The Big West Conference will add a women’s volleyball tournament starting next season, with softball and baseball championships to follow, the conference announced on Friday.
The new championships were approved by the Big West Board of Directors at the conference’s annual fall meeting, which concluded Thursday in Irvine, Calif.
Starting next season, Big West women’s volleyball teams will play an 18-game conference schedule — down from 20 games this season — leading to a six-team championship tournament. The inaugural tournament will be hosted by Long Beach State at the Walter Pyramid on Thanksgiving weekend.
A six-team Big West softball tournament is set to debut in May 2025. The site of the double-elimination tournament will be announced at a later date.
A baseball tournament will be added “as early as 2025,” according to the release from the Big West, making the league the final NCAA Division I conference to hold a postseason tournament. The tournament site and format will be announced by the coming spring.
Women’s volleyball, softball and baseball are the last three of the Big West’s 18 sports without a postseason championship event.
“I think it’s a positive for student-athlete experience, it gives them a championship opportunity,” University of Hawaii athletic director David Matlin said. “There are some logistical things we have to work out, but we’ll figure those out with the conference.”
To this point, the Big West’s regular-season champion has been awarded the conference’s automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament in the three sports.
Hawaii has won the past three Big West women’s volleyball titles, going 19-1 this season to earn a trip to the NCAA Tournament for the 29th straight season.
Each of the Big West’s 11 teams played the other 10 in home and away games in this season’s 20-game schedule. Matlin said the new format will likely have each school playing two teams just once in the regular season.
“We’re still looking at schedule scenarios,” Matlin said. “We have to determine the methodology for that.”
Big West commissioner Dan Butterly said in an interview on KKEA, 1420-AM on Friday that Long Beach State was awarded the host role for the inaugural women’s volleyball tournament due to availability of the Walter Pyramid during a week when basketball tournaments are “dominating many of our arenas across the Big West.”
This year, UH hosted the three-day Rainbow Wahine Showdown, which included No. 2 Stanford, over Thanksgiving weekend. Butterly said the conference may also look at neutral sites for the women’s volleyball tournament.
Matlin said UH will “be interested in hosting tournaments based on schedules” in future years.
UH hosted the BWC men’s volleyball tournament the past two years and played host to last season’s women’s water polo championship. The Big West beach volleyball championship will be held in Hawaii on April 21-22.
The addition of a softball tournament has been some three decades in the making for UH coach Bob Coolen. He advocated for a Big West tournament when he was hired in 1991. UH played in the Western Athletic Conference from 1995 to 2012 and hosted the conference tournament in 2008, claiming the title in 2010 in Las Cruces, N.M. He again proposed a tournament after UH’s return to the Big West in 2013.
“It means the world,” Coolen said of seeing a postseason tournament now on the horizon.
“That’s a great competitive mode and mindset for our players. … This will add excitement at the end now. This is something our players will be able to fight for the whole year.”
Coolen said Cal State Fullerton would be the most likely campus site for a softball tournament, with neutral site options also available in Irvine.
