The evaluation of high school athletes by recruiters begins early and labels are quickly attached to potential recruits. The sifting process is not perfect. Athletes often choose their college for reasons other than just money or the quality of competition. That's why NDSU's Division II football team could beat some Division I teams. That's why an NDSU women's basketball team could beat a lot of Division I teams.
People are touchy about being labeled.
As a nation, we came into being by claiming that an unlimited horizon is everyone's birthright. And this resilient idea has shaped huge chunks of our history. It is the intellectual underpinning of our historic fights about racism, sexism, religious discrimination, and distribution of wealth. One product of this thinking is that we don't like divisions, no matter how realistic they might be. We like to think of our current strata as temporary, something to overcome.