Introducing College Basketball's Newest Conference: The Great West

College football introduced the Great West Conference in 2004 to give transitional schools from Division II a chance to compete against teams of similar ability, as well as oppose bigger schools. Just five years later, the conference ranks 4th of 14 in the Sagarin FCS (Division I-AA) rankings.

Formerly consisting of Cal Poly, Southern Utah University, and UC-Davis, the Great West Conference welcomes NJIT, Houston Baptist, the University of Texas-Pan American, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Utah Valley University for the 2008 football season.

The GWC plans to become a basketball conference in the 2009-10 season. Cal Poly is not expected to partake in the basketball conference because they are in the Big West, a small but respectable conference. College basketball hopes that the new conference will be as successful as the GWC in college football, but the success is likely more than five years away.

In order for a conference to send their champion to the NCAA tournament as an automatic bid, the conference has to have at least seven members who have passed their transitional process into Division I, seven schools that have been in Division I for a minimum of eight years, and six schools that have played in the same league for six years.

The GWC will not meet the NCAA's requirements until 2020, as North Dakota and South Dakota begin their first Division I season this year. If, by some chance, one of the schools in the GWC produces a credible record against good teams, they could be considered for an at-large bid.

It is exciting for these schools to finally have a league to call home, but it may force the NCAA to alter the layout of March Madness. There will now be thirty-two conferences in college basketball, and it is unlikely that the NCAA will hinder an at-large bid.

There is a possibility that the NCAA will solve the problem by granting two more at-large bids to deserving teams, creating a four-game opening-round. The matchups will be similar to the present play-in-game, and the winners will oppose the number one seed in their respective bracket. No definite decision has been made yet.

Although it will be considered an upset when any GWC team beats a team from outside the GWC, the GWC will open a window of opportunity that never existed for the incoming schools.