How the Pac-12’s raid of the Mountain West shifts the basketball balance of power out west

The Mountain West has established itself as college basketball’s preeminent mid-major conference in the last few years. San Diego State made the national title game in 2023. The league put six teams in the 2024 NCAA Tournament. While conference realignment wreaked havoc around it, the Mountain West’s stability put it on a tier by itself, surpassing the American and the Atlantic 10 as the best mid-major league in college basketball. It was also the best late-night hoops to consume, even topping the Pac-12 in watchability.

And now, it’s just like all the others, thrown into chaos by football and greed.

The only good news from a basketball perspective is that at least the new Six Pac makes sense (for now) when it comes to geography, with San Diego State, Colorado State, Boise State and Fresno State joining Oregon State and Washington State as the two Pac-12 holdovers make moves to resurrect their brand.

To steal a term from hoops, this league is mid-major-ish in football, but its four new arrivals from the Mountain West could justify this move on the basketball court and offer the new Pac-12 an opportunity to brand itself as more than a College Football Playoff striver.

San Diego State, Colorado State and Boise State were all top-tier Mountain West basketball programs, and their ability to consistently make the NCAA Tournament could improve if the Pac-12 chooses to make additional moves with hoops in mind. Luring Gonzaga from the West Coast Conference in particular would cement the league as a top-six basketball conference. Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark has flirted with Gonzaga over the past two years and hasn’t yet been able to convince enough of his members that it’s beneficial to add a basketball-only member. But the Pac-12 needs numbers and brand recognition.

The Pac-12 must get to at least eight football-playing schools by 2026 to be recognized as an NCAA and Football Bowl Subdivision conference and to be eligible for its champion to earn one of the five automatic bids into the 12-team College Football Playoff. To build an eight-game conference schedule that matches its FBS counterparts, it would need to get to at least nine members. In basketball, 10 teams is the ideal number for round-robin scheduling, especially if you can avoid a bad bottom tier — that’s why the Big 12 performed so well in computer-based metrics for so many years. Ridding themselves of the teams from the Mountain West’s basement could help the future resumes of the Aztecs, Rams and Broncos. Two games against Gonzaga every year also certainly wouldn’t hurt.

The Pac-12 should be as picky as possible in which G5 schools it goes after. (Our Chris Vannini broke down the potential options.) Let’s say the league’s best-case scenario is adding two G5 schools with recent football success — for example, prying Memphis and Tulane from the American. From there, it would make sense to chase one other basketball-only member and further lean into its basketball branding. It could be easier to attract those schools than it will be to find a host of football schools who will jump. Among those possible options:

• Saint Mary’s: The Gaels, Gonzaga’s primary WCC rival, have made 10 of the last 19 NCAA Tournaments.
• Grand Canyon: The Antelopes are set to join the WCC in 2025, have strong financial backing in hoops, play in one of the best environments in the country and have made three of the last four NCAA Tournaments under Bryce Drew. And if Gonzaga leaves, the WCC is not as enticing of a landing spot for Grand Canyon. Adding the Antelopes would also return a foothold in the Phoenix market to the Pac-12 after the loss of Arizona and Arizona State.
• Wichita State: The departure of Memphis would be another hit to an AAC basketball brand already on the decline after losing Houston and Cincinnati. Wichita State would likely jump at the chance to be in the same league as Gonzaga; the Shockers fancied themselves as the Gonzaga of the Midwest not long ago.

A Pac-12 with Gonzaga plus some combination of those other adds would earn multiple NCAA Tournament bids every year. The current Mountain West has been the seventh-best league in college basketball the last two years, putting four teams in the field in 2023 before last year’s surge to six.

GO DEEPER

Which schools could the new Pac-12 target? UNLV, Wyoming, Tulane, Memphis among many

Advertisement

As for what remains of the Mountain West, the conference needs to retain eight members to keep its FBS status intact, and it’s possible some of the remaining schools will still bolt. (UNLV seems like an ideal target for the Pac-12, although separating itself from university system partner Nevada could be tricky.) Adding New Mexico State would make sense for the Mountain West because the Aggies are already rivals of New Mexico and in the region. Of course, logic and convenience have rarely mattered in the realignment circus, and even the most practical solutions to rebuild college basketball’s product around historical rivalries and geography feel like fantasy for hoops fans.

The sport does still have at least a little pull when it comes to television negotiations. The Big 12 and Big East have done well for themselves by building stronger basketball leagues — Yormark has publicly touted the potential of selling his league’s football and basketball rights as separate television deals when the Big 12’s current rights agreement runs out at the end of the decade. The Big East signed a new deal this summer with Fox, NBC and TNT that will run from 2025-26 through 2030-31.

And while the ACC and Big 12 reside on a financial tier below the Big Ten and SEC in football, they still enjoy somewhat equal standing in hoops. The Big East is right there, too. This new Pac-12 won’t be able to run with the four big leagues in football, but add a top-10 basketball program in Gonzaga and you might earn that coveted high-major tag or at least get closer than the old Mountain West did.

Gonzaga has done just fine for itself dominating the WCC, but it likes money, too. The temptation to add a few extra million every year in NCAA Tournament units has made Gonzaga’s eventual exit from the WCC feel inevitable. After raiding one of the country’s most interesting basketball conferences and setting off another round of realignment dominoes, the Pac-12 has a chance to boost its own reputation on the hardwood along the way. Meanwhile in the Mountain West, it is now a question of survival.

(Photo: James Snook / USA Today)