There is a reason why Grand Canyon University doesn’t have a football program and doesn’t intend to get one any time soon.
It’s called March Madness.
“People ask all the time why we don’t play football,” GCU President Brian Mueller said. “It’s because there is nothing at a mid-major that you can do to galvanize the community like this basketball tournament.”
March is the most exciting month of the year at GCU, a community that is spreading all over the country with the basketball team’s success. Coach Bryce Drew is taking his fourth team in the five years he’s been in Phoenix to the NCAA Tournament.
GCU, located in west Phoenix, nearly closed its doors for good in 2004, being on the verge of bankruptcy, before transforming into a for-profit school that transformed the school and its basketball program with its online program. The GCU community has grown throughout the country with more than alumni and 125,000 students studying online, Mueller said. The ground campus has 25,000 students. GCU transformed back into a non-profit in 2018.
Last year, the Lopes men’s team made history by winning their first NCAA Tournament game. Five of those impact players with the addition of former TCU starter JaKobe Coles are back for Friday’s first-round game at 1:30 p.m. against No. 4-seeded Maryland in Seattle. Coles will be playing in his fourth straight March Madness.
Last year, after shocking No. 5-seed Saint Mary’s College in the first round of the West Regional, they lost a close game to eventual Final Four team Alabama two days later.
“It’s huge,” Drew said about having a shorter trip than Maryland and likely having a home-court feel on a neutral court, making it easier for the student Havocs to come.
“Any time you can play on a neutral court but you can get a majority of the fans, it helps turn that into a home court for you. We definitely experienced that for two games in Spokane last year. It helped us. Hopefully, we’ll get the same energy in Seattle.”
GCU could join the Mountain West Conference, leaving the Western Athletic Conference, starting in the summer, if permitted under the conference’s bylaws. That will elevate the program even more. The Mountain West won’t be like the WAC, which only gets one tournament bid a year. The Mountain West last year had six teams receive NCAA Tournament bids.
This will help recruit high-major-type recruits to Phoenix. It also will help on a national level with more exposure on television.
“The TV exposure is going to go way up,” Mueller said. “I think we were on national TV twice this year. We have the chance to be on TV as many as 20 times next year.
“We like the conference that we’re in. But playing San Diego State at home is different than playing Tarleton State at home.”
It’s a big reason why Drew inked a six-year contract and bought a new home in Phoenix.
Even though Drew’s name, due to his GCU success, gets brought up as a candidate for high-major jobs that open, such as the Iowa position, he’s not going anywhere.
“He’s got a great six-year contract,” Mueller said. “He just bought a really, really nice house. He loves Phoenix. His wife loves Phoenix. He’s a strong Christ follower, and he’s at a university that he can use, that can express that as part of who he is.
“Certainly, he’s going to get mentioned when jobs like Iowa come open. But he has expressed no interest in those things this year, because I think this new contract and because of the move to the Mountain West.
“It changes everything.”
GCU’s women’s team is also shining this year. This is the women’s team’s first March Madness under coach Molly Miller, who came in at the same time as Drew to Phoenix.
Her name has been raised as a possible candidate for the vacant Arizona State job. It would be an easy transition for her, keeping her young family rooted in the Valley and joining a school that plays in the Big 12.
Miller shut down questions about that job speculation and other possible jobs, such as Arkansas in the SEC, before last week’s WAC tournament started, saying she was only locked into this season with this team.
The women’s season has been historic, beating both Arizona State and Arizona and taking the best record by percentage into the NCAA Women’s Tournament at 32-2. Miller’s team also has the nation’s longest win streak at 30. They face Big 12 Baylor on Friday at 12:30 p.m., for a first-round game as the No. 13 seed.
“We’ll see how that goes,” Mueller said about Miller. “Yeah, there’s lots of speculation. We’ve had a great season.”
GCU’s automatic NCAA men’s bid after winning the WAC tournament will result in $2 million distributed to the conference. Last year, the Mountain West got $12 million with its six bids.
“Money is important,” Mueller said. “But it’s not nearly as important as the exposure for the school. Exposure for the school will be way more than what that money means.”
Mueller said there will be student recruitment events for a couple of days this week in Washington. He said it’s part of the “leap frog” into the new conference.
This will be a major recruiting period with five key players — Tyon Grant-Foster, Ray Harrison, Collin Moore, Lok Wur and JaKobe Coles — gone after this run.
“Bryce recruited these (current) players to the Western Athletic Conference,” Mueller said. “Now he’s talking to kids we never would have been able to talk to. This is going to springboard his recruiting efforts into next year.”
Drew said this is a collaborative approach, turning the program into an annual March Madness participant.
“It’s a whole involvement from the president down,” Drew said. “The administration and students and the athletes who work hard. It makes this place special, the atmosphere that we have.”
To suggest human-interest story ideas and other news, reach Richard Obert at richard.obert@arizonarepublic.com or 602-316-8827. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter: @azc_obert
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