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Sac State to Big West in 2026

SDHornet

SDHornet

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Staff member
This is deserving of its own thread as it was touched on in the realignment thread. Today marks the year long countdown until the Hornet Olympic sports depart the Big Sky Conference and arrive in the Big West Conference with like minded in-state institutions. There will be a significant step up in competition in most sports, so the Hornet coaching staffs will have their work cut out for them.




It will be interesting to see where the BW settles on travel partners, regular season and championship scheduling. JD, you're a purveyor of all things BW, what's your take on the scheduling?
 
SDHornet said:
This is deserving of its own thread as it was touched on in the realignment thread. Today marks the year long countdown until the Hornet Olympic sports depart the Big Sky Conference and arrive in the Big West Conference with like minded in-state institutions. There will be a significant step up in competition in most sports, so the Hornet coaching staffs will have their work cut out for them.




It will be interesting to see where the BW settles on travel partners, regular season and championship scheduling. JD, you're a purveyor of all things BW, what's your take on the scheduling?
Click to expand...
'arrive in the Big West Conference with hobo poor minded in-state institutions'

There, I fixed it for you. :poop:
 
Both opinions are correct, IMO. LBSU and Foolerton are fairly good in most sponsored sports, but Riverside is weak. Cal Baptist is improving, but in general the pulling up of D-IIs to replace schools that have left (i.e. those who joined the Mountain West and the WCC) have brought the overall quality of the Big West down quite a bit.

I don't like the indy route in football, though. It's going to be too hard to schedule without being overburdened on the travel end. I have a feeling (though I haven't seen any reports to this effect) that Cal and Stanford are going to come to their senses on the extended footprint thing in the ACC and go back to the Pac-whatever with their tails between their legs....
 
You guys are going to like being in the Big West for baseball..

It's a good conference in general, and should bring back football.

It's starting to become more Southern-California incestuous (they claim we can't host the regional playoff game because we're too far north) but you guys will help it spread north a bit.

Best of luck to you guys in the Big West and see you in SLO, and will try to make it up to Sacramento more.
 
The Big West is one the most most difficult conferences in the country in Baseball and gets zero respect from the committee that decides the final 64.

Usually one auto-bid team and a team that has to have a very high RPI.. It's going to be a harder road to getting a Conference auto-bid for Sac now.. You guys can do it, but again, the Big West is the Rodney Dangerfield of D-1 Baseball, we get no respect.. When it's a great Conference and one the hardest.. we're no SEC or ACC.., but they get almost their entire Conference in.. and what's worse- we are almost as good as them, and only one auto-bid usually.. it's a crime.

Hopefully we start getting more like two autobids in the future.
 
The Big West has been ranked well above the Big Sky in hoops for as long as I can remember.
(for whatever these are worth.....)

NCAA College Basketball RPI Rankings (updated today)

NCAA college basketball RPI rankings and ratings for 2025, updated daily for all teams and available historically for every day of the 2025 season.
www.teamrankings.com www.teamrankings.com

Conference NET Ranking - 2025 Men's College Basketball | WarrenNolan.com

2025 Men's College Basketball Conference NET - a ranking of conference based on the average NET Ranking of the teams in the conference.
www.warrennolan.com www.warrennolan.com

I agree, the BW is definitely a big step up in Baseball as well. I actually like this move for Sac, joining a CA conference.


The Mountain West is supposed to be better than both by far, but time will tell if the MWC is an improvement for Davis. I kinda like the Big West for Davis baseball and basketball.....but I 'ain't in charge. It's always about the $ though....
 
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I am really glad that we've landed the majority of our sports in the Big West, it's long overdue. The Big Sky was lacking quite a few sports that we offer, I always thought that Poly and Davis had the best of both worlds. It was also hard to form rivalries in the Big Sky with teams that we had little in common with. We've all had relatives, friends or coworkers that have attended Big West Schools, easier to relate to. I'm sure that with all the Big West alumni in Sacramento area and our alumni in Central and Southern California it will help boost interest and attendance. Football independence either FCS or FBS will be a challenge. Having our Olympic sports in a stable strong conference will give us a lot more flexibility to accept a football only invite offered even from a remote conference.
 
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