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Good morning, and thanks for spending part of your day with Extra Points.
I hope you all had a wonderful Mother’s Day weekend! Today, I’m passing the mic to KC Smurthwaite, who has a story today on how the WCC moved from the brink of being picked apart, to a reinvention of a proud basketball conference.
The days start well before the sun rises for Stu Jackson.
If he has it his way, his yellow and black BMC bike hits the cold pavement somewhere in the mountains of Colorado. Most mornings, though, the ride is more likely to come in the hills somewhere near the West Coast Conference’s Bay Area orbit.
“I haven’t gotten out on the road as much as I would like recently, just because it seems like time doesn’t allow it,” Jackson said. “But that would be a passion of mine. I wouldn’t say a talent because we’re not talking Tour de France here, but it’s my happy place.”
Over the past 18 months, those rides have also served as a moving strategy session, as the league considered an aggressive conference realignment strategy
“We began with a list of roughly 43 schools,” Jackson said. “It was an extremely thorough process where we vetted every aspect.”
Jackson said the league evaluated a wide range of factors, including geography, enrollment profile, competitive history, budget, market, presidential priorities, academic history and basketball ambition.
There were mornings when the list followed him onto the bike.
The thoughts raced as the pedals turned.
For decades, the West Coast Conference had been one of the more stable leagues in Division I. From BYU’s arrival in 2011 through the end of the 2022-23 season, the league had the same 10 full members. Then BYU left for the Big 12. Oregon State and Washington State arrived as temporary affiliate members after the Pac-12 collapse. Gonzaga announced it would leave for the Pac-12 in 2026. Grand Canyon accepted the WCC invitation but then backed out to join the Mountain West. Seattle returned. Denver was added. UC San Diego and UC Santa Barbara followed.
And now, by 2027-28, the WCC is scheduled to reach 12 full members. That number will be the league's largest membership ever.
That is a full climb.
Jackson knew the league could not simply wait for the hill to flatten.
“Personally, I’m fortunate to have a group of presidents that are very forward thinking,” Jackson said. “So the conversation about potentially adding members that didn’t look like us, it was a fairly easy conversation due to the recognition that we all had an understanding dating back to when the Pac-12 imploded, seeing what happened with Cal and Stanford, that there was a seismic shift about to happen.”
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That phrase is telling … members who didn’t look like us.
The West Coast Conference has long been associated with private institutions, many of them faith-based, with a tight Western identity and a basketball-first public reputation. But the modern realignment environment does not necessarily reward nostalgia. The league had to decide whether to protect an old definition of itself or build a new one.
“To remain steeped in simply accepting members that only looked like ourselves, that could not be the strategy going forward,” Jackson said.
That does not mean the West Coast Conference threw out its identity. Jackson argues the opposite. The league leaned harder into what it believed it could still own -- The West.
In an era when some athletic conferences are traveling across three or four time zones for conference games, Jackson sees geography as more than a map. He sees it as a brand position, a recruiting pitch, a student-athlete experience and a competitive differentiator.
“We are leaning into the regionality of this conference in an age where athletic programs are traveling across multiple time zones to compete,” Jackson said. “We are trying to lean into the fact that the West Coast Conference is very special.”
That regionality became one of the filters in the league’s expansion process. In a world where Cal and Stanford play in the Atlantic Coast Conference and the Big Ten spans from California to New Jersey, Jackson wanted the West Coast Conference to remain…well…West.
“That was a big part of the conversation because winning in March is central to our league’s operations on both the men’s and women’s side,” Jackson said. “We wanted institutions that were going to invest in the sport of basketball. We wanted institutions that were academically aligned with ours. That was absolutely vital.”
He continued.
“We wanted institutions that were in our region, in the western part of the United States, for a variety of different reasons as it relates to recruiting and having access to enrollment, being in major markets, which all of our institutions are at this point.”
That process led the league to Seattle, Denver, UC San Diego and UC Santa Barbara, with the latter two receiving payments to join the conference.
Seattle brought the West Coast Conference back into a market and a school with conference history. Denver brought the league back into the Rocky Mountain region and added a school with strong academics and championship-level credibility in Olympic sports. UC San Diego added a public research institution in one of the West’s most important markets. UC Santa Barbara brought another public California brand, a successful athletic department and a return to a league it once called home.
Together, those moves also signaled a philosophical shift.
UC San Diego is set to become the WCC’s first public institution since Nevada departed in 1979. UC Santa Barbara will also join the WCC in 2027 as another public addition, returning to the league after previously competing from 1965 to 1969.
For a league defined by private membership for decades, that is significant.
But to Jackson, the shift was also practical.
After Gonzaga’s exit and Grand Canyon’s change of direction, the West Coast Conference was staring at a future in which it could have had nine full members. Jackson did not view that as sustainable.
“Having a nine-member conference is not a sustainable number for a number of reasons,” Jackson said. “Both financially, from a scheduling standpoint, and it leaves you in a position of vulnerability.”
The presidents decided they wanted to reach a membership of 12 schools.
“So we proceeded to pursue that membership number aggressively,” Jackson said.
Aggressive is not a word often associated with the old caricature of the WCC. It was a word used a few times in the conversation to describe the league's expansion. The league has sometimes been viewed from the outside as steady, traditional and institutionally cautious. But realignment has forced even cautious leagues to move faster.
Jackson said the WCC’s first major adjustment came with Oregon State and Washington State, which joined as affiliate members across 12 sports for a two-year term beginning in 2024-25. The move was unusual because it placed two former Power Five institutions inside a mid-major conference structure, even temporarily.
“We felt that we had to be opportunistic at that point,” Jackson said. “And we were fortunate enough to call Oregon State and Washington State partners across 12 different sports for two years.”
That partnership did not solve the long-term membership question, but it gave the WCC strength, inventory and visibility during an unstable period.
“What that did for us was really add to the strength and the breadth of our conference across many sports,” Jackson said. “It was an unprecedented partnership at the time in terms of having Power Four members be a part of a mid-major conference.”
Then came the larger question.
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What does the WCC become after Gonzaga?
Jackson said the league recognized Gonzaga’s departure was a matter of “when, not if.” That forced the conference to rethink survival and strength. The answer was not just to add schools. It was also to build internally.
“We have two opportunities to maintain the strength in this conference throughout this crazy landscape of realignment and revenue sharing,” Jackson said. “We can add members that bring competitive strength to the conference, particularly in the sport of basketball. That’s one way to maintain our viability.”
The second, he said, is more important.
“Strengthen from within.”
That means resources. It means basketball investment. It means operational decisions. It means presidents and athletic directors making choices that help the league’s strongest sports remain relevant nationally.
“It also speaks to the necessity to continue to try and develop student athletes, both mentally and physically, because that will strengthen your conference,” Jackson said. “And all of those things, if you do them, even without adding a member or losing a member, we’re still going to have strength.”
That is the part of realignment that can get lost in the transaction sheet.
Fans track the logos. Presidents track institutional fit. Commissioners track both and aim to ensure the schools already in the room are better positioned tomorrow than they are today.
Jackson knows the WCC cannot control every rumor. He knows other leagues may call. He knows members may listen.
“There’s always potential for departures,” Jackson said. “The nature of the beast and the beings involved is that when a conference loses a member, it triggers other members to also inquire about whether or not they can benefit by leaving a conference.”
The league cannot stop every question from being asked. It can only make the answer harder.
“We can’t worry about what we can’t control,” Jackson said. “But we can control having a conference that is strong, competitive, viable and can still remain on the national stage.”
That is where Jackson’s WCC vision becomes clearer.
This is not just about replacing Gonzaga’s basketball brand. It is not just about getting back to an even number. It is not just about finding schools in large markets.
It is about building a league that can tell a broader story.
The WCC still wants to be a basketball-centric conference. But Jackson is also quick to point to soccer, golf, tennis, beach volleyball, women’s volleyball and water polo. He sees the depth of Olympic sport as one of the conference’s defining traits, not a side note.
“What makes this conference unique is the strength of our Olympic sports and their historic performance at the national level,” Jackson said.
That includes NCAA Tournament access, Sweet 16s, Elite Eights and finals appearances in sports beyond basketball.
“There aren’t many conferences in the country that can stake that claim of being so strong in many of those sports in addition to being a basketball-centric conference,” Jackson said.
For now, Jackson said the WCC does not expect to expand beyond 12. But he will not close the door.
“At the current time, we don’t expect to add any more members,” Jackson said. “But again, we’re not going to shut the door on an opportunity for us.”
That is the realignment version of a long ride.
There is the route you planned, the climb you did not expect and the weather you cannot control. There is the hill in front of you, the one behind you and the next turn you cannot quite see yet.
For the WCC, the last 18 months have encompassed it all.
A league that once looked boxed in has widened its lane. A conference that historically leaned toward the private sector has added public institutions. A basketball brand that once revolved around Gonzaga is now expanding its reach across a broader map.
And somewhere before sunrise, Jackson keeps riding.
Not away from the uncertainty.
Through it.
