Grand Canyon brings new dynamic to Mountain West

The Lopes gain admission a year earlier than originally planned

Grand Canyon Antelopes head coach Bryce Drew. | Steven Bisig-Imagn Images

San Diego State will have some familiar company in its last season in the Mountain West Conference.

Grand Canyon University is joining the MW a year earlier than originally planned, with the two sides finalizing an agreement for GCU to join this fall rather than in 2026-27. 

The accelerated move came about because GCU faced the prospect of not having a conference affiliation for 2025-26. The Lopes left the Western Athletic Conference for the West Coast Conference effective in 2025-26. But with five schools — including SDSU — leaving the MW for the rebuilding Pac-12, the Lopes and the MW were quick to make this move. 

“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 in a release. “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.”

SDSU, Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State and Utah State are leaving the MW effective July 1, 2026, to join Pac-12 holdovers Oregon State and Washington State, as well as Gonzaga and Texas State. Texas State was officially added last week to give the new-look Pac-12 eight teams in football. While Gonzaga gives the Pac-12 a national basketball powerhouse, the Zags don’t play football.

GCU doesn’t play football, either. It reportedly will be added to MW schedules in all other sports.

With the addition of the Lopes, the MW will have 12 teams playing men’s basketball. The league went to a fully balanced, 20-game schedule last season, but is expected to go back to an unbalanced schedule for 2025-26.

GCU has played in the NCAA Tournament four of the last five seasons, reaching the second round in 2024. The Lopes are coached by Bryce Drew, best known for his dramatic buzzer-beating 3-pointer for 13th-seeded Valparaiso against No. 4 Ole Miss in the first round of the 1998 NCAA Tournament. 

SDSU is 1-4 against GCU in basketball, including a painful 79-73 upset loss on Dec. 5, 2023 in Phoenix. The Lopes earned their first-ever win against a Top 25 opponent, and the Aztecs got the full blast of the GCU student section, known as the Havocs, in the bandbox Global Credit Union Arena. That was the season after the Aztecs reached the national championship game before losing to UConn.