It means four full member schools to allow for an opportunity for the WCC to sponsor women’s water polo. But that would also probably mean adding Fresno, UC Davis, San Jose, and San Diego State so as to not hurt those teams when it comes to a conference home
For mens does’nt this mean the Big West will need to add another school in order to have 6 and get an automatic bid?
Fresno, UCI, CBU, Long Beach, UCSB + ??
Currently, the conference have three members with women’s water polo programs: LMU, UOP, and Santa Clara, right?
The Big West for the men’s side has CSU Fullerton, but that puts them one school short as Davis is joining the WCC as an affiliate
As of now the Big West men have 5 teams in 2027.
LMU, UOP, Santa Clara, and now UC San Diego will be full members which is the same number the WCC had when they sponsored men’s water polo.
Since UC Davis and San Jose State are affiliates on the men’s side its all the more reason to green light sponsoring women’s water polo
Right. This is what I thought. The confusion was because you wrote “It means five schools to allow for an opportunity for the WCC to sponsor women’s water polo” and I could not think about the fourth women’s’ program that they would currently have.
Yes that’s a typo on my part as I think I had linked Davis in there by virtue of the men’s side (I made the edit to correct this). Which I could definitely see happening on the women’s now especially with San Jose also being an affiliate!
The Big West women’s side should still be okay as they have CSUN, and Hawaii is staying as an affiliate along with other sports not sponsored by the Mountain West
UC Davis is moving to Mountain West next summer so its water polo programs had to find new homes for 2026 and beyond. Men’s program will be at WCC. Women’s polo program together with the three (soon four) WCC members will be playing in the GCC afaik.
And now with a four WCC schools, I wouldn’t be surprised if Graham has Ben in talks with his AD to make the WCC happen. The initial press release had credited UOP for spearheading the operation and with so much up in the air for sports, having a sport sponsored by a conference like WCC makes so much sense.