RE: Dixie St Joins the WAC in 2020.
Adjusted list from Feedback. Also Added Ut-RGV -- they are actually the worst outlier from a flight time POV: it's a 4 hr, 10 min flight to El Paso (NMSU is still 50 minutes drive away), and the same to KC (they are still 30 minutes away). Those are the closest ones, and you waste the better part of a day getting to these or anywhere else in the WAC, and you are not coming home that day.
Ranked in order for GCU. You can probably add 60 to 90 minutes to all travel for getting to Phoenix Airport and collecting everyone and everything at the other end, even with expedited security processing and luggage handling.
Dixie State: (1 hr, 20 min total) 1hr flight to St. George Regional Airport (small), 20 minute bus ride to campus
Cal Baptist: (1 hr, 32 min total) 1hr, 10min flight to Ontario, 22 minute bus ride to CBU campus
Utah Valley: (1 hr, 42 min total) 1hr, 30min flight to Provo, 12 minute bus ride to UVU
New Mexico State: (1 hr, 58 min total) 1hr, 10min flight to El Paso, 48 minute bus ride to Las Cruces campus
UMKC: (2 hr, 55 min total) 2hr, 25min flight to KC, 30 minute bus ride to campus
Seattle U: (3 hr, 8 min total) 2hr, 50min flight to Seattle, 18 minute bus ride to SU campus
Chicago State: (3 hr, 41 min total) 3hr, 10min flight to Chicago, 31 minute bus ride to CSU campus
UT-RGV: (4 hr, 56 min total) 4hr, 35min flight to McAllen Int'l, 21 minute bus ride to RGV campus
If you look at it this way, from GCU's standpoint, with a Thursday-Saturday game schedule, you want one of the first four on Thursday Night, so your guy can be back home in bed to still make Friday classes, and those long flights on Saturday.
Note, the drive from KC to Chicago is 7 3/4 hours. But a flight from KC to Chicago is only 1 hr 20 min. These two sort of work as travel partners from that perspective for a Friday-Saturday schedule, as you can fly to KC, play the game and be in Chicago by Midnight for a Saturday game and not miss class.
Seattle and UT-RGV only work as Saturday games and play at one of NMSU, UVU, DSU or CBU on Thursday.
From the Perspective of Seattle you probably do stay overnight when you play any of GCU, CBU, DSU, UVU, NMSU, then commuter hop to any other in that group. The only real destination pair that actually should be locked are Chicago State and UMKC, since it's a long flight to get to either, but a short hop between them.
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