Chicago State will join the Western Athletic Conference in 2013.

The WAC will no longer compete as a FBS conference after this season. However, WAC commissioner Jeff Hurd had previously told ESPN that the league will continue as a Division I conference in all other sports.

"It's huge for us," Chicago State men's basketball coach Tracy Dildy said. "It puts us in a legit conference. It now levels the playing field as far as recruiting and everything. We now get to offer everything everyone else does -- a chance for an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. People have been killing us on that in recruiting. We can get and recruit a different kind of student-athlete."

Chicago State will be the second member to leave the Great West Conference for the WAC, along with Utah Valley State. The addition of those two schools next season will give the WAC seven members, with New Mexico State, Cal-Bakersfield, Idaho, Seattle and Grand Canyon University.