The Mountain West/PAC-? War was always solely about football until Gonzaga entered the fold. This week, the college basketball blueblood left the non-football West Coast Conference for the PAC-(?).
Additionally, the Big West Conference could lose its island castoff, Hawaii. The Rainbow Warriors began discussing full membership with its football home, the Mountain West. Thus, the West Coast's two preeminent non-football Division I conferences could lose members. Luckily, there is a program in both conferences' footprints that is a valid candidate.
Once again, the Western Athletic Conference faces an existential crisis. The conference has seven members entering the 2025 academic year. Programs exited en masse following the increasingly unrealistic dream of an FBS promotion of the entire United Athletic Conference. California Baptist University remains in a WAC that returns to its 2013-2019 state, a sprawling shadow of itself lacking an identity. Gonzaga's exit and Hawaii's potential joining of the Mountain West for Olympic sports present a life raft for California Baptist.
The Lancers are a natural fit for the Big West and West Coast Conference with their Riverside, California location. The Lancers can compete immediately in men's basketball in the Big West, but moving from the WAC to the West Coast Conference is a tremendous step up in competition in basketball, but the Lancers can adjust. The table below shows how the Lancers' men's basketball RPI since 2021 compares with the rest of the West Coast Conference.
An outstanding women's basketball program is the prize that California Baptist brings to both conferences. The Lancers have dominated WAC play since moving to Division I in 2020. In 2020-21, the Lady Lancers went 26-1 and won the WAC Tournament. However, the NCAA's dreaded reclassification rules barred the California Baptist ladies from the NCAA tournament. Three years later, the Lancers finally made the Big Dance with a 28-4 record. In 2023, the Lancers made the Women's Basketball Invitational. In 2021, they made the Women's NIT. The Lady Lancers can make the West Coast Conference a two-bid women's basketball conference with perennial power Gonzaga, who was a five-seed or higher in the 2019, 2021, and 2024 tournaments. On the other hand, Cal Baptist can earn the Big West units in an increasingly profitable women's basketball landscape. Women's basketball is an even more important player in conference realignment after the value of the women's tournament increased ten times to 65 million per year under the new NCAA Championships deal.
However, adding Cal Baptist has its drawbacks. The West Coast Conference will have ten members after Gonzaga's departure, while the Big West will have the same amount should Hawaii leave for the Mountain West. The Lancers do not have enough pull to make both conferences uneven and complicate scheduling. The West Coast Conference and Big West have several members in Southern California. The Lancers would just become another school to share revenue without creating a substantial increase.
The Big West is not the best fit for Cal Baptist. Every institution in the conference is a public school. While other conferences mix religious institutions with public institutions, the different institutional goals of Cal Baptist could create some conflicts within one of Division I's most stable leagues. If anything, the Big West could become a launchpad to the West Coast Conference for the Lancers should another school leave.
Cal Baptist must leave the WAC. The WAC lacks stability and could be down another member if Conference USA makes its long-awaited call to Tarleton State. The Lancers are a logical fit for both the Big West and West Coast Conference, but Cal Baptist needs both conferences more than they need the Lancers. Nonetheless, the Lancers deserve consideration. The Lancers' departure could be an unexpected but wholesome turn in this Western realignment saga.
