The Big West Conference has approved championship tournaments for baseball, softball and women's volleyball.
At The Big West's annual fall meeting of the Board of Directors held Dec. 6-8 in Irvine, the 11 CEOs of Big West institutions voted to add championship tournaments for the three sports, thus providing all 19 Big West sports with a postseason championship by 2025.
The baseball championship will be added as early as the 2025 season, making The Big West the final NCAA Division I conference to hold a postseason baseball championship. The format and location will be announced by the spring of 2023.
The Big West held conference tournaments in baseball in 1997 and 1998. Six of the eight baseball teams in the conference played in the modified double-elimination format.
The inaugural Big West softball championship will be held in 2025 with six teams in a double-elimination event. Location of the tournament will be announced later.
Beginning next fall, women's volleyball will play an 18-game conference schedule followed by a six-team championship in late November. Long Beach State will host the inaugural event, with future championship locations to be announced later.
"Adding championships in women's volleyball, softball and baseball is a tremendously exciting move for The Big West," conference commissioner Dan Butterly noted. "Expanding opportunities for our student-athletes to compete for Big West and NCAA championships is a positive step in improving the overall student-athlete experience in The Big West."
Also this week, the Board of Directors returned men's and women's basketball conference schedules to 20 games for the 2023-24 season and beyond.
The board agreed last spring to institute an 18-game conference schedule in order to take part in "Wild Card Week", a national non-conference wildcard scheduling initiative. That concept fell through and the board elected to keep the 20-game conference schedule in use since UC San Diego and CSU Bakersfield joined the Big West on July 1, 2020.
The conference season next year will begin after Christmas.
"A 20-game conference season allows The Big West to complete a true round-robin schedule heading into The Big West Basketball Championships," Butterly said. "While The Big West was fully supportive of the national non-conference scheduling idea, having two additional conference games will provide our fans access to the historic rivalries and traditions that The Big West was built upon."
The 2024 Big West Basketball Championships will be played at The Dollar Loan Center in Henderson, Nev. on March 12-16, 2024. The 2024 Big West Basketball Championships will include 20 men's and women's teams.
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