Dread it, run from it, conference alignment arrives all the same. The Pac-12 is back. It officially pilfered the Mountain West’s quartet of Boise State, San Diego State, Colorado State and Fresno State to form a new and improved, Pac-12 Six. The move-in date is set for 2026.
More is on the way. Rice, UTSA, Memphis and North Texas could be in the sights of Pac-12 commissioner Teresa Gould, sources indicated to CBS Sports’ John Talty and Dennis Dodd.
So, what does it mean for hoops? The gap between Pac-12 and Mountain West hoops had not-so-quietly been getting slimmer and slimmer. The Pac-12 still finished slightly ahead of the Mountain West in Ken Pomeroy’s conference power ratings, but it wasn’t showing up in NCAA Tournament appearances. It boiled over last year when five Mountain West teams earned at-large berths to the Big Dance, two more than the Conference of Champions, much to the late, great Bill Walton’s chagrin. It was the second time in three years that the Mountain West had more representation in the Big Dance than the Pac-12.
Arizona is off to the Big 12 (not super weird) and Oregon and UCLA are in the Big Ten (yeah, that’s weird), so the new-look Pac-12 has some vacancies for hoops royalty.
Let’s divide the Pac-12 Six and the four potential American Athletic Conference (AAC) additions into three separate tiers.
Tier I: True conference title contenderTier II: Fringe NCAA Tournament programTier III: Work to do
The focus, of course, is more on the state of the program, not the outlook for 2024-25. Benchmarks like resources (a fancy, cleaner word for money), coaching, roster-construction tendencies and basketball history were all considered.
Let’s dive in:
Pac-12’s current six schools
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