UC San Diego joining USD in West Coast Conference

Big West, we barely knew ya.

Four years after joining the conference populated with large state universities in California, just one year after attaining full-fledged Division I status and NCAA postseason access, UC San Diego is moving on … to a conference that exclusively consists of small, private, faith-based institutions.

Welcome to the new world of college athletes, where UCSD (undergraduate enrollment 33,792) can join the West Coast Conference alongside the University of San Diego (5,831) and others with as few as 2,000 undergrads.

The WCC and UCSD announced the move on Wednesday. Fourteen Tritons teams will begin playing in their new league during the 2027-28 school year.

“This,” UCSD athletic director emeritus Earl Edwards said, “is another milestone in the evolution of UC San Diego athletics.”

The WCC had been pursuing UCSD for roughly a year. Things intensified roughly six weeks ago, when UCSD chancellor Pradeep K. Khosla formed a committee to review what he said was a strong offer from the league. UCSD is expected to pay an exit fee in the millions to leave the Big West.

The WCC may not be done growing. The league is expected to pursue one other UC school, presumably UC Santa Barbara, and could add a second one. The idea is to create a Southern California pod within the WCC featuring existing members USD, Pepperdine and Loyola Marymount.

The WCC has 10 members this year, but will drop to nine next summer, when Gonzaga joins a reformed Pac-12 with San Diego State and four other Mountain West defectors. Grand Canyon was scheduled to join the WCC this summer, but instead bolted for the Mountain West.

The last public institution to play in the WCC was Nevada, which left in 1979 and currently belongs to the Mountain West. The only other school to leave the Big West for the WCC was Pacific, a private university in Stockton, in 2013.

WCC commissioner Stu Jackson called UCSD a good fit for the evolving WCC, noting that league teams now occupy many of the West Coast’s biggest media markets.

Khosla, the chancellor, bristled at the idea that the public-school Tritons are an odd fit in a private-school league.

“We are not running away from anybody. We are running towards the West Coast Conference,” Khosla said. “It’s not about public versus private. At the end of the day, a game is a game is a game.”

Edwards listed UCSD’s budding rivalry with USD as one of the reasons why he was excited to join the WCC. The schools’ men’s basketball teams have played each other in each of the last three years, with their next game scheduled for Dec. 19 at LionTree Arena. Starting in 2027, they’ll play two conference games against each other every season, with games at both schools.

Edwards and USD athletic director Kimya Massey have already talked. And Jackson said USD president James T. Harris was “supportive and enthusiastic” about UCSD joining the league.

“In an age where others may look at this as a negative, from Day 1, he has supported their invitation,” Jackson said.

The Tritons will face fresh challenges in their new league. Joining the WCC will increase travel expenses for a UCSD athletic budget that relies almost entirely on student fees, replacing van rides through Southern California (where nine Big West members are located) with plane trips to the Bay Area and Northwest.

And the path to the NCAA Tournament in men’s basketball likely got more complicated, even with Gonzaga’s departure. Several WCC programs have far larger budgets that include charter flights to road games and, in the case of the University of San Francisco, housing for coaches.

But the shifting tectonic plates of college athletics have placed enormous financial burdens on the have-nots, and the fear at an aspirational school like UCSD is that the Tritons may have been dragged down by the Cal State Bakersfields and CSUNs had they stayed in the Big West. Incoming members Utah Valley, Cal Baptist and Sacramento State likely don’t move the needle.

UCSD does not play football, which limited its conference options. The WCC does not offer football, so that fits, although some Tritons teams (like women’s water polo and men’s volleyball) will have to find new homes.

UCSD is still interviewing athletic director candidates to replace Edwards, though the search is expected to conclude this month. Five finalists have been identified, with the favorite considered to be former UCLA swimmer Keiko Price-Carter from Division III Emory University.

U-T sports editor Ryan Finley contributed to this story.