Seattle– Grand Canyon University and Seattle University will certainly sign up with the West Coast Conference beginning in the 2025-26 period, offering the organization most recognized country wide for its basketball programs to 11 complete participants for the very first time in its background.
The seminar made added news Friday, with both institutions readied to drop their associations from the Western Athletic Conference after the following academic year.
“The WCC Presidents’ Council is willful in its initiative to develop the West Coast Conference as one of the premier NCAA Division I meetings in the nation, and the enhancement of Grand Canyon University and Seattle University enhances the subscription, showing its dedication to affordable quality. Raises the account and broadens the reach of the seminar to 2 significant cities in the Western Region,” stated WCC Commissioner Stu Jackson.
WCC’s subscription is currently situated primarily in California with San Diego, Pepperdine, Loyola Marymount, Santa Clara, Pacific, San Francisco, andSt Mary’s. The just 2 institutions out of state that are presently complete participants are Gonzaga and Portland.
Grand Canyon, which remains in Phoenix, and Seattle will certainly contend in 14 of the 16 sports supplied by the WCC, however a lot of the emphasis will certainly get on basketball.
Both institutions need to raise competition in a seminar that has manipulated top on the males’s side in the past, with Gonzaga and Saint Mary’s blazing a trail. Grand Canyon won its very first males’s NCAA Tournament video game in college background in March and Seattle’s males won the CBI.
Last period, 2 WCC females’s groups got to the NCAAs after Portland won the seminar competition and Gonzaga gained an at-large quote and got to the Sweet 16.
“We are extremely delighted for this following chance to sign up with the WCC, which is just one of the premier sports meetings in the nation, along with among the premier basketball meetings in the nation,” stated Grand Canyon President Brian Mueller.
For at the very least the 2025– 26 competitors year, the organization will certainly have 13 institutions completing in many sports as Washington State and Oregon State remain in the last year of a two-year arrangement to contend as associate participants. The 2 Pac -12 institutions were left in the last round of seminar adjustment and will certainly be WCC associate participants in many non-football sports beginning in the upcoming school year.
Seattle’s signing up with the WCC is a get-together for the college, when the college joined the seminar from 1971– 81 prior to taking out from NCAA Division I subscription. Seattle went back to the Division I level in 2008 and has actually been completing in the WAC considering that 2012.
“We are delighted to return home to the West Coast Conference,” stated Seattle sports supervisorShanee Fink “Our student-athletes will certainly obtain an one-of-a-kind experience and the benefits of completing versus skilled peers at mission-aligned colleges within a limited geographical impact.”
