Grand Canyon’s move to Mountain West takes effect for this year

A present comes early for Lopes fans. GCU left the WAC and will be heading to the Mountain West for this school year.

The school initially announced it was headed to the WCC before accepting a last-minute bid to the Mountain West instead. The Mountain West invite was set for 2026-2027 season.

GCU sent out this statement when the invite was announced:

“The strong support of President Brian Mueller and the entire university community has led to tremendous competitive success, positioning GCU for this move to a conference as strong as the Mountain West,” GCU vice president of athletics Jamie Boggs said in a release.

GCU has become a premier program in college basketball. The Lopes have represented the WAC in the NCAA Tournament the last three seasons. GCU has one NCAA Tournament win (against Saint Mary’s in 2024).

GCU is one of the fastest growing colleges and has a total enrollment of 25,000 on campus and over 125,000 students online. It is the largest Christian-based college in the United States.

“The addition of Grand Canyon for the 2025-26 academic year is a significant win for the student-athletes at GCU and in the Mountain West,“ Mountain West Commissioner Gloria Nevarez said. “Grand Canyon brings elite recruiting, a passionate fan base, and state-of-the-art facilities, elevating the Mountain West’s competitiveness and national profile. In a time when the student-athlete experience is of utmost importance, we felt it was in the best interest to allow them to compete for conference championships and the NCAA postseason immediately. GCU is a great addition to the Mountain West and positively raises the competition level in the league.”

GCU gets the opportunity to participate in a stacked Mountain West Conference. The conference is projected to have seven teams in the top 90 of Torvik’s preseason’s ranking: GCU, SDSU, UNLV, Colorado State, Utah State, Boise State and New Mexico.

For one season, the Lopes will get to play the teams that are departing to the Pac-12. The likes of Boise State, Colorado State, SDSU and Utah State may have to play in the tough environment at GCU Arena. Speaking of the departing Pac-12 schools, they weren’t too happy about GCU’s inclusion.

Boise State released a statement to B.J. Rains of Bronco Nation News:

“The Mountain West Conference’s addition of Grand Canyon University as a member for the 2025/26 academic year significantly and negatively impacts the schedules, opportunities, and budgets of Boise State and the other departing universities,” the statement read. “The Mountain West’s actions are also contrary to express representations the Mountain West and its Commissioner made to the departing universities and, despite being members of the Mountain West through June 30, 2026, the universities were not consulted or permitted to vote on the early invitation to GCU. We will address this matter and the harm to the departing universities in litigation.”