, not yet dangerous. The Skyhawks were picked third in the NEC preseason coaches' poll, a sign of respect for the trajectory, and sophomore guard Hermann Koffie emerged as a building block, averaging 14.8 points per game — seventh in the conference — while Stonehill ranked second in the league in rebounding.
The setting is pure small-college charm. Merkert Gymnasium in Easton, Massachusetts, seats just 1,560 — an intimate bandbox where the crowd is on top of the floor and every game feels personal. It's a long way from the arenas of the power conferences, and that's the point: Stonehill's identity is the tight-knit New England college, the program that does more with less, the team that plays with the discipline of its D-II championship heritage.
Now comes the payoff season. For the first time, every game in February and March can mean something — the NEC tournament, and beyond it, the real thing. The roster is Kraus's most experienced of the Division I era, the system is installed, and the league is wide open: LIU and Central Connecticut set the pace, but the middle of the NEC is a scrum, and Stonehill has already shown it can beat anyone in it on a given night.
What defines the Skyhawks right now is the convergence of patience and possibility. Four years of building without a postseason to play for, a coach who bleeds the school's colors, a D-II championship pedigree that remembers what March feels like — and now, finally, eligibility. In Easton, the 2026-27 season isn't just another year. It's the first year the dream is actually on the table.
Kraus's path to the head chair is the program in miniature. He arrived as an assistant in 2010, spent three years learning under the old regime, and was elevated when the job opened in 2013 — then spent nine seasons grinding in Division II, winning NE-10 titles, making three NCAA tournament appearances, and reaching the 2016 Elite Eight. When the school made the Division I leap, there was never a question about who would lead it. He's not a hired gun; he's the program's own, and his players know it.
The NEC tournament math is simple and tantalizing: win three games in March, go to the NCAA Tournament. No at-large dreams, no bubble watch — just a conference tournament where the Skyhawks, finally eligible, get the same shot as everyone else. It's the exact formula Stonehill rode to glory in Division II, and it's the reason the 2026-27 season carries a different electricity in Easton. The non-conference schedule will be a grind of guarantee games and regional tests, the kind that forge a team for March. Survive it, stay healthy, and get hot at the right time — the Skyhawks have been building toward this exact scenario for four years.