Great West Conference

The Great West Conference is an NCAA college athletic conference in the continental USA. Originally a football-only league, it became an all-sports entity during the 2008-09 season. The GWC stopped sponsoring football following the 2011 season.

History
Cal Poly, North Dakota State, Northern Colorado, South Dakota State, Southern Utah, and UC Davis inaugurated the Great West Football Conference during the 2004 season. St. Mary's (CA) was originally slated to join as well, but then dropped the sport six months before the league started play. In 2005, Cal Poly became the first GWFC team ever selected to participate in the NCAA Division I-AA (now FCS) playoffs.

Northern Colorado departed the Great West for the Big Sky Conference in every sport as of the 2006 football season and 2006-07 academic year. On March 7, 2007, North Dakota State and South Dakota State announced that they would leave the GWFC after the 2007 football season, and join the Gateway Football Conference as of 2008. By the time the two schools actually made the switch, the Gateway had renamed itself the Missouri Valley Football Conference. The duo also placed their other sports, which were then independent, in the Summit League as of the 2008-09 academic year.

On August 2, 2007, North Dakota and South Dakota announced that they would join the Great West Football Conference as of the 2008 season. This agreement allowed the total number of GWFC programs to remain consistent at five, while also retaining the same geographic footprint.

On July 10, 2008, it was made official through a series of press conferences that the Great West would soon transition from a football-only league into an all-sports conference. The charter members included North Dakota, South Dakota, New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT), Houston Baptist, Texas-Pan American, and Utah Valley. On October 22, 2008, Chicago State announced plans to join the newly rechristened GWC as well. Seattle was initially considering membership, but in mid-2011 accepted an invitation to instead join the WAC as of the 2012-13 academic year.

The expanded version of the Great West officially began playing a limited number of sports in the fall of 2008. Despite not sponsoring conference schedules in team sports (except football), the league began awarding "Player of the Week" honors to student-athletes in every sport during the 2008-09 season. The Great West featured championships in men's and women's cross country, men's and women's indoor track and field, men's and women's outdoor track and field, men's and women's golf, and women's tennis during the 2008-09 academic year. In 2009-10, regular season schedules and championship tournaments were implemented in women's volleyball, women's soccer, men's and women's basketball, baseball, and softball.

Due to its newness, the league does not currently have an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament, but the Great West Conference men's basketball tournament champion receives an automatic bid to the CollegeInsider.com Postseason Tournament (CIT), while the women's basketball tournament winners head to the Women's Basketball Invitational (WBI), provided they are not selected as an at-large bid to the NIT.

In April 2010, South Dakota publicized intentions to join the Summit League for all sports but football, effective as of the 2011-12 academic year. Seven months later, in November 2010, the school would announce a commitment to the MVFC for football as of the 2012 season. In September 2010, Cal Poly and UC Davis announced that they would join the Big Sky Conference for football by 2012. Then, in November 2010, Southern Utah and North Dakota announced that they would join the Big Sky for all sports by 2012. South Dakota was considering the Big Sky as well, thus canceling the Summit League commitment, before the MVFC offered football-only membership.

With these moves, all football programs would soon leave the Great West, and the league stopped sponsoring the sport following the 2011 season. South Dakota stepped down to football-only status during the 2011-12 academic year, allowing the league to retain five teams in its final season on the gridiron. Overall the conference lost two full members—South Dakota and North Dakota—and six affiliates by the fall of 2012. The affiliate teams were Cal Poly, UC Davis, and Southern Utah in football; Nebraska-Omaha in softball; as well as multi-sport partners Cal State Bakersfield and Seattle.

In November 2011, Houston Baptist reached an agreement to join the Southland Conference as of the 2013-14 academic year. The school also unveiled plans to begin sponsoring football. In September 2012, Utah Valley announced plans to join the Western Athletic Conference for the 2013-14 season. At the beginning of December 2012, UTPA has announced that had received an invitation to join the WAC for 2013-14 school year. On December 5, 2012, Chicago State announced that it would also join the WAC in 2013-14, and two weeks later, UTPA accepted their invitation.

This sudden wave of defections left NJIT as the only full member of the Great West Conference. This places the future of the league as an all-sports conference in serious doubt, along with the baseball alignment of NJIT and NYIT. However, barring further changes, the women's soccer grouping of NJIT, Delaware State, Howard, and South Carolina State remains viable with four women's soccer playing entities.

Current members

 * Houston Baptist University will join the Southland Conference as of July 1, 2013.
 * Chicago State University, University of Texas-Pan American and Utah Valley University will join the Western Athletic Conference on July 1, 2013.

Affiliate members

 * Notes
 * 1) Northern Colorado left the Great West after the 2006 football season but returned as a baseball affiliate in 2009.
 * 2) North Dakota left the Great West in all sports after the 2011-12 academic year, but remains as a baseball affiliate.
 * 3) Cal State Bakersfield and Nebraska–Omaha were affiliates in women's tennis and softball, respectively, during the spring of 2012.
 * * California State University, Bakersfield will join the Western Athletic Conference on July 1, 2013 for all sports.
 * ** University of Northern Colorado and University of North Dakota will join the Western Athletic Conference as an affiliate member for baseball on July 1, 2013.

Membership timeline
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Basketball champions
In 2010, the Great West Conference sponsored men's and women's basketball championship tournaments for the first time. Both events were held in Orem, Utah, at the UCCU Center, home of Utah Valley University. The top-seeded men from the South Dakota reaffirmed their regular season success with a 91-86 title game victory over runner-up Houston Baptist. On the women's side, Utah Valley took advantage of the crowd's support, as the number six seeds upset their way to the crown by wrapping up the stunning run with a 70-62 triumph over regular season winners North Dakota.

The Great West tournaments returned to the UCCU Center for an encore in 2011, and third-seeded North Dakota claimed the men's championship after a 77-76 double overtime thriller against South Dakota, which was seeded fourth. Regular season winners Chicago State remained true to form in the women's bracket, outlasting third seeds North Dakota by a score of 74-66.

In 2012, the Great West tournaments shifted to the Emil and Patricia Jones Convocation Center at Chicago State University. North Dakota became the league's first back-to-back champs, as the second seeds enjoyed a 75-50 victory over fourth-seeded NJIT in the men's final. The weekend would end with a clean sweep for North Dakota, as the program's top-seeded women knocked off regular season runners-up Utah Valley 69-56 to claim their maiden league title.

The Great West Conference does not have an automatic bid to the NCAA Men or Women's College Tournament as of 2012, but the men's champions do receive automatic selection to the CollegeInsider.com Postseason Tournament, while their female counterparts head to the Women's Basketball Invitational.

Baseball champions
The Great West Conference sponsored its inaugural baseball championship tournament in 2010, and has held the event in different cities during its first three years of existence. The league has also experimented with formats, using pool play in 2010, but a traditional double elimination bracket in 2011 and 2012. Utah Valley has claimed every regular season and tournament championship in the short history of the conference. As in other sports, the Great West does not have an automatic bid to the NCAA Division I Baseball Championship. The league also has yet to earn an at-large invitation.

Other champions
In addition to formerly sponsoring football; while continuing to sponsor men's basketball, women's basketball, and baseball; the Great West Conference sponsors many other sports. The GWC held its own men's golf championship in 2009, but the league's members decided to compete under the banner of the older and larger America Sky Men's Golf Conference starting in 2010, even though the option existed to hold a smaller Great West tournament and then participate in the America Sky event as well. Making men's tennis a league sport was also under discussion, but it never happened because only three schools—Chicago State, NJIT, and Texas Pan-American—had teams as of the 2012 season.

Facilities
Each full member of the Great West Conference has an on-campus basketball arena. Seating capacities range between 1,500 and 8,500. The full members are joined by three affiliates in baseball, forming an eight-team league. In women's soccer, the presence of three affiliates helped create a six-team league.

Softball previously had four members, with Nebraska-Omaha replacing South Dakota for the 2012 season, but North Dakota and Nebraska-Omaha departed at the conclusion of that campaign. This leaves just Houston Baptist and Utah Valley, with no future alignment announced as of August 2012.


 * Pink indicates future departing members.