‘We’re doing something that makes sense’: UC San Diego set to join West Coast Conference

Conference realignment continues to shift the college sports landscape across all levels of Division I. The West Coast Conference on Wednesday officially announced that UC San Diego would join on July 1, 2027, a year after mid-major power Gonzaga transitions to the newly reformed Pac-12.

UC San Diego, which will depart the Big West Conference, becomes the first full-member public school and non-religious institution in over four decades to join the predominantly Jesuit school-WCC.

Calling it a “special day,” WCC commissioner Stu Jackson said in a news conference that with so much conference realignment across the NCAA, “athletes in all sports are traveling coast to coast week after week.”

“We value the life balance afforded by our conference’s geography and believe it’s an important asset that prioritizes student athletes’ wellness,” Jackson said.

Moving to the WCC continues a meteoric rise for UCSD. The Tritons transitioned to Division I just five years ago, in 2020. A longtime Division III school, UCSD moved up to Division II in the early 2000s; over six decades, the school, located two hours south of Los Angeles, built one of the best small college athletic programs in the country, winning 30 team and nearly 150 individual national championships. The move up to D-I started in 2016 after the UCSD student body voted in favor of reclassification.

Though UCSD won’t bring the same influence or success as Gonzaga, one of the best men’s basketball programs in the country over the last two decades, the Tritons have been impressive in their own right. In 2025, the Tritons became the first program to win their conference tournament and earn a spot in the NCAA Tournament in their first season of postseason eligibility on the men’s and women’s basketball sides.

The 12th-seeded men’s team was viewed as a potential sleeper team in the tournament but fell to fifth-seeded Michigan, 68-65, in the first round. Head coach Eric Olen left for the New Mexico job shortly after.

The UCSD women’s basketball team also won the Big West Conference tournament and qualified for the NCAA Tournament, falling to Southern, 68-56, in a First Four game at UCLA.

Jackson said the WCC is committed to adding “one to three institutions” — UCSD being the first — but couldn’t provide a timeline for when any other schools might join. With Gonzaga’s departure and the addition of UCSD, the league sits at 10 full-time members.

As for why the WCC extended an invite to a public school, Jackson, UCSD Chancellor Pradeep K. Khosla and emeritus athletic director Earl Edwards all stressed the importance of the student-athlete experience as it relates to geography.

“We’re doing something that makes sense,” Edwards said, a nod to the scrambling of major conferences that have left fellow California schools like Stanford, Cal, USC and UCLA flying across the country for regular-season games.

“In this college realignment landscape, it’s important, as a conference, that we don’t succumb to change but rather adapt to it,” Jackson said.

UCSD, which supports 24 sports, will participate in 14 of the 16 sports sponsored by the WCC. The school will seek new homes for the 10 other sports.

Edwards said he was especially excited about “a different level” of the crosstown rivalry with the University of San Diego (the schools are just 11 miles apart).

UCSD’s move is the latest change out 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 scattered to different conferences, including the WCC. The newly formed Pac-12 starts play in the fall of 2026, with OSU, WSU, Gonzaga, Boise State, San Diego State and Texas State headlining the new conference.

(Photo by Ian Maule / Getty Images)