 Lacking the required minimum of seven member schools, the NCAA did not recognize the conference and required the WWC schools athletes to qualify for the NCAA Division I Wrestling Championships through the Western Regional Tournament — a tournament which included only the six WCC schools and also served as the "de facto" conference championship .The Big 12 Conference had been wrestling with only four teams since Nebraska moved to the Big Ten in 2011, but the NCAA had annually granted the conference a waiver for its conference championships to be recognized and its champions and runnersup to be granted automatic qualification to the national championships.In 2015, the NCAA declined to grant the waiver, and the Big 12 Conference coaches declined to have their athletes wrestle in the Western Regional Tournament.