Realignment Strikes! Part 1: The Critical Component
This is part one of a three part series looking at what could be next for the West Coast Conference in the wake of the latest round of realignment.
When Texas and Oklahoma cannon-balled into the SEC pool in late July they made a splash that has grown into a wave now washing over the college sports landscape. Today, that wave hit the West Coast Conference like a tsunami.
Sports Illustrated reported that BYU will be leaving the WCC and joining the Big 12. The Cougars finally get to play football in a power conference (or rather the shell of one, but I guess that’s good enough).
When Texas and Oklahoma left the Big 12, speculation began immediately about which schools the Big 12 would replace them with. Today we learned it’s BYU and three schools from the American Athletic Conference. So now the speculation is, what does the AAC do? Who does the AAC poach?
Should there also be speculation about what the WCC does now that it has lost a member? Probably not. Realignment has been driven by college football (the most evil of all sports), and the WCC is a non-football league. Sure, basketball teams change leagues from time to time (hello, again, Pacific), but it’s not the same.
That said, there is an elephant in the WCC’s room now. It’s always been there, but there was a smaller elephant alongside it to distract from … I don’t know where I’m going anymore, this analogy sucks.
Anyway, the elephant is Gonzaga and we’re all looking at it wondering what it’s going to do now that the other elephant or whatever is gone.
When BYU joined the WCC a decade ago, the Zags were a perennial top-25 contender and annual NCAA Tournament participant, but they were nothing like they are now. There were no №1 rankings, no №1 seeds and no №1 recruits. They were head and shoulders above the rest of the WCC in the way Przemek Karnowski is head and shoulders above Rem Bakamus in height, of course, but they, like those two, were on the same team. They fit together.
Now, Gonzaga’s height compared to the rest of the WCC may as well be immeasurable.
With BYU and Saint Mary’s you could climb the ladder quite comfortably from the bottom of the league, through the middle, up the Cougars and Gaels to the Zags. Now though, once you get to the Saint Mary’s rung you can only jump and see if you can grab Gonzaga’s.
The context for this is that back in 2018 the Zags were flirting with the Mountain West Conference. That league was trying to get Gonzaga to abandon the WCC and move to the MWC. It was a step down back then, and I was against it for that reason, among many others.
If Gonzaga was willing to flirt with another league back then, why wouldn’t they now? After all, one of the biggest reasons they stayed then is now gone. They had options then, won’t they have options now?
Well, let’s look into these options, shall we? Because it’s not realignment unless you speculate wildly about teams making utterly awful moves that will ultimately damage the sport as a whole!
Should Gonzaga move to the Mountain West?
When the MWC came calling in 2018 they tried to entice the Zags, and allegedly BYU as well (though I don’t remember if that was the MWC’s idea, Gonzaga’s idea, or BYU just trying to tag along), with the promise of a better basketball league than the WCC.
The thing is, that promise was nonsense. The WCC has finished as the №8 league in the country per KenPom in the three seasons since the MWC made those overtures. The MWC by comparison has finished 11th, 10th and 10th. San Francisco assistant Jonathan Safir ran the numbers and in 2019 the WCC ranked ahead of the MWC even if you didn’t include Gonzaga (I can’t find the citation for this, but he said it on Jordan Sperber’s podcast, and they’re both massive stat-heads so I trust it).
The WCC has been a better conference than the Mountain West. It’s better even if you don’t include Gonzaga. So moving to the Mountain West wouldn’t have helped Gonzaga. Simple as that.
Obviously, Gonzaga didn’t make the move.
Now though, without BYU, I don’t expect the WCC can stay ahead of the Mountain West in those national rankings. Especially if you’re just looking at the non-Gonzaga teams. Which means, maybe now a move to the Mountain West would be the step up they promised a few years ago.
How much of a step up? Not much. Gonzaga would be by far the class of the conference, just as it is in the WCC. But, the MWC could offer what the WCC no longer can: multiple NCAA Tournament contenders to fight for second and third place behind Gonzaga on a nearly annual basis.
So, the pro is that the move would probably be a not-insignificant, albeit slight, improvement in conference strength of schedule numbers, in-conference quadrants 1 and 2 opportunities, etc.
Is that worth it? I mean, we’re talking about the Mountain West, not the Pac-12. People, and these people don’t matter, but people will rag on Gonzaga for beating San Jose State and Air Force just as much as they will Portland and Pepperdine.
It’s also not the Pac-12 in one very significant way. It’s not a power conference. It plays football, but it’s not a power conference. Conferences that play football and are not power conferences are volatile. They are at constant risk of losing members to power conferences — See: what happened to the AAC today. Lose Boise State, San Diego State, Utah State, Colorado State … lose just about anybody worth poaching, and the MWC falls below the WCC once again.
That’s the con, it’s volatile.
I don’t think Gonzaga should risk everything it has in the WCC, including but not limited to:
- Tradition
- Rivalries
- Almost absolute power
- A clear path to the NCAA Tournament every. single. year.
- Going to the Bay Area and Southern California in January instead of Laramie, Wyoming or Boise
- I mean it’s the best program in the country for goodness sake why change anything at all???
No, Gonzaga should not move to the Mountain West.
Should Gonzaga move to the Big East?
I love geography. Huge nerd about it. I could stare at a map for hours. I also like regional identity and camaraderie. So, the question I just posed pisses me off. Those words in that order piss me off. The existence of that thought pisses me off.
It wasn’t that long ago that the Big East, back in the death throes of its bloated, football-addicted past life, actually added Boise State and San Diego State, among others. Now, that never came to fruition, because the league’s wiser, cooler heads prevailed (and bolted, taking the conference’s name and leaving the football playing schools to rot in AAC obscurity).
The Big East is no longer an oversized football junkie. It’s a lean, mean, basketball-focused powerhouse. It’s the WCC on steroids, and it’s over there instead of over here. East, you know, not West.
Gonzaga is also a lean, mean, basketball-focused powerhouse. It’s just over here, though, not over there. It’s West, not East.
From an on-court perspective, Gonzaga fits in much better with the Big East. It would be a perennial contender for the regular season and tournament titles in a league that is a perennial contender for best in the sport. Add Gonzaga to the mix and you just might have the best league, period.
Personally, I love the Big East. The new Big East, that is. I love a league that puts basketball first. That’s one of the reasons I love the WCC. But the Big East is without question much better than the WCC. Gonzaga would take more losses, of course, but it would still thrive. It would be exciting.
Ten of the members are private, nine are catholic and four are Jesuit. Oh, and there’s one other member, UConn, which was recently welcomed back into the fold. Which means the Big East has 11 teams. Most leagues like those nice, even numbers, you know?
So those are the pros.
The cons include the obvious. It’s over there. Way over there.
Gonzaga’s longest trip in the WCC is San Diego, 1,031 miles as the crow flies. Its shortest in the Big East would be Creighton, in Omaha, 1,146 miles as the crow flies. Round trip to Providence would be 4,500 miles.
Basketball is one thing. The men’s team flies all over the country already.
They’ve got their own plane, though. You think the men’s soccer team’s going to enjoy that trip to Rhode Island, then the trip to Connecticut a week later, then the trip to D.C. after that? All while flying coach? I don’t. I sure wouldn’t.
You think the university is going to want to pay for that? I sure don’t. I sure wouldn’t.
So, just leave the other sports behind in the WCC, right?
You think the WCC is going to want to keep Gonzaga’s non-revenue sports without Gonzaga’s revenue? I sure don’t. I sure wouldn’t.
Okay, then just drop the rest of the teams to the Big Sky or something.
Same thing, you think they, or any other league, would want the non-revenue sports but not the revenue? I sure don’t. I sure wouldn’t.
Okay, fine, drop the rest of the sports to DII.
Can’t do it.
Cut them all together?
You better have good Title Nine lawyers.
As much as I value the loyalty that most WCC schools have shown to the league, and how much the league has shown it values loyalty and continuity (tradition is, after all, why we watch college sports when there are clearly better alternatives in the professional ranks), I am not 100% opposed to this idea. I wouldn’t be hurt if it happened, and I would understand it. Might even be a bit excited once it started drawing close. But I don’t really want it to happen, and because of how ridiculous and impractical it is, I don’t think it’s realistic.
No, Gonzaga should not join the Big East.
Should Gonzaga join the Pac-12?
And now we turn to the idiots on Twitter.
“They don’t play anybody! Why don’t they grow a pair and join the Pac-12.”
— MadeUpMichiganFan38523567
This isn’t going to happen, no matter how many people tweet sentiments like that (there are a lot of them).
You’ve got all of the cons of the Big East idea minus the geography issue. Geographically, the Pac-12 and the WCC share mostly the same footprint, and where they don’t Gonzaga’s already a regular visitor (non-conference and NCAA Tournament games in Arizona and Colorado are quite a common, nearly yearly occurrence).
But unlike the Big East, the Pac-12 is not a basketball-focused league. Basketball is important, but football comes first. And, it values all of its other non-revenue sports as well. Everyone laughs at the “Conference of Champions” thing because everyone watches football and basketball, and the Pac-12 sucks at football and basketball. But, they really are the Conference of Champions. The league has won more NCAA Championships than any other. Ever. In every sport besides basketball, the Zags would be eternal cellar dwellers. The Pac-12 has no time for that. And I’m sure the Zags don’t either.
Plus, Pac-12 Network(s), have you seen them? Seriously, have you? I can’t find them, and I want to be able to watch Gonzaga play.
No, Gonzaga should not join the Pac-12.
Should Gonzaga stay in the WCC?
The pros far outweigh the cons, and I’ll explain why in part two of this three part series. Part two will look at Gonzaga and the WCC, and then part three will look at what the league should do once they’ve locked down the Zags.
It’s Labor Day weekend, and BYU had to drop this stupid bomb right now for some reason, so I don’t know when I’ll get to parts two and three, but stay tuned over the coming week.
One last thing!
Realignment sucks. Don’t do it.
