Goodbye Sioux Falls, hello San Francisco.

The Denver Pioneers are taking a step up in competition, the university believes, as it gets set to depart the Summit League for the West Coast Conference beginning July 1, 2026.

“This represents a significant step in the journey to elevate the University of Denver’s athletics, institutional reputation, national visibility and excellence,” chancellor Jeremy Haefner said. “This alignment positions DU among the many nationally-respected universities in the West Coast Conference. It’s in critical cities in the west that our students and alumni call home and in media platforms that will have massive reach to viewers across the countries, but I’m particularly excited that Denver and the West Coast Conference share deep alignment in vision and values.

“Joining the West Coast Conference is a statement about who we are and where we are headed. A university defined by excellence, purpose and the pursuit of greatness inside and outside the classroom.”

Nine DU athletics programs will be part of the move: men’s and women’s basketball, men’s and women’s golf, men’s and women’s soccer, men’s and women’s tennis and women’s volleyball. The hockey (NCHC), gymnastics (Big 12), men’s and women’s lacrosse (Big East), and the men’s and women’s skiing (RMISA) programs will remain in their respective conferences.

The Pioneers are somewhat replacing basketball powerhouse Gonzaga University, which is moving to the Pac-12 in 2026-27.

Perhaps the move will help elevate the DU men’s basketball program, which has struggled immensely to sustain a winner. The Pioneers haven’t finished with a winning record since 2016-17 (16-14) and first-year coach Tim Bergstraser is their fourth coach in 10 years. 

Plus, road trips to San Diego and Malibu are a more appetizing recruiting pitch than weekends in Fargo, N.D., and Vermillion, S.D. The WCC hosts its annual basketball tournaments in Las Vegas.

“Certainly, if you look at our portfolio of sports, the opportunity that hasn’t been capitalized on yet is in the basketball space,” DU athletic director Josh Berlo said. “We feel like we’ve got some momentum in those programs and the timing of transition could be very strong.”

As part of the announcement, Berlo also said DU is going to begin upgrading the seating inside Hamilton Gymnasium, where the basketball programs currently play their home games, as well as retro-fitting the accompanying Magness Arena inside the Ritchie Center to once again host basketball games.

“We’re really going to let the demand dictate where we play, but there’s been an intense focus on taking the Ritchie Center into the next 25-50 years,” Berlo said. “It’s an incredible facility, it was well ahead of its time when it was constructed, it has stood the test of time thus far, but it is also appropriate at this juncture to invest in that space and it’s something we’ve looked at and something the institution is committed to as we walk together with this journey in the West Coast Conference. 

“I think you’re gonna see some things happening pretty quickly here, among other support for the basketball (programs) as they elevate their level of competition.”

DU men’s basketball actually opens its season and the Bergstraser era on Monday on the road against a future WCC foe in Seattle.

“We’re excited to have our first measuring stick under the new leadership of Coach Bergstraser,” Berlo said. “He was pumped, he was fired up. We’re gonna get to learn pretty quickly how we match up with some West Coast Conference foes.”

From a university standpoint, DU fits the WCC, a league of smaller private schools that largely don’t fund football programs. Denver’s undergraduate enrollment is around 6,600, while schools like the University of San Diego (5,851), Santa Clara (6,484) and San Francisco (5,321) are similarly sized. The Pioneers also have strong alumni bases in all of the major metropolitan regions on the west coast.

“Put simply, the West Coast Conference and the University of Denver are a natural fit. It’s an institutional fit, it’s a geographical fit and it’s a fit for the pursuit of excellence,” Berlo said. “Getting to these markets is exciting. Using the opportunity of our sports teams being in these markets to host alumni gatherings, we want to have more Denver fans in the arenas of our competitors than they want to be there.”