West Coast Conference votes to add Washington State, Oregon State in non-football sports
It's official: the Gonzaga Bulldogs will have two new rivals in the West Coast Conference next season.
The WCC's leaders voted to add Oregon State and Washington State as affiliate members in most non-football sports for the 2024-25 academic year, per a report from The Athletic. An official announcement is expected on Thursday.
The two former Pac-12 schools will participate in all WCC sports except for baseball and will be eligible to compete in conference tournaments. Oregon State and Washington State will have 30 days to decide if they want to join the league for baseball as well or go independent, per The Athletic.
On Wednesday, it was reported that while adding the Cougars and Beavers, the WCC would make changes to league scheduling and conference tournament brackets. League schedules for basketball will increase from 16 games to 18 or 20, per CBS Sports. Financial payouts for units earned in the NCAA Tournament have not been revealed.
CBS Sports also reported the WCC is "still pursuing further expansion" in the next few years with the possibility that Gonzaga leaves for the Big 12 or another Big 6 league. For Oregon State and Washington State, the Mountain West Conference would be interested in having the two schools long-term for all sports once the legal and financial implications involving the fallout of the Pac-12 are resolved. The two schools already formed a scheduling agreement with the Mountain West for football, in which they'll play three Mountain West games at home and three on the road in 2024.
In the short-term, the WCC improves its quality of competition with two former power conference schools that are located along the general West Coast. The Beavers are just a few seasons removed from an Elite Eight appearance in the 2021 NCAA Tournament under head coach Wayne Tinkle. The Cougars (8-2) are off to a hot start in 2023 behind freshman guard Myles Rice. Head coach Kyle Smith is quite familiar with the WCC as a former head coach at San Francisco (2016-19).
