GCU to jump conferences for 2025-26 year
Drew says play in WCC will help with recruiting
Not long after Grand Canyon University announced Friday that it has accepted an invitation to join the West Coast Conference, starting in the 2025-26 school year, everything changed. Immediately.
Men’s basketball coach Bryce Drew called in his assistants as recruiting changed.
“We’re upstairs working on it right now,” Drew said during a hastily made news conference at GCU’s practice court Friday. “It does change recruiting underclassmen a little bit differently. They’ll look and say, ‘OK, I get to play in the WCC, I get to stay on the West Coast. My family gets to see me more.’ It’s already made an impact with some of our players and some of our recruits.”
Drew and his staff have already gone into the portal, signing 6-foot-8 JaKobe Coles (TCU transfer), 7-1 Dennis Evans (Louisville) and guard Makaih Williams, the WAC Freshman of the Year last season at UT Arlington.
“Being on the West Coast and being in the best West Coast basketball conference, it’s going to help tremendously,” Drew said. “It’s going to keep kids home. It’s going to help in the portal, kids wanting to transfer. And I think the TV recognition we’re going to get, I feel like we’re going to get (ESPN’s) College Game Day here now when we play Gonzaga, and the whole nation will see how awesome GCU is. This just opens a lot of doors, for West Coast basketball, for Phoenix, for GCU.”
This move will pit GCU against college basketball heavyweight Gonzaga. The Lopes lost to Gonzaga in the first round of the NCAA Tournament in 2023. This past season, GCU won its first NCAA Tournament game in the first round against another WCC team in Saint Mary’s College.
The WCC has a multi-year media rights agreement with ESPN and CBS Sports Network.
GCU Athletic Director Jamie Boggs said this has been a long process, acknowledging, “We’ve been dating the WCC for a while.”
“We’ve been very happy in the WAC, but we also know the landscape is changing,”
Boggs said. “Our trajectory is growing and we have to keep all options open. We’ve been having discussions with the WCC. The more we talked, the more we heard the vision of (WCC Commissioner) Stu Jackson, the more we realized what we’re looking for, and that’s to be a nationally competitive program in all of our sports.”
GCU began competing at the NCAA Division I level 11 years ago in the Western Athletic Conference, where it has won three of the past four men’s basketball tournament championships, including the past two.
Fourteen years ago, Brian Mueller said he was watching GCU’s first basketball game after becoming the school’s president, recalling dim lighting in the south gym, where there were hardly any fans. This was before GCU Arena was built, before the student-body Havocs became a national story.
“We were a mediocre Division II school, then we got to the Division I level and started making progress, and then this,” Mueller said. “It’s just amazing what’s happened in 14 years. A lot of people deserve a lot of credit. Our athletic director, Jamie Boggs, our coaching staffs, our students, our whole community.”
Mueller said he believes the WCC has a chance to be the Big East of the West.
“I think that’s what Stu Jackson’s vision is,” Mueller said. “What the Big East is in the East can we establish that same brand with the West Coast Conference? With Gonzaga and Saint Mary’s, San
Francisco, Santa Clara, big-name coaches up and down the coast, tight geography, a chance for big-time rivals, I think we fit in those plans really strong.”
The next two schools years, Oregon State and Washington State will be part of the WCC. GCU will begin play in the WCC during the last year the two former Pac-12 schools will play in the WCC.
GCU will participate in a conference that includes not only Gonzaga and Saint Mary’s but also LMU, Pacific, Pepperdine, Portland, San Diego, San Francisco and Santa Clara.
Seattle U also will be transitioning from the WAC to the WCC at the same time as Grand Canyon.
“The WCC Presidents’ Council is committed to positioning the West Coast Conference as one of the premier NCAA Division I conferences in the nation,” Jackson said in the release. “Grand Canyon University matches the mission and vision of the WCC with a focused investment in the holistic student-athlete experience. Under the leadership of President Brian Mueller and Vice President of Athletics Jamie Boggs, GCU has established itself as a nationally recognized institution with a robust athletic profile and a commitment to competitive excellence. The expansion of the WCC footprint into one of the nation’s top media markets further enhances the national visibility of the Conference. This is a monumental day for the WCC.”
This move will increase television exposure for GCU, lower travel costs with less travel time and a stronger geographical footprint for the Lopes, the school believes.
It also puts the Lopes in a conference that has taken multiple NCAA Tournament bids in men’s basketball, which has been GCU’s face of the athletic department.
“To go against the best, you have to get better,” Drew said. “The WAC is a really good league. Really good teams there. The WCC has had Top 25 teams, top 10 teams, No. 1 teams in the country. Now we’ve got an opportunity to go against them on a nightly basis. It’s only going to make us better. It’s going to make us more competitive, attract better players here.”
GCU was the 12th seed last season when it upset No. 5 Saint Mary’s in March Madness, before losing to Final Four team Alabama in the round of 32.
The WCC has had more than one bid for sports other than men’s basketball, as well.
At the Division I level, GCU has won 67 conference championships, 38 in the last four years. The WAC Commissioner’s Cup, which is presented to the conference’s top-performing athletic department, has been won by GCU in the last five fully completed academic years.
In the past calendar year alone, the Lopes have won NCAA tournament games in softball, men’s basketball and men’s volleyball.
Of GCU’s 21 sports, 14 will make their new home in the WCC, the release states.
Because the WCC does not sponsor men’s volleyball, it will continue to compete in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation, where the Lopes recently captured a conference tournament title and reached the semifinals of the NCAA tournament. There is no swimming and diving or track and field in the WCC, so GCU will find conference options.
GCU will continue to compete in the WAC next school year, before transitioning to the WCC on July 1, 2025.
Boggs feels similar success can come in the WCC.
“We will do that in the WCC,” Boggs said. “We have so much support. We’ve got the secret sauce, which is the culture of this campus. We have so much community. It takes an entire university, an entire campus and community to win championships. We’ve won 67 with all of these people around us. We’re going to do the same thing in the WCC.”