The reconciling of the conference will continue to shift the university’s sports landscape at all levels of Division I. The West Coast Conference on Wednesday has officially announced that UC San Diego would participate on July 1, 2027, a year after mid-major Power Gonzaga transitions to the new reformed PAC-12.
UC San Diego, who will leave the Big West conference, will be the first full public school and non-religious institution in more than four decades to become a member of the predominantly Jesuit school-WCC.
WCC commissioner Stu Jackson called it a ‘special day’, said in a news conference that with so much conference rescue on the NCAA, ‘athletes in all sports travel from coast week after week after week.’
“We appreciate the life balance of the geography of our conference and believe that it is an important asset to prioritize the wellness of student athletes,” Jackson said.
Moving to the WCC continues a meteorical rise for UCSD. The tritons went to Division I only five years ago, in 2020. An old Division III school, UCSD moved to Division II in the early 2000s; More than six decades, the school, two hours south of Los Angeles, built one of the best athletic programs for small universities in the country and won 30 teams and nearly 150 individual national championships. The move to DI started in 2016 after the UCSD student organ voted for reclassification.
Although UCSD will not have the same influence or success as Gonzaga, one of the best basketball programs for men in the country in the past two decades, the tritons have been impressive in themselves. In 2025, the Tritons became the first program to win their conference tournament and earned a place in the NCAA tournament in their first season of the after season qualified for the basketball sides of the men and women.
The 12th placed men’s team was seen as a potential sleeping team in the tournament, but fell to Michigan, 68-65 in the first round. Head coach Eric Olen left for the track in New Mexico shortly thereafter.
The Basketball team of UCSD Women also won the Big West Conference Tournament and qualified for the NCAA tournament, which fell to Southern, 68-56, in a first four-game at UCLA.
Jackson said that the WCC is committed to adding “one to three settings” – UCSD is the first – but could not offer a timeline for when other schools could participate. With the departure of Gonzaga and the addition of UCSD, the competition is 10 full -time members.
Regarding why the WCC has expanded an invitation for a public school, Jackson, UCSD-KanSelier Pradepep K. Khosla and Emeritus Athletic Director Earl Edwards all emphasized the importance of the student athlete experience with regard to geography.
“We are doing something that makes sense,” said Edwards, a nod to searching large conferences that fellow schools in California such as Stanford, CAL, USC and UCLA fly through the country for competitions in the regular season.
“In this reconciling of the college it is important, as a conference, that we do not succumb to change, but to adjust it earlier,” Jackson said.
UCSD, who supports 24 sports, takes part in 14 of the 16 sports sponsored by the WCC. The school will look for new houses for the 10 other sports.
Edwards said that he was mainly enthusiastic about “a different level” of the Crosstown rivement with the University of San Diego (the schools are only 11 miles apart).
The Movement of UCSD is the latest change in the West after the collapse of the PAC-12 in 2023; 2024 marked the first PAC-12 football season with Just Oregon State and Washington State. OSU and WSU’s other sports distributed to different conferences, including the WCC. The newly formed PAC-12 starts playing in the fall of 2026, with OSU, WSU, Gonzaga, BOise State, San Diego State and the state of Texas that are linning the new Headline conference.
(Photo by Ian Maule / Getty images)
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