The Big 12 Conference is a college athletic conference headquartered in Irving, Texas. It consists of 14 full-member universities in the states of Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Ohio, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah, and West Virginia.
The Mountain West Conference (MW) is one of the collegiate athletic conferences affiliated with the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I 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, and Wyoming, as well as an associate member in Hawaii. Gloria Nevarez took over as Commissioner of the MW on January 1, 2023, following the retirement of founding commissioner Craig Thompson.
The Pac-12 Conference is a collegiate athletic conference that operates in the Western United States, participating in 24 sports at the NCAA Division I level. Its football teams compete in the Football Bowl Subdivision, the highest level of college football in the nation.
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 Big Sky Conference is a collegiate athletic conference affiliated with the NCAA's Division I with football competing in the Football Championship Subdivision. As of 2023, full member institutions are located in the states of Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Utah, and Washington. Two affiliate members from California are football–only participants.
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.
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 Divisions II and III as well as many smaller schools committed to the highest level of intercollegiate competition.
McCarthey Athletic Center (MAC) is a 6,000-seat indoor arena in the northwest United States, located on the campus of Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington. Opened in November 2004, it is home to the university's Bulldog basketball programs, members of the West Coast Conference (WCC) in Division I of the NCAA.
A mythical national championship is national championship recognition that is not explicitly competitive. This phrase has often been invoked in reference to American college football, because the NCAA does not sponsor a playoff-style tournament or recognize official national champions for the Football Bowl Subdivision. The relevant recognition before 1998 came from various entities, including coach polls and media ballots, which each voted to recognize their own national champions, and is similar to the newspaper decision used in early boxing matches. The contrary term would be an undisputed national championship.
The Gonzaga Bulldogs are an intercollegiate men's basketball program representing Gonzaga University. The school competes in the West Coast Conference in Division I of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). The Gonzaga Bulldogs play home basketball games at the McCarthey Athletic Center in Spokane, Washington, on the university campus.
Kelly Lee Graves is the current head women's basketball coach at the University of Oregon. Previously, Graves was the head women's basketball coach at St. Mary's from 1997 to 2000, as well as Gonzaga University from 2000 to 2014. He was formerly an assistant coach for the Portland Pilots (1994–1997) and St. Mary Gaels, where he later got his first head coaching stint with the Gaels from 1997 to 2000. From the 2004–2005 season to the 2013–2014 season, he guided Gonzaga to ten consecutive West Coast Conference regular season titles. The 2007 team went 13–1 in conference play, and later won the WCC conference tournament. The school also received its first ever NCAA tournament appearance. He was named WCC co-coach of the year for his accomplishments. In 2005, 2010, and 2011, Gonzaga went undefeated in WCC regular season play.
The Utah Valley Wolverines represent Utah Valley University in NCAA DI collegiate athletics and sponsor 16 sporting programs. The Wolverines participate in the Western Athletic Conference. The school mascot is the Wolverine, and the colors are green and white. The UVU student section is called The Den. A name change from The Mawl, the student section's previous name, was enacted in 2017. All UVU students can get their Den pass, which includes free admission to all athletic events.
The 2005–06 NCAA Division I men's basketball season began on November 6, 2005, progressed through the regular season and conference tournaments and concluded with the 2006 NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament championship game on April 3, 2006, at the RCA Dome in Indianapolis, Indiana. The Florida Gators won their first NCAA national championship with a 73–56 victory over the UCLA Bruins. This was the last Final Four site at the RCA Dome. The Final Four will return to the city of Indianapolis, but will be held at Lucas Oil Stadium.
The 2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment was a set of extensive changes in conference membership at all three levels of NCAA competition—Division I, Division II, and Division III—beginning in the 2010–11 academic year.
The Gonzaga Bulldogs baseball team is the varsity intercollegiate baseball program of Gonzaga University, located in Spokane, Washington, United States. The NCAA Division I program has been a member of the West Coast Conference since 1996 and its home venue is Washington Trust Field and Patterson Baseball Complex, opened on Gonzaga's campus in 2007.
The 2004 NCAA Division I baseball season, play of college baseball in the United States organized by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) at the Division I level, began on January 16, 2004. The season progressed through the regular season, many conference tournaments and championship series, and concluded with the 2004 NCAA Division I baseball tournament and 2004 College World Series. The College World Series, which consisted of the eight remaining teams in the NCAA tournament, was held in its annual location of Omaha, Nebraska, at Rosenblatt Stadium. It concluded on June 27, 2004, with the final game of the best of three championship series. Cal State Fullerton defeated Texas two games to none to claim its fourth championship.
The West Coast Conference (WCC) Women's Basketball Player of the Year is a basketball award given to the most outstanding women's basketball player in the West Coast Conference. The award has been given ever since the conference first sponsored women's basketball in the 1985–86 season, when it was known as the West Coast Athletic Conference. There have been two ties in the history of the award. The first was in 2006–07 between Stephanie Hawk of Gonzaga and Amanda Rego of Santa Clara. The second was in 2020–21, when BYU's Shaylee Gonzales and Gonzaga's Jenn Wirth shared honors. There have also been a total of four repeat winners, but only one—Courtney Vandersloot of Gonzaga—has been Player of the Year three times.
Men's college basketball in the Pac-12 Conference began in 1915 with the formation of the Pacific Coast Conference (PCC). Principal members of the PCC founded the Athletic Association of Western Universities (AAWU) in 1959, and subsequently went by the names Big Five, Big Six, Pacific-8, and Pacific-10, becoming the Pac-12 in 2011. The Pac-12 includes the PCC as part of its history despite the two leagues being formed under separate charters. Competing in the Pac-12 are the Arizona Wildcats, Arizona State Sun Devils, California Golden Bears, Colorado Buffaloes, Oregon Ducks, Oregon State Beavers, Stanford Cardinal, UCLA Bruins, USC Trojans, Utah Utes, Washington Huskies, and Washington State Cougars.
The 2017 NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament involved 68 teams playing in a single-elimination tournament to determine the men's National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I college basketball national champion for the 2016–17 season. The 79th edition of the tournament began on March 14, 2017, and concluded with the championship game on April 3 at University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Arizona. The championship game was the first to be contested in the Western United States since the 1995 tournament when Seattle was the host of the Final Four.
