By Jeff Faraudo
When Randy Bennett was hired as men’s basketball head coach at Saint Mary’s in 2001, he had more to overcome than inheriting a team that was 2-27 the year before. Recalling the state of the facility known then as McKeon Pavilion, Bennett acknowledged, “It was pretty much a high school gym.”
But as the Gaels blossomed from a program that enjoyed only sporadic success in the West Coast Conference to a national power that has earned 11 NCAA Tournament berths over the past 20 years, their basketball facility also has transformed.
The changes weren’t always dramatic but each one made the old gym a little better. The facility became the University Credit Union Pavilion in 2019 and since then the Gaels did a major behind-the-scenes renovation with new locker rooms, coaches offices, weight room and a state-of-the-art sports medicine center to serve all of the university’s athletes.
“It’s a pretty cool gym now,” Bennett said.
Chris Callahan, President at the University of the Pacific and chair for the West Coast Conference Presidents’ Council, likes the trend he’s seeing throughout the league.
“Saint Mary’s, that gym is completely transformed. And all the ancillary support is absolutely first rate,” Callahan said. “We’re seeing that over and over again. We need to do that. We want to be competitive as a conference.
“The West Coast Conference is a basketball conference and more and more we see our member schools really investing in their coaches and their teams, but also in their facilities,” he added. “When you look at the basketball-centric conferences, I feel like we’re right there. Investing in the facilities is really critical and I think it’s been a long time coming for a lot of these schools.”
Here are four of the most significant current or recent projects across the conference:
— San Diego last April opened its new $35 million Basketball Performance Center. The two-story, 28,000-square foot complex features a full basketball court, an additional shooting court, weight room, sports medicine and hydrotherapy facility, coaches’ offices, locker rooms, player lounge and film room. “It’s a game-changer, and I don’t say that lightly,” USD athletic director Kimya Massey said. “I’ve been around the West Coast a long time and I think it’s one of the best of the best.”
— LMU undertook a $15 million renovation of the West Wing at Gersten Pavilion with the unveiling in September of its Academic Success Center. The Lions also renovated administrative offices, and moved basketball offices into Gersten, along with the training table and film rooms for basketball. “For all of our athletes, the academic center is as good or better than anyone in the conference,” athletic director Craig Pintens said.
— Pacific is completing construction of its $11 million Student-Athlete and Sports Medicine Center that will include locker rooms for men’s and women’s basketball and volleyball, and a sports medicine rehab space for all of the Tigers’ sports teams. At 15,682-square feet, it’s nearly triple the size of their current facility. “It has all the bells and whistles,” said Pacific athletic director Adam Tschuour, and is scheduled to open next summer.
— Pepperdine is in the midst of implementing a four-phase, $150 million project that will be headlined by The Mountain at Mullin Park, a 3,600-seat basketball facility situated in the heart of campus. It will replace Firestone Fieldhouse, the Waves’ basketball home since the university moved to Malibu in 1972. “We’re building what will be one of the best college arenas on the West Coast, if not in the country,” Pepperdine athletic director Tanner Gardner said.
The Waves already have opened a new parking garage to serve the arena, and a practice gym and student recreation center are also in the works. The Mountain at Mullin Park is expected to be complete by next November, in time for the 2026-27 basketball season.
West Coast Conference Commissioner Stu Jackson said he’s encouraged by the level of commitment schools in the league are showing toward improving facilities for basketball.
“Many student-athletes in this new world of college basketball are focused on revenue benefits, but if you don’t have those facilities and amenities, you really can’t become part of the conversation,” Jackson said. “So, it helps tremendously to see the way our schools are investing overall.”
First-year San Diego women’s basketball head coach Blanche Alverson was the associate head coach at Georgia Tech when she visited the Toreros’ campus last spring to interview for their coaching vacancy. There were a lot of reasons the job appealed to her, but the Basketball Performance Center was “the cherry on top.”
She is convinced elevated facilities can help translate to more success in recruiting. “It sends a message that USD is really investing in basketball and is able to compete in that space nationally now,” she said. “In recruiting, it is still keeping up with the Joneses in a lot of ways.”
Already Alverson has witnessed how recruits visiting campus respond. “They realize, `I’m going to be able to compete here. I’m going to have all the resources I need — weight room, training room, our own basketball practice facility,’“ she said. “It’s definitely made a lot of recruits realize, USD is a place they really want to consider.”
At Saint Mary’s, Bennett said a key to the Gaels’ ability to develop the setup they needed was the construction of a student recreation center on campus, which houses intramurals and classes. That enabled the men’s and women’s basketball programs to take possession of historic Madigan Gym, built in 1928, and modernize it into a fully equipped practice gym.
Elsewhere, San Francisco completed substantial upgrades four years ago to War Memorial Gym, originally constructed in 1958. Improvements to the Sobrato Center included a VIP seating area for guests, seismic retrofitting, a digital scoreboard and improved lighting. The facility also serves as meeting spaces for a range of campus groups and activities. In 2023, the Dons also opened the new Malloy Pavilion, a 7,400-foot practice facility that’s situated alongside War Memorial.
Santa Clara opened the Leavey Center back in 2002, and the 4,200-seat facility has seen upgrades in recent years. The Broncos installed a center-hung video board two years ago. Locker rooms were renovated and this year they opened a brand new team lounge and film room. In 2022, Santa Clara also opened the Stephen C. and Patricia A. Schott Athletic Excellence Center, a state-of-the-art facility for sports performance and sports medicine that also includes the Stevens Academic Center.
At Portland, the Chiles Foundation presented the university with a $5 million gift in 2023 to provide short- and long-term improvements to the Chiles Center, the Pilots’ basketball home since 1983.
Many of the projects benefit the entire campus, not merely the basketball program. That includes Pepperdine’s Mountain at Mullin Park arena, which is the largest capital project ever done on the Malibu grounds.
“In terms of what this will mean for the campus, it’s truly transformative,” Gardner said. “It’s located adjacent to all the student housing so we believe it’s going to be a place where students gather for all sorts of activities. There’s going to be a rec center, something we’ve really never had here in substantial form. That alone is going to have a tremendous impact for all of our students.”
Likewise, Pacific’s new sports medicine center, funded entirely through community philanthropy, will have enough space to allow students in related academic fields to shadow the athletics medical staff for real-world training.
“It’s a big deal, not just for our student-athletes,” said Tschuour. “We have one of the most fantastic athletic training staffs, but we also have a terrific undergraduate and graduate program in athletic training and physical therapy. We partner with them on a lot of stuff.”
Massey said he has gotten valuable feedback from student-athletes on what it means to have the new Basketball Performance Center. “We have a few guys on our team who were at Power Five schools and they said this is way better than what they had.”
Pintens said LMU has boasted a strong athletic department-wide GPA and graduate rate. “At the same time, we didn’t have a good sense of community for them because we didn’t have an adequate space.” The upgraded facility features individual study rooms, computer rooms, small group study areas and a players’ lounge.
Pintens shared that since the new academic center opened in September, the few recruits who have so far made visits “all have been blown away by our facilities.”
Seattle U has had a partnership with Climate Pledge Arena, an NBA-ready facility minutes from campus that was renovated and re-opened in fall of 2021. The Redhawks have been playing select games there each year since it re-opened during the 2021-22 season. Seattle U also opened the Wright Family Athletic Performance Center last fall, providing a state-of-the-art performance training facility on campus. Seattle U athletics director Shaney Fink said at the time of its opening “The Wright Family Athletic Performance Center reflects Seattle University's commitment to competitive excellence through student athlete-centered initiatives that focus on performance and well-being. By providing Redhawk student athletes with a state-of-the-art performance center, we are empowering our athletes with the resources necessary to achieve their aspirations."
Callahan said Denver and UC San Diego, which will join the West Coast Conference as competing members over the next two academic years, both are committed to making more investments in their basketball programs.
“I’m just so proud of this conference in large part because we’ve leaned into who we are,” he said. “I came from Power Four schools. It’s very different. Here, in a high-qualify mid-major without football, we can really focus more on the student-athlete experience, on the fan experience, and on all of our sports but particularly on basketball. It’s really exciting to see.”