Alex Mejia and the Wildcats welcome the Pac-12 to the Hi C.
Photo by Michael Chow/The Arizona Republic

The Arizona Wildcats’ basketball season ended just in time for the baseball conference season to begin. It’s not the timing any of us wanted but here we are.

I have good news for you if you haven’t been following college baseball up to this point. Pac-12 hardball is the opposite of Pac-12 hoops this year. The league is really good and the UA is contributing to that goodness.

Let’s get up to speed, shall we?

TWIT-Pac (This Week In The Pac-12) is going to simplify things this year and cut off all the polls at 25. If you’re not in the top 25 of a poll you get credit for a ranking of 26 for the sake of the average. If you’re not in any poll’s top 25 you’re not on this list.

BAS = Baseball America
COL = Collegiate Baseball
NAT = National Collegiate Baseball Writers
PER = Perfect Game
USA = USA Today/ESPN coaches’ poll

(The coaches’ poll is giving ASU the USC football treatment this year because the Sun Devils are banned from the postseason.)

Look at all those Pac-12 teams. I told you this wasn’t basketball.

It’s not football either. The Pac is 12-3 against the SEC this year.

Here are this weekend’s series for the opening of conference play. All games are Friday through Sunday.

WSU (9-6) at #9.0 ARIZONA (14-3)
The Wildcats picked up a solid two-game split at top-10 Rice this week. Freshman closer Mathew Toupe has given up at least a run in each of his last three appearances but he has two wins and a save in that span. The UA is 7-0 when the hard-throwing righty takes the mound.

The Cougars have a pedestrian record thus far but recorded an impressive victory in a single game at top-15 Cal State Fullerton this week.

#15.6 ASU (11-5) at #13.8 UCLA (13-3)
UCLA, the defending conference champ, has adjusted nicely to the loss of two of the top three picks in last year’s Major League Baseball draft.

This will be the Devils’ first test against a ranked opponent.

#16.0 Oregon (12-3) at Washington (10-6)
The Ducks are one of the surprises in the Pac-12 as they finished 8th last year and were picked to finish 7th in the league this year.

Washington is the most adventurous of the Pac-12 teams, having already played 10 true road games.

#24.0 OSU (11-5) at #23.2 Cal (11-4)
Cal is going to have trouble topping last season’s drama of getting its program canceled, then saving its program, then storming all the way to the College World Series.

The Beavers will be hard pressed to top last year’s negative drama of losing their last five regular season games to lose the Pac-12 by one game.

Utah (4-11) at #25.0 USC (12-4)
For Utah it is the basketball season all over again. The Utes are rebuilding after finishing 2nd in the Mountain West last year.

USC is the other surprising team so far in 2012. The Trojans had a losing record last year and the coaches slotted them 8th in the Pac-12 preseason poll.

#2.2 Stanford (13-2) – idle
After taking care of the likes of Vanderbilt, Texas and Rice in the early going, the Cardinal is content taking a bye week.

Colorado – permanently idle
The Buffaloes do not have a baseball team. Booo.

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¡Paco-Once! The good news about an 11-team conference is you play an even number of series so you get five at home and five on the road. The bad news is somebody has to play a non-league series (or no games at all) every week.

I’m very pleased to see that the old Pac-10 teams all finish the season playing their chief rival. That wasn’t the case as recently as last year and it’s an excellent change. Utah has a message for Colorado: Booo.

Stanford is hands-down the team to beat this year but it won’t be an easy path with the depth of this conference. Whoever comes out on top of this stacked deck will have earned it.

The game times for the Arizona/WSU series are 6 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, and noon on Sunday. New Mexico State then comes to Tucson for games on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Play Ball!

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Scott Terrell will see you at Hi Corbett Field. Follow the BatCats all season long on Twitter and Facebook.

The Grand Kenjon leads Oregon into Knoxville.
Photo by Kirby Lee-US PRESSWIRE

This week’s Pac-10 schedule features the first conference game, a future conference game and the league’s only 2010 matchup with an SEC team.

Here’s your TV grid:

Sat. Sep. 11 (all times Arizona/Pacific)

Before you complain about the lack of huge games, take a look at this week’s AP poll. By the time the 2010 non-conference season is complete the Pac-10 will have played #3 Boise State (OSU), #4 TCU (OSU again), #5 Texas (UCLA), #6 Nebraska (Washington), Oregon is #7, #9 Iowa (Arizona), and #11 Wisconsin (ASU). Nobody schedules like the Pac-10. Now the trick is to win a couple of them.

On to the games at hand…

Colorado (1-0) at Cal (1-0 / 0-0)
The first Pac-12 game! Someday. Come on, Buffs, hold a bake sale or something so you can save us from a year of Paco Once.

Oregon (1-0 / 0-0) at Tennessee (1-0)
This is a big one for conference pride. Part of USC’s mystique was due to beating SEC teams like Auburn (24-17 and 23-0) and Arkansas (70-17 and 50-14). If the Ducks want to establish themselves as the new face of the Pac-10 they need to conquer Rocky Top.

Syracuse (1-0) at Washington (0-1 / 0-0)
Jake Locker’s Heisman campaign got off to a slow start with a loss at BYU. He hopes to pile up big numbers against an East Coast school. I hope the Orange wear these again.

Montana State (1-0) at WSU (0-1 / 0-0)
Please win this, Cougs. I beg of you. We want you to have something else to cheer about besides waving a flag.

The Citadel (1-0) at THE ARIZONA (1-0 / 0-0)
The Bulldogs beat up on something called Chowan last week. Your Top-25 Wildcats are this close to a sellout which would make for a very rewarding home opener.

NAU (1-0) at ASU (1-0 / 0-1)
Arizona State College at Flagstaff renews its rivalry with Arizona State College at Tempe. So I did talk to Don Draper and he said ASU should have an Al Michaels night (start at the 4:00 mark here). Everyone with a paid admission gets a pair of these.

Stanford (1-0 / 0-0) at UCLA (0-1 / 0-0)
The Cardinal and Bruins open the conference season two weeks before anyone else. UCLA quarterback Kevin Prince was the anti-Foles last week, completing just 35% of his passes in the loss to Kansas State. You know you had a bad game when you play in a ten-team league and your QB is ranked #11.

Who do Wildcat fans want to win?
We start with an easy one. Stanford is predicted to finish in the upper division of the Pac-10, UCLA is not. Root for Bruins to pull off the upset and put Team Harbaugh in an early hole.

Virginia (1-0) at USC (1-0 / 0-0)
I’m going to go out on a limb and say the Trojans don’t give 588 yards in this one.

Oregon State takes a week off to wonder, “Why on earth are we playing this schedule?” Playing TCU in Dallas didn’t work out well and a trip to Boise State looms in two weeks.

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As a little bird told you it had been a very long time since Arizona held a team to exactly two points. Just for fun here’s the entire list of UA football games where somebody could do no better than a deuce:

Year	Opponent	Result	Score
1899	ASU	L	11-2
1910	NMSU	W	18-2
1963	WSU	L	7-2
1965	New Mexico	L	24-2

Larry Smith once won a game by a score of 5-3 but the defensive dream of a 2-0 final is still out there.

I’m going to go out on another limb and say it won’t be accomplished this Saturday.

The Pac-10 is no more.

Right this moment it’s the Pac-11, or – if you’re so inclined – Paco Once.

But there will be a 12th team. The only question is if four more teams join on top of that.

After three decades of standing still the Pac-10 has started moving at breakneck speed. In a December conference commissioner Larry Scott said, “We’re hard-pressed to really see how you improve upon the structure of the Pac-10 as it is with five sets of natural rivals in four states.”

In February Scott said, “We’re looking at (expansion) very seriously.” But talks weren’t supposed to heat up for six to 12 months.

Larry Scott: Sports commissioner or evil genius?

On June 6 the Pac-10 gave Scott “the authority to pursue any possible expansion, while not committing the conference to adding any more schools.” Four days later Colorado was officially a member and the rumors of a 16-school super conference were swirling in full force.

How did we get here? And do we want to go where we’re apparently heading? Let’s break it down.

Why the Stephen F. Austin do we need 16 teams?

Texas, Texas, Texas. UT is the biggest fish, the golden goose and the sacred cow. When mere mortals started discussing Pac-10 expansion they tossed around the pie-in-the-sky dream of adding Texas and Texas A&M. But the idea was quickly dismissed because Texas would never leave its rivalry with Oklahoma, right?

You can picture Larry Scott in his underground lair standing over a map that looks something like this and thinking, “Texas won’t leave Oklahoma or A&M. The regents won’t allow for the split of OU/OSU and UT/A&M/Tech. I guess my only option is to…TAKE THEM ALL!”

Why announce the addition of Colorado before you know if Texas is in?

Texas wanted the Big 12 to stay together. If you already have the biggest house on the block and your neighbors mow your lawn and pick up after your dogs, why would you move?

The only way you get Texas is if the Big 12 falls apart. Nebraska leaving wasn’t going to be enough. Texas could just decree that TCU or SMU be invited and Bevo would go back to grazing on million dollar bills.

There’s no way any other school in the Texas/Oklahoma bloc would abandon Mama Tejas. So if you’re the Pac-10 you target the one school you’re interested in that isn’t part of the Big 12 South and you go past rumor to official. The goal is to force Texas into finding a new conference when you know your conference is the Longhorns’ best option.

Won’t it be really embarrassing if we go through all this Pac-16 speculation and just end up with Colorado and Utah?

From a national perspective, yes. Larry Scott and the Pac-10 would be viewed as having failed if the Texas merger doesn’t happen. The Big Ten Plus Two will brag that it got the school it wanted in Nebraska, and the Big 12 Minus Two will boast about how it stonewalled the Pac-10 invasion and protected Long Star/Sooner State pride.

But Larry Scott won’t be a failure even if Texas stays put. He went after the biggest prize. He swung for the fences. He could have quietly added Colorado and Utah weeks ago and no one east of Boulder would have cared. No matter what happens Scott has established that he is a man of action and his league isn’t going to stand on the sidelines any longer.

Scott’s mission when he took this job was to make more money for the Pac-10. A lot more. To do this he had two primary objectives: prepare for the next TV deal and improve the bowl tie-ins. When he looked to add a bowl did he go after the Insight or the Humanitarian? No, he went after – and landed – the Alamo Bowl and its $3 million payout.

Now he’s going after the entire Alamo state.

Regardless of the expansion outcome Larry Scott has proven he’s the person the Pac-10 needs to keep pace in the 2010s. He went from The Women’s Tennis Guy to The Guy Who Tried to Conquer the Big 12.

Who do we want to win?

Until there’s a big burnt orange press conference nothing is a done deal. Texas has options. Which option is best for the Arizona schools?

If you’re one of the original Pac-8 universities you desperately want Texas and Friends. You’re not going to lose any of your long-standing rivals and the Longhorn money will rain on you for years to come.

But what about the two youngest siblings in the Pac-10, those crazy kids in the state that spends half its time in the Mountain Time Zone?

For the fans of Arizona and Arizona State it comes down to your personal priorities. The money angle can’t be denied. A Pacific-16 conference would generate an insane amount of revenue. As in forget-the-SEC-even-the-federal-government-is-jealous revenue.

If you can get past the dollars (and dollars and dollars) and cents it comes down to whether you want to be in the biggest, baddest athletic conference in the nation (even if it means potentially getting crushed in football) or do you want to maintain close ties with the West Coast?

If you like seeing the Cats and Devils make annual trips to L.A., the Bay and the Pacific Northwest, you want Texas to stay put. Things would change in a 12-team Pac with two divisions but it wouldn’t be earth-shattering.

The earth will shatter if five more schools from the Big 12 come on board. Every logical division or pod puts the Arizona schools closer to the new Texas/Oklahoma schools and further from the California schools. There’s nothing wrong with embracing that but there’s nothing wrong with being opposed to it either.

One thing’s for sure, it won’t be Paco Once for long.