NCAA Division I collegiate athletic conference in the western United States
"Pacific Coast Athletic Association" redirects here. For the San Diego area community college athletic conference, see Pacific Coast Athletic Conference.
The Big West Conference (BWC) is an American collegiate athletic conference whose member institutions participate in the National Collegiate Athletic Association's Division I. The conference was originally formed on July 1, 1969, as the Pacific Coast Athletic Association (PCAA), and in 1988 was renamed the Big West Conference. The conference stopped sponsoring college football after the 2000 season.
Among the conference's 11 member institutions, 10 are located in California (nine in Southern California alone), and one is located in Hawaii (though the Hawaii member is leaving for the Mountain West Conference, effective July 1, 2026). All of the schools are public universities, with the California schools evenly split between the California State University and the University of California systems. In addition, one affiliate member plays two sports in the BWC not sponsored by its home conference.
Big West Conference Members locations – Departing members (future affiliate)
Pacific Coast Athletic Association
The Big West Conference was formed in June 1968 as the Pacific Coast Athletic Association.[1] The five original charter members were Fresno State, San Jose State, UC Santa Barbara, San Diego State, and Long Beach State.[1] Two other schools, Cal State Los Angeles and the University of the Pacific, were also considered but they declined at that time to pursue membership.[2] The newly formed conference had several meetings to set up its governance, which was confirmed in October 1968 on the campus of UC Santa Barbara.[3] Before the league started play, Cal State Los Angeles joined as a full member and the University of the Pacific joined for football only, becoming a full member itself two years later.[4][5] The conference itself lists July 1, 1969, as its founding date, with the seven institutions beginning conference play that fall.[6][7]
Evolution
Since its inception as the Pacific Coast Athletic Association, the conference has seen many changes. Utah State was the first institution outside California to join the conference in 1978. This opened the floodgates for many other schools to affiliate with the PCAA; notable schools include UNLV, Nevada, Louisiana Tech, Boise State, and football-only members, such as Southwestern Louisiana and Arkansas State.
In 1983, the PCAA became the first western conference to introduce women's athletic programs, allowing female student-athletes to compete at the same level as their male counterparts. This proved vital for Hawaiʻi as their only participation in the conference was for their women's sports.
However, many universities left to join conferences that were perceived as more well-known, such as the Western Athletic Conference or the Mountain West Conference, while others did not see the benefit of travel since historically many of the teams have been California-based.
From the departures of Idaho and Utah State in 2005 until the arrival of Hawaii in 2012, all members were based in California, reducing the cost and travel time between the universities. When Hawaii joined, it agreed to help defray a portion of travel costs to that state for the league's California members.
There have been no fewer than 25 full and associate members in the conference's history, while only two of the original seven charter members remain (Long Beach State and UC Santa Barbara, with only Long Beach State's membership being continuous).
The change to the Big West
The logo of the Big West from 2000 to 2021
Effective July 1, 1988, the Pacific Coast Athletic Association changed its name to the Big West Conference.[7] With such schools as Utah State, UNLV, Nevada, New Mexico State, and Hawaii now in the fold, the name change was more representative of its member institutions.[7] In addition, the conference had signed a contract with ESPN to have its men's basketball games telecast as the third game of a triple header known as Big Monday - the other conferences being featured were the Big East and the Big Ten so the name Big West fit the theme.[9]
↑ Then Division II, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo was an affiliate member of the Big West in women's volleyball from 1984–85 to 1989–90.
↑ Before becoming a full member, Bakersfield had been a Big West affiliate in beach volleyball since the 2015–16 school year.
↑ Long Beach State fully rebranded its athletic program as Beach effective in the 2020–21 school year, after transitioning from its former nickname of 49ers over several years. The baseball team continues to use the nickname Dirtbags, which it had adopted in the 49ers era.
↑ Northridge is one of many Los Angeles neighborhoods that have separate postal identities from the city.
↑ La Jolla is a neighborhood of San Diego with a separate postal identity from the city.
↑ UC San Diego first joined the Big West as a men's volleyball affiliate in 2017. It added women's water polo to its BWC membership in 2019.
↑ The UCSB campus has a Santa Barbara mailing address, but entirely lies outside the city limits in the unincorporated community of Isla Vista.
↑ UC Santa Barbara joined the Big West when it was founded in 1969, left to become an independent after the 1973–74 school year, then rejoined the conference effective the 1976–77 school year.
↑ Hawaii will leave the Big West to join the Mountain West Conference as a full member in 2026, though they will remain an affiliate member for men's swimming and diving, men's volleyball, beach volleyball, and women's water polo. [15]
↑ Hawaii was a full member of the Big West in women's sports from 1984–85 to 1995–96; while the men's sports were a full member of the Western Athletic Conference (WAC) during that tenure.
↑ The Hawaii beach volleyball team is officially Rainbow Wahine, but more commonly uses the nickname BeachBows.
↑ Sacramento State men's soccer joined the Big West Conference in the 2012 fall season (2012–13 school year) and beach volleyball followed for the 2016 spring season (2015–16 school year).[16][17]
↑ While technically the school has been a Big West member in all sports since 2012, this will be their first year as an affiliate member.
↑ Grand Canyon's for-profit status is disputed. The U.S. Department of Education treats it as a for-profit institution, but the Internal Revenue Service, the NCAA, and the state of Arizona consider it a nonprofit.
↑ Includes online students. Current on-campus enrollment is about 25,300.
Former members
Many of the former members of the Big West are now members of the Western Athletic Conference or the Mountain West Conference. Of the nine schools that were in the WAC before its early-2010s realignment, only Hawaii had not spent some time in the Big West as a football participant – it was a Big West member only in women's sports. Of the former members, Cal State Los Angeles is the only team that reverted to Division II level.
School names and nicknames reflect those used by the institutions when they were Big West members. One school has changed its name (Southwestern Louisiana, now branded athletically as Louisiana and also known as Louisiana–Lafayette) and another its nickname (Arkansas State, from Indians to Red Wolves).
↑ The UNLV campus lies outside the Las Vegas city limits in the unincorporated community of Paradise. The U.S. Postal Service considers all unincorporated areas in the Las Vegas Valley to have a Las Vegas address.
↑ Arkansas State joined the Big West for football in the 1993 fall season (1993–94 school year), left to become an independent after the 1995 fall season (–96 school year, then re-joined in 1999, only to leave again after the 2000 fall season (2000–01 school year).
Full membersFull members (non-football)Assoc. members (football only)Assoc. member (Other sports)OtherConferenceOtherConference
Notes
San Diego State played football as an independent for the 1976 and 1977 seasons before leaving the Big West Conference in 1978.
UC Santa Barbara was an independent from 1974–75 to 1975–76.
Cal State Fullerton played football as an independent for the 1992 season and dropped football entirely the following year.
Louisiana Tech, Northern Illinois, Southwestern Louisiana, and Arkansas State joined the Big West for a short-lived football consortium from 1993 to 1995.
Arkansas State played football as an independent from 1996 to 1998 and later rejoined the Big West for football during the 1999 and 2000 seasons.
Sports
The Big West Conference currently sponsors 21 NCAA sports, with men's and women's swimming & diving the newest additions for the 2024–25 school year.[18]
In baseball, Cal State Fullerton has won four College World Series titles with national championships in 1979, 1984, 1995, and 2004.[19] In addition, Long Beach State and UC Irvine have made multiple appearances in the College World Series. Fullerton also has a national championship in softball, winning in 1984. Long Beach State has won three NCAA women's volleyball titles, as a part of Big West Conference women's volleyball, with national championships in 1989, 1993, and 1998. Misty May-Treanor led the 49ers (now known as Beach) to a 36–0 record en route to the program's most recent title. UC Santa Barbara was the NCAA men's soccer runner-up in 2004, losing the national championship match to Indiana on penalty kicks. The Gauchos returned to the College Cup in 2006 and won the national championship.
Former Big West members UNLV and Pacific won national championships while part of the conference. The UNLV Runnin' Rebels men's basketball team won the 1990 NCAA tournament championship after routing Duke 103-73 in the national title game. UNLV was undefeated during the 1991 NCAA men's basketball season before falling to Duke in the final four. The Runnin' Rebels during this era are widely considered one of the best college basketball teams of all time. The Pacific Tigers women's volleyball team won back-to-back national championships in 1985 and 1986.
The Big West did not sponsor men's volleyball or men's water polo, but it was the primary conference affiliation of several schools that compete in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation for these sports, respectively. In NCAA men's volleyball, UC Irvine has established itself as one of the nation's most elite programs, winning four national championships in 2007, 2009, 2012, and 2013. Long Beach State also won men's national volleyball titles in 1991, 2018, and 2019. In NCAA men's water polo, UC Irvine won three national championships in 1970, 1982, and 1989. UC Santa Barbara also won a men's water polo title in 1979.
On May 31, 2016, the Big West announced the conference would sponsor men's volleyball as its 18th sport, with five Big West schools leaving the MPSF to establish the new men's volleyball league. Men's volleyball is the third of four sports in which the MPSF has recently seen a mass exodus of teams to join an existing conference in a newly sponsored sport, with men's soccer, men's water polo, and women's lacrosse as the others. The men's volleyball membership includes core Big West members Cal State Northridge, Long Beach State, Hawaii, UC Irvine, and UC Santa Barbara. UC San Diego joined as an affiliate to bring the league to the NCAA minimum requirement of 6 teams to receive an automatic bid for the NCAA tournament.
Big West Commissioner Dennis Farrell explained that adding UC San Diego was not an indicator UC San Diego would be added to the Big West Conference as a full member. UC San Diego had recently passed a bill to move all their sports to Division I and was looking for an invite from the Big West Conference. UC San Diego has long competed at the Division I level in men's volleyball; the NCAA conducts a single national championship open to all Division I and II members, and scholarship limits in the sport are the same in both divisions. The Big West regular season for men's volleyball will be a double round-robin, with each team playing the others once at home and once on the road. The Big West Tournament will have all six teams participate in single-elimination rounds with the top two teams receiving semifinal byes.[20]
The Big West is the first Division I all-sports conference (defined as a league that sponsors men's and women's basketball) ever to sponsor men's volleyball, and the second NCAA all-sports conference overall to sponsor men's volleyball as a scholarship sport (the first was the Division IIConference Carolinas).
On November 26, 2017, the Big West announced that it would add UC San Diego along with Cal State Bakersfield as its 10th and 11th members starting on July 1, 2020. Cal State Bakersfield, which was already a full Division I member competing in the Western Athletic Conference, became a full member effective July 1, 2020. UC San Diego, which had failed to move up from Division II in failed bids to the Big West in 2011 and April 2017, has begun the four-year transition process to Division I and became a full member effective July 1, 2024. UC San Diego's men's volleyball joined the Big West in 2017, in advance of that sport's 2018 season, and women's water polo joined in 2019. Because the NCAA does not sponsor a Division II championship in either men's volleyball or women's water polo, UCSD was eligible for conference championships in both sports upon joining the Big West, and will remain eligible for such during the D-I transition.[21]
UC San Diego and Cal State Bakersfield, the latter now in the process of rebranding its athletic program as Bakersfield, officially joined the conference on July 1, 2020, and Dan Butterly became the new commissioner following the retirement of Dennis Farrell.
↑ NCAA fencing is a coeducational sport, with schools fielding separate men's and women's squads and all bouts involving members of the same sex. The only Big West member that sponsors the sport, UC San Diego, fields both squads.
↑ Hawai'i competes at the FBS level, while Cal Poly and UC Davis compete at the FCS level.
↑ The only category of rowing sponsored by the NCAA is women's heavyweight rowing. Men's rowing and women's lightweight rowing are organized by the Intercollegiate Rowing Association.
↑ NCAA fencing is a coeducational sport, with schools fielding separate men's and women's squads and all bouts involving members of the same sex. The only Big West member that sponsors the sport, UC San Diego, fields both squads.
Current conference champions
The Big West Conference sponsors championship competition in 9 men's and 10 women's NCAA sanctioned sports. Men's and women's swimming & diving will be added in 2024–25.[22]
Regular-season champions are indicated with "(RS)" and tournament champions with "(T)".
1 2 The Big West does not currently hold a postseason tournament in baseball or softball, but will add both tournaments in the 2025 season.
Former sports
Football
An asterisk denotes the participant in the bowls that invited the Big West champion: Pasadena (1969–70), California (1981–91), Las Vegas (1992–96), and Humanitarian (1997–2000)[23]
Starting during the Big West Conference's 1998–99 season, the Commissioner's Cup is awarded yearly to the most outstanding program throughout the season in the conference's sponsored sports.[27] The UC Santa Barbara Gauchos are the most successful team to date having won 10 total trophies.[28]
Since 2021, the Big West Conference has served as host of the SoCal Challenge,[29] an eight-team men's basketball tournament held during Monday and Wednesday of Thanksgiving week. One Big West team represents the conference in the field of each tournament. Cal Poly and Cal State Northridge participated in 2021 and 2022, respectively.
The Mountain West Conference (MW) is a collegiate athletic conference located in the United States, participating in NCAA Division I. Its football teams compete in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS). The MW officially began operations on January 4, 1999. Geographically, the MW covers a broad expanse of the Western United States, with member schools located in California, Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming, and Hawaii. Gloria Nevarez took over as commissioner of the MW on January 1, 2023, following the retirement of founding commissioner Craig Thompson.
The Western Athletic Conference (WAC) is an NCAA Division I conference. The WAC covers a broad expanse of the Western United States with member institutions located in Arizona, California, Texas, Utah and Washington.
The Great Northwest Athletic Conference (GNAC) is a college athletic conference affiliated with the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) at the Division II level. It has historically operated in the northwestern United States, but also includes schools in Alaska, Montana, and British Columbia.
The Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC) is an intercollegiate athletic conference that operates in the NCAA's Division III. The conference was founded in 1915 and it consists of twelve small private schools that are located in southern California and organized into nine athletic programs. Claremont-Mudd-Scripps and Pomona-Pitzer are combined teams for sports purposes.
The Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF) is a college athletic conference with members located mostly in the Western United States, although it has added members as far east as Pennsylvania. The conference participates at the NCAA Division I level, primarily in Olympic sports that are not sponsored by a school's primary conference.
The West Coast Conference (WCC) — known as the California Basketball Association from 1952 to 1956 and then as the West Coast Athletic Conference until 1989 — is a collegiate athletic conference affiliated with NCAA Division I consisting of nine member schools across the states of California, Oregon, and Washington.
The Great West Conference (GWC) was an NCAA college athletic conference in the continental United States. Originally a football-only league, it became an all-sports entity during the 2008–09 season. The GWC stopped sponsoring football following the 2011 season. The conference became defunct when four of the remaining five full member schools became members of other conferences on July 1, 2013.
NCAA Division I (D-I) is the highest level of intercollegiate athletics sanctioned by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) in the United States, which accepts players globally. D-I schools include the major collegiate athletic powers, with large budgets, more elaborate facilities and more athletic scholarships than Division II and Division III as well as many smaller schools committed to the highest level of intercollegiate competition.
The NCAA men's volleyball tournament, officially titled the NCAA national collegiate men's volleyball championship, is an annual competition that determines the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) championship in American college men's volleyball. It had been the only NCAA championship in the sport from 1970 until 2012, when the NCAA launched a Division III championship.
The California Collegiate Athletic Association (CCAA) is a college athletic conference affiliated with the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) at the Division II level. All of its current members are public universities, and upon UC San Diego's departure on July 1, 2020, all are members of the California State University system.
The UC Santa Barbara Gauchos are the intercollegiate athletic teams representing the University of California, Santa Barbara. Referred to in athletic competition as UC Santa Barbara or UCSB, the Gauchos participate in 19 NCAA Division I intercollegiate sports with the majority competing in the Big West Conference. UCSB currently fields varsity teams in 10 men's and 9 women's sports.
The UC San Diego Tritons are the intercollegiate athletic teams that represent the University of California, San Diego. The Tritons compete in NCAA Division I as a member of the Big West Conference (BWC).
The UC Davis Aggies are the athletic teams that represent the University of California, Davis.
The Cal State Bakersfield Roadrunners are the intercollegiate athletic teams representing California State University, Bakersfield, located in Bakersfield, California. The Roadrunners compete at the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I level as a member of the Big West Conference.
The Cal Poly Mustangs are the athletic teams representing California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, California. The university fields twenty-two teams and compete in NCAA Division I; they are primarily members of the Big West Conference, but the football team plays in the Big Sky Conference, the wrestling team is an associate member of the Pac-12 Conference, and the swimming and diving program competes as an affiliate member in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation.
The Western Collegiate Athletic Association (WCAA) was a women's-only athletic conference on the West Coast of the United States.
Beginning in the 2021–22 academic year, extensive changes occurred in NCAA conference membership, primarily at the Division I level.
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