In the week after Grand Canyon hired Dan Majerle to be its men’s basketball coach in March 2013, the school’s publicly traded share price jumped 4.6 percent to $24.90.

Earlier this week, as the Antelopes prepared to play at Arizona on Wednesday after high-profile games with Duke, San Diego State and Louisville, a share of Grand Canyon Education Inc. β€” NASDAQ ticker: LOPE β€” was trading at about $58.50. That’s an increase of 146 percent since Majerle was hired, easily outpacing the 68 percent increase in the NASDAQ and 37 percent bump in the Dow Jones Industrial Average over that time period.

That’s a pretty good return on investment. So how much of it has to do with basketball?

β€œI think it helped a little bit,” Grand Canyon president Brian Mueller said. β€œWe’ve really gotten some significant recognition in the last year or two. … It’s helped lift the university’s profile in a positive way.”

That’s often the point, of course, of any high-major football or men’s basketball program: To generate interest, student applications and donations to the school as a whole. UA, after all, netted more than $10 million a year from its basketball program in 2014-15, according to the U.S. Department of Education.

The difference is that GCU has been doing it as the first for-profit school in Division I, a status that has drawn some controversy and even an informal boycott from Pac-12 schools after a push against it from Arizona State president Michael Crow and other conference schools.

Crow sent a letter to the NCAA in 2013 asking it to consider whether it should add a for-profit school to Division I, and told Inside Higher Ed the same year that β€œthey’re trying to game college athletics to drive up their stock price. It’s just too much.”

So Arizona stayed away. The Wildcats hadn’t played Grand Canyon since 1980, and that might have been the last time, ever. Not just because of the boycott; but because GCU’s entire existence was in danger.

For years a small Christian institution on Phoenix’s west side, GCU ran into financial trouble in the early 2000s. By 2004, the school was converted to for-profit status and in 2008, it plucked Mueller away from the University of Phoenix.

He agreed to the job on one condition.

β€œThere was a huge debt here, and the school was only 100 acres. It was a very tenuous thing,” Mueller said. β€œWe said we would come but we needed money.”

So in November 2008, just as the nation’s economy was tanking, Grand Canyon stock was put on NASDAQ for $12 a share. Mueller said the school brought in $254 million from initial sales, but still needed more. Much more.

The next step was building an online program that now has about 65,000 students worldwide, pumping black ink into campus.

GCU has since poured $600 million into campus facilities over the past six years, with plans to spend another $400 million in the next four years. Mueller says there’s now β€œhuge efficiencies” thanks to the growing campus student population, which has grown from about 4,000 upon Majerle’s hiring to nearly 18,000 today.

Things move so quickly at Grand Canyon that just four years after it built a new 4,000-seat arena in 2010, Mueller had the roof ripped off to add another 2,500 seats, since the Antelopes had accepted a bid to the Western Athletic Conference and were on a path to Division I memberships.

Of course, this was the vision Jerry Colangelo had all along.

Mueller asked the former Suns and USA Basketball architect to play an advisory role in the school’s new expansion.

β€œI like challenges, OK? I’ve been involved with them my whole life,” Colangelo said last week. β€œThere are great people involved with the university.

β€œThe timing was pretty good for me. When I was approached, there was a plan, a vision, that I related to because I’d been there and done that a couple of times. Basketball was gonna be the calling card in this whole program and that, to me, was a big part of it.”

Mueller said being a faith-based institution attracted Colangelo, because β€œthat’s been a big part of his life,” and when the two talked about starting a sports business program in Colangelo’s name, things really took off. Now, GCU’s biz school is officially known as the Colangelo College of Business.

And basketball can be big business.

β€œIt’s a new model, taking online revenue and building a campus,” Colangelo said. β€œBasketball is our calling card. Our goal is to become a Top 25 program and that’s easier said than done. But I know people are committed and we’re going to have the resources and facilities.”

And the contacts. That may be where Colangelo has helped the most.

It was Colangelo who not only persuaded Majerle to coach the Antelopes but also helped attract some marquee opponents to help raise the school’s profile. This year alone, the Antelopes have played at Duke and Penn State while miraculously managing to get San Diego State and Louisville to play in GCU Arena.

β€œMr. Colangelo has a great relationship with (Louisville) coach (Rick) Pitino, and to get him to come here and play on our campus just doesn’t happen,” Majerle said. β€œHe knew we were trying to build something big here. But it’s a no-win situation to come play us on our campus.”

As it turned out, it was nearly a loss for both SDSU and Louisville. GCU beat the Aztecs 76-72 on Dec. 7 after giving Louisville nearly all it could handle in the Cardinals’ 79-70 win before a crazed, sellout crowd on Dec. 3.

β€œThis, in my 40 years of college basketball, was the toughest crowd I’ve ever faced,” Pitino said in his postgame address. β€œAwesome. … You’ve got something special here. Really special.”

Although Pitino said he made the trip as a favor, he added that his team came out of the experience improved and more prepared for hostile environments to come.

β€œThat says something about Rick, his character and his willingness to do that when they had nothing to gain and a lot to lose,” Colangelo said. β€œHis comments after the game were pretty strong about our crowd, and that’s how you build a program.”

Sean Miller and his UA staff have noticed the changes, too.

UA associate head coach Joe Pasternack said he’s seen how hard and effectively Majerle’s staff has been working on the recruiting trail, while Miller has toured the arena himself and saw the damage the Lopes did to SDSU and Louisville.

β€œThey’ve done a remarkable job,” Miller said. β€œDan Majerle and his staff should get a lot of credit. They’ve built this thing up literally, if you look at their homecourt. It seems like a heck of an environment they’ve established in a short period of time and that’s to their credit.”

Also because of β€œthe talent they have on their team, that Dan is an excellent coach, and with who they’re able to schedule in nonconference, they’re building an excellent program.”

Getting top players to buy in would appear a challenge, since they don’t have the long time frame that Mueller, Majerle and Colangelo have been looking at.

While following the NCAA’s transition plan to Division I, the Antelopes aren’t even eligible for the NCAA Tournament for another year. That means leading scorer DeWayne Russell will never have a chance to play in college basketball’s marquee event, even as he signed on as a transfer from NAU in 2013-14.

Instead, Majerle and Colangelo lined up a number of marquee games for Russell and his teammates to show off in … and Russell wound up dropping 42 points on the Cardinals.

That’s the kind of thing that gets you on ESPN as much as the NCAA Tournament can.

β€œThis is an experience that a lot of kids don’t get,” Majerle said. β€œJust because you go to a program that’s eligible to go to the tournament doesn’t mean you’ll go to tournament. We pushed our community and the experience you’ll have here.

β€œAnd I think it helps playing for a coach who went to the NBA from a mid-major school (Central Michigan) and has relationships overseas. We’ve got a lot to sell here.”

While ASU still won’t schedule its burgeoning crosstown competitor, the Pac-12 boycott has been lifted, and Arizona AD Greg Byrne announced a year ago that a game was possible. It was finalized last January.

That gave GCU another marquee game to talk to recruits about. The next step after scheduling all these high-profile games is, of course, winning them.

Grand Canyon is on the way there, too. The Lopes won 27 games last season, opened this season with a 35-point loss at Duke, but then played Penn State within nine points on the road, scared Louisville at home and then beat San Diego State at GCU.

In other words, they’re right on the schedule their visionaries mapped out.

β€œWe do athletics for three reasons,” Mueller said. β€œOne, it’s an educational experience for the student-athletes, like theatre or debate. Two, it is a chance for us to demonstrate a level of excellence. Our goal is to be in the Top 25. And three, it’s a rallying point that brings alumni together, brings the community together.

β€œWe hope basketball will be profitable and, yes, it’s tough to make profits or break even on other sports, and we’ll always operate at a deficit in some sports. But it’s an investment we’re willing to make.”

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