Welcome to the Big West Banter

Celebrating one of the few sensible conferences left in the country

For those not familiar with the Big West Conference, it is a quiet west coast mid-major with a sensible geographic footprint and (nearly) all California members, stretching from UC San Diego in the south up to UC Davis in the north.  The outlier is Hawaii which, all things considered, is not a bad place to visit once a year.  More than half of the schooIs are in Southern California.  The inherent strengths of the conference are its relative stability and, outside of the jaunt to Hawaii, easy travel.  With its current member schools, the men’s basketball history lacks the Cinderella storylines some other mid-major conferences can boast of. The most consistently successful program of the past decade has been UC Irvine which owns one of the only two non-first-four NCAA tournament wins the conference has had in the past 20 odd years, the other being Hawaii in 2016.

My name is Greg Ford (@gauchohoopsfan). I am a UCSB alum and have been an avid Gaucho fan since my days there in the late 80s/early 90s when the Thunderdome truly roared in the heydays of Big Mondays and the glory years of UNLV, the top dog in the Big West then. Through the years, I’ve become very familiar with all the Big West schools and have found myself rooting for these schools when not playing UCSB. Well, maybe not so much Long Beach but that is understandable ;-).

This site is just a hobby for me and I am not sure exactly what direction it will go but it will have a decided focus on men’s hoops. For the past few years I have done a preview of Big West men’s basketball and posted that on the Big West message board. I’ve moved it here because I think a dedicated website might be easier to read longer content than a post on a message board. Note that this website has absolutely zero official connection to the Big West Conference, part of the reason I chose an old-school logo to represent this site. I am simply a fan and all opinions are my own.

The countdown starts tomorrow, October 12, 2024 with a recap of last year and a brief look at the top players for the upcoming season. So if you’ve found your way here, feel free to follow along.