There is no student section in America quite like the Havocs. Seven thousand strong, camping out for big games, choreographing chants and turning every night at Global Credit Union Arena into a wall of purple sound. They're the engine of the Grand Canyon phenomenon — the university that reinvented itself in Phoenix and brought a basketball-mad student body along for the ride. And in 2025-26, the Lopes took that phenomenon somewhere new: the Mountain West, a year ahead of schedule, where they promptly authored the best debut season in league history.
The move was supposed to wait. GCU had announced a jump to the West Coast Conference, then flipped to the Mountain West in July 2025 — and then accelerated the timeline, playing the 2025-26 season in the MW instead of the WAC. Skeptics wondered whether the Lopes' WAC dominance would translate. The answer was emphatic: 20-12 overall, 13-7 in the Mountain West, tied for third. No school had ever finished above .500 in its MW debut, won more than seven league games, or placed higher than fifth. GCU shattered all three marks, splitting the season series with champion Utah State and sweeping second-place San Diego State. The Lopes didn't just join the Mountain West. They announced themselves as its future.
The architect is Bryce Drew, now entering his seventh season in Phoenix. If the name rings a bell, it should: Drew hit "The Shot" — the buzzer-beating three that sent Valparaiso past Ole Miss in the 1998 NCAA tournament, one of March's immortal moments. As a coach, he's been a program-builder everywhere: 304-160 for his career, with three NCAA tournament trips at GCU (2021, 2023, 2024) and the WAC turned into a personal fiefdom. The 2023-24 team was the peak of the WAC era: 30 wins, the program's first outright WAC regular-season title, the WAC tournament crown, and the 12-over-5 upset of No. 5 Saint Mary's — the first NCAA tournament victory in school history. That win, carried by the Havocs' energy across the country, was the coronation of everything GCU had bet on.
The 2025-26 season had its own hero: Jaden Henley, the senior transfer who poured in 17.7 points per game and earned first-team all-conference honors, carrying an offense that needed a go-to scorer every night. The campaign ended in the Mountain West tournament quarterfinals with a loss to Nevada at the Thomas & Mack Center — and with no postseason bid, as the MW sent only Utah State to the NCAAs (the Aggies lost to Arizona in the second round). It stung. But the debut season's message was bigger than one March weekend: GCU belongs in this league, and the league knows it.
Now comes the fascinating part. The 2026-27 Mountain West is a depleted league — Utah State, Boise State, San Diego State, Colorado State and Fresno State all left for the new Pac-12, and Utah State is starting over under new coach Ben Jacobson (the longtime Northern Iowa coach). The remaining members — Air Force, Hawai'i, Nevada, New Mexico, San José State, UNLV, UTEP, Wyoming and GCU — form a wide-open race. And the Lopes, in just their second MW season, are the projected preseason favorite to win it. From WAC flagship to MW favorite in two years: that's the speed of the GCU ascent.
The roster churns, as every roster does in the portal era. Gone are Tyon Grant-Foster — the 2023-24 WAC Player of the Year (20.1 points per game) who exhausted his eligibility and took a graduate transfer to Gonzaga — along with JaKobe Coles, Ray Harrison, Collin Moore and Lök Wur to graduation, and Duke Brennan to the portal. But Drew's pitch hasn't changed: come play in front of the Havocs, in a 7,000-seat arena that's one of college basketball's great atmospheres, for a program that wins. The noise, the choreography, the sheer numbers — it's an identity no marketing department could buy, and it's the program's best recruiting tool.
The backstory remains one of the sport's great reinventions. Grand Canyon University went from for-profit college to Phoenix's basketball school in a decade: the campus investment, the enrollment boom, and the basketball obsession grew together. The university bet big on hoops — the arena, the atmosphere, the ambition — and hoops paid off: three NCAA trips in four years, a tournament win, and now a power-conference-adjacent home in the Mountain West with a preseason favorite tag.
What defines Grand Canyon is the phenomenon: the Havocs' roar, the 2024 Saint Mary's stunner, the record-shattering MW debut, and the West's wildest rise. The Lopes' story is ambition realized — a program barely a decade into Division I that now expects to win its league. The next March chapter isn't a hope in Phoenix. It's the plan.