Alexander Brown
The conference realignment never stops, the most recent example of this landing on Friday. Grand Canyon and Seattle University are leaving the Western Athletic Conference and will join the West Coast Conference on July 1, 2025, WCC announced.
This is the second time in less than five months that CMI has brought two schools into its ranks. In December, Oregon and Washington State were elected to most sports in the 2024-25 and 2025-26 seasons. (But not football, which will be affiliated with the Mountain West for the next two years.)
It’s a victory for new commissioner Stu Jackson, who took over the helm of WCC just over a year ago.
The addition of GCU and Seattle U means the WCC will be an 11-school league next season (with Oregon State and Wazzu) and then grow to 13 schools (barring other moves) for 2025-26. The two-year affiliation agreement with Oregon State and Washington State expires June 30, 2026. Oregon State and Washington State remaining affiliated members in the WCC beyond 2026 is highly unlikely, sources said. The most likely final game for the Beavers and Cougars is to join the Mountain West and/or reform a new league under the Pac-12 brand, sources told CBS Sports, due to the tens of millions of dollars OSU and Wazzu have earned amid to the consequences of the Pac-12’s disappearance.
The move from Grand Canyon to CMI had been in the works for a long time. Seattle U is a geographic and religious institution – it is a Jesuit university like any other WCC school. Grand Canyon, on the other hand, is a for-profit institution, which is why WCC leaders waited and deliberated for years before finally voting to bring GCU on board.
Jackson worked diligently with some WCC presidents who were previously on the fence or against GCU joining. The big draw was the GCU basketball program’s advantage in making WCC a better conference. The contingency, according to one source, was to bring in Seattle U as a package. That’s also two teams being added for the predicted loss of Oregon State and Washington State in 2026.
“The presidents wanted to make sure two schools participated in the conference,” a source told CBS Sports. “With everything that’s going on in the world of television, that’s a big factor. Now we’re taking over one of the key markets, in Arizona, and taking over Seattle and the west side of Washington.”
The Antelopes have been a factor in men’s college basketball in recent seasons, having appeared in three of the last four NCAA tournaments under Bryce Drew. In March, No. 12 seed Grand Canyon defeated its future conference brethren with a first-round NCAA tournament win against Saint Mary’s.
The latest with Gonzaga
This latest burst of realignment comes amid persistent speculation about the feasibility of Gonzaga leaving the WCC for a larger conference. More recently, the Bulldogs have been linked to potential Big 12 membership. Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark has been advocating for Gonzaga to join his league for nearly two years. However, there is no impetus for this currently. Negotiations regarding Gonzaga’s membership broke down in December, sources previously told CBS Sports, and have not gained traction since. At least in the Big 12 meetings weeks in Phoenix, Gonzaga was not on any of the agendas and did not appear in several meetings between athletic directors and coaches, sources told CBS Sports.
“This probably solidifies Gonzaga’s retention for now because they will end up getting at least two better games in the conference,” one source said re: Grand Canyon joining the WCC.
Mark Few’s program remains among the best in college basketball and is coming off its ninth straight Sweet 16 appearance in the midst of its 25th straight NCAA Tournament. Gonzaga continues to prosper because of its dominance over CMI, while CMI continues to be viable because it has Gonzaga.
As for the WAC, the league is once again in trouble after briefly enjoying a fruitful series of additions. The WAC recently had 13 teams for the 2022-23 season, but is now only guaranteed eight programs on July 1, 2025. Sam Houston and New Mexico State left last year for the CUSA (which also announced Friday that the state of Missouri was joining in 2025). Incarnate Word and UT Arlington, two recent additions, are returning to the Southland. Led by Grand Canyon’s 30–5 record, the conference ranked 14th in men’s basketball in KenPom. with last season, finishing 11th the season before. It was the strongest two-year run in men’s basketball league play in a decade.
