Great Midwest Conference

History

The conference was formed in 1990 with six members: Cincinnati and Memphis State (now Memphis) from the Metro Conference, UAB from the Sun Belt Conference, Marquette and Saint Louis from the Midwestern Collegiate Conference (now the Horizon League), and independent DePaul. Dayton joined in 1993. Cleveland State and Detroit-Mercy had some interest from coaches, while Louisville and Tulane were heavily favored by athletic directors.

In 1995, six of the schools in the Great Midwest (except for Dayton, who joined the Atlantic 10 Conference) joined with UNC Charlotte, Louisville, Southern Mississippi, Tulane, and South Florida of the Metro and Houston of the dissolving Southwest Conference and formed Conference USA.

Chronological timeline

• 1990 – The Great Midwest Conference was founded. Charter members included the University of Cincinnati and Memphis State University (now the University of Memphis) from the Metro Conference, the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) from the Sun Belt Conference, Marquette University and Saint Louis University from the Midwestern Collegiate Conference (now the Horizon League), and D-I Independent DePaul University, effective beginning the 1990–91 academic year.
• 1993 – University of Dayton joined the Great Midwest, effective in the 1993–94 academic year.
• 1995 – The Great Midwest ceased operations as an athletic conference, effective after the 1994–95 academic year; as many schools left to join their respective new home primary conferences, effective beginning the 1995–96 academic year: Cincinnati, DePaul, Marquette, Memphis, Saint Louis and UAB joined with the Metro Conference schools to form Conference USA, while Dayton joined the Atlantic 10 Conference (A-10).

Member schools

Final members

;Notes:

• Dayton and Saint Louis are in the Atlantic 10 Conference
• Following the July 2013 split of the original Big East Conference into two leagues, DePaul and Marquette moved to the new, non-football conference that retained the Big East name, while Cincinnati remained in the football-sponsoring former conference, now named the American Athletic Conference.
• At the time of the Big East split, Memphis moved from CUSA to The American.

Membership timeline

DateFormat = yyyy ImageSize = width:1000 height:auto barincrement:20 Period = from:1991 till:2025 TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal PlotArea = right:20 left:0 bottom:50 top:5 # to display a count on left side of graph, use "left:20" to suppress the count, use "left:20" Colors = id:barcolor value:rgb(0.99,0.7,0.7) id:line value:black id:bg value:white

id:Full value:rgb(0.742,0.727,0.852) # Use this color to denote a team that is a member in all sports id:FullxF value:rgb(0.551,0.824,0.777) # Use this color to denote a team that is a member in all sports except for football id:AssocF value:rgb(0.98,0.5,0.445) # Use this color to denote a team that is a member for football only id:AssocOS value:rgb(0.5,0.691,0.824) # Use this color to denote a team that is a member in some sports, but not all (consider identifying in legend or a footnote) id:OtherC1 value:rgb(0.996,0.996,0.699) # Use this color to denote a team that has moved to another conference id:OtherC2 value:rgb(0.988,0.703,0.383) # Use this color to denote a team that has moved to another conference where OtherC1 has already been used, to distinguish the two

PlotData= width:15 textcolor:black shift:(5,-5) anchor:from fontsize:s

bar:1 color:FullxF from:1991 till:1995 text:Cincinnati (1991–1995) bar:1 color:OtherC1 from:1995 till:2005 text:C-USA bar:1 color:OtherC2 from:2005 till:2013 text:Big East (1st) bar:1 color:OtherC1 from:2013 till:2023 text:American bar:1 color:OtherC2 from:2023 till:end text:Big 12

bar:2 color:FullxF from:1991 till:1995 text:DePaul (1991–1995) bar:2 color:OtherC1 from:1995 till:2005 text:C-USA bar:2 color:OtherC2 from:2005 till:2013 text:Big East (1st) bar:2 color:OtherC1 from:2013 till:end text:Big East

bar:3 color:FullxF from:1991 till:1995 text:Marquette (1991–1995) bar:3 color:OtherC1 from:1995 till:end text:C-USA bar:3 color:OtherC2 from:2005 till:2013 text:Big East (1st) bar:3 color:OtherC1 from:2013 till:end text:Big East

bar:4 color:FullxF from:1991 till:1995 text:Memphis (1991–1995) bar:4 color:OtherC1 from:1995 till:2013 text:C-USA bar:4 color:OtherC2 from:2013 till:end text:American

bar:5 color:FullxF from:1991 till:1995 text:Saint Louis (1991–1995) bar:5 color:OtherC1 from:1995 till:2005 text:C-USA bar:5 color:OtherC2 from:2005 till:end text:Atlantic 10

bar:6 color:FullxF from:1991 till:1995 text:UAB (1991–1995) bar:6 color:OtherC1 from:1995 till:2023 text:C-USA bar:6 color:OtherC2 from:2023 till:end text:American

bar:7 shift:(-40) color:FullxF from:1993 till:1995 text:Dayton (1993–1995) bar:7 color:OtherC1 from:1995 till:end text:Atlantic 10

ScaleMajor = gridcolor:line unit:year increment:2 start:1991

TextData = fontsize:L textcolor:black pos:(300,30) # tabs:(0-center) text:"Great Midwest Conference Membership History"

Championships

Main article: Great Midwest Conference men's basketball tournament

The following were the locations of the GMC men's basketball tournament.

• 1992: Chicago Stadium; Chicago, Illinois
• 1993: The Pyramid; Memphis, Tennessee
• 1994: Shoemaker Center; Cincinnati, Ohio
• 1995: Bradley Center; Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Men's basketball

Cincinnati won all four years from 1992 to 1995.

Women's basketball

• 1992: DePaul
• 1993: DePaul
• 1994: UAB
• 1995: Marquette

Baseball

The Great Midwest also held a baseball tournament for each of its four years to varying coverage.

• 1992: UAB
• 1993: Memphis State
• 1994: UAB
• 1995: Memphis State

References

References

1. NCAA. (2005). "Florida Gators basketball". University of Florida.
2. Ledbetter, Darryl O.. (November 30, 1993). "UWM, UWGB leaving?; Midwestern Collegiate makes plans to expand". The Milwaukee Journal.
3. https://uabsports.com/documents/2025/7/30/Record_Book_as_of_June_2025.pdf {{Bare URL PDF. (November 2025)