What is the scoop with hoops?
Photo by Chris Morrison-US PRESSWIRE

This just in: Universities compete in sports other than football.

One of the most interesting parts of the conference expansion madness was how little college basketball mattered in the discussions. How little? Kansas, #3 in all-time wins and home of the guy who invented the game, was this close to being homeless.

Fear not, the Pac-12 is going to continue playing basketball. The question is just when, where and how often. And if you’re going to like any of the changes.

As in football the goal should be to compete nationally. What maximizes exposure for the conference to get as many teams as possible into the NCAA tournament and prepare those teams for deep runs?

The SEC model is to use the same divisions that are used for football. The schedule is clean in that you play each team in your division twice and each team in the other division once for 16 conference games.

If the Arizona schools succeed in the fight to get in the same division as the L.A. schools it would allow the UA to continue its basketball rivalry with UCLA. But at what cost?

In football, recruiting Southern California is essential but in basketball you’re doing yourself a disservice if you get cut off from the Pacific Northwest. Arizona’s regular trips to the states of Oregon and Washington allowed the Cats to sign players like Damon and Salim Stoudamire, Jason Terry, and Marcus Williams (OK, bad example).

The ACC model combines all 12 teams into a single league, but not all teams are created equal. Not only do Duke and North Carolina play each other twice every year but the second Blue Devil/Tar Heel showdown is always the final game of the regular season.

This is accomplished by giving each school two “permanent partners.” Why make Boston College travel down to Miami every year? Why is Wake Forest paired with Georgia Tech instead of the one of the other schools in the state of North Carolina? Who cares! ESPN gets to show two UNC/Duke games a year!

The Pac-12 won’t go that far. I expect every team to play an annual home-and-home series with its natural rival and then rotate everyone else. But if Sean Miller can get Arizona back to the Lute Olson level the conference needs to be prepared to take advantage of it.

Arizona’s 11 conference championships are more than anyone in the Pac-10 era (UCLA is next with eight followed by OSU with five and Stanford with four). Yes, all 11 happened under Olson but the UA continued to lead the Pac-10 in attendance during the Kevin O’Neill and Russ Pennell “eras” so the foundation is still there. If UCLA/Arizona returns to its status as the premier hoops rivalry in the west the Pac-12 needs to rig the schedule to feature it.

The next issue is the number of conference games. In the ACC and SEC each team plays 16 league games. The Big Ten went from 16 to 18 games in 2008. The Big 12 (12-team version) plays a 16-game schedule.

Dropping from 18 to 16 games would allow the Pac-12 to hold off on the start of the conference season until January of each year. With the extra two out-of-conference games teams could schedule more home games and made-for-TV matchups to try and build the best possible tournament resume.

The worst change is going to be the end of the tidy travel schedule. The annual weekend trips down the “Oregon Trail” will be a thing of the past. Gone are the road trips to L.A. to see the Cats play twice. Some years you won’t play in Seattle. Some years you will but your next game will be in Salt Lake City. Or Berkeley. Fans will have to keep a copy of the schedule handy to see where their team plays next.

And when their team plays next. Last year Duke at various times played ACC games on Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday. Kentucky played at least one conference game on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday. Pac-10 fans will no longer be able to count on basketball as their Thursday night must-see TV.

It hasn’t been a good summer for basketball-first fans. Their favorite sport didn’t have a seat at the conference realignment negotiating table. In the Pac-10 there will be grumbling when the 2011-2012 league schedule looks like it was put together with a dart board. There will be complaining when people miss a game because they forgot their team had the late Tuesday night slot in Boulder.

Keep that schedule handy.

The Pac-12 should schedule more BCS fruit.
Photo by Jonathan Brownfield-US PRESSWIRE

The Summer of Debate rolls on.

The Pac-10 has chosen its new members and they’re going to be here soon. Utah will be starting play in the fall of 2011 and Colorado might be too.

With schedules needing to be made now is the time to hammer out the details. After the football division alignment is settled the last remaining hurdle is one that is more complex than it appears:

How many games do you play?

The metamorphosis into the Pac-12 means a change in focus from regional to national. The Pac wants to compete among the other elite conferences and it has taken steps to earn comparable money. The Pac-12 needs to also schedule with the national rankings in mind.

That means fewer Pac-12 games.

(By the way, if the Pac-10 does not change its name I will take back every nice thing I’ve said about Larry Scott. Being able to accurately reflect the number of schools in your conference is the benefit of using a unique modifier like “Pacific” instead of being one of the multitude of leagues bragging about how “Big” they are.)

When the Pac-10 grows, the conference football schedule needs to shrink back to eight games.

The rationale is this: In three of the four years the Pac-10 has played nine league games the conference runner-up finished with a 7-2 league record and 9-3 (or better) overall record. Not once did that second team get selected for a BCS at-large bid. The goal in taking away that extra conference game is turning those 9-3 teams into 10-2 and 11-1 teams.

The model is the 2007 Kansas football squad. The Jayhawks didn’t play Texas, they didn’t play Oklahoma, they didn’t even win their division yet they finished 11-1 and went to the Orange Bowl, which, by the way, they won.

The last two years the SEC championship game has been a play-in for the national championship game. Why? Alabama and Florida didn’t play each other in the regular season either year.

In business you’re told to dress for success. In college sports you schedule for success.

An eight-game Pac-12 conference football schedule would include the five others schools in your division and three rotating schools from the other side. If the divisions are split using the zipper model one of those three teams from the other division is always your geographic rival.

The Pac-10 does a good job of scheduling non-conference games that appeal to the computer polls, and that should continue. But the 4th out-of-conference game should be a true gimme. A big fat cupcake.

After playing for national championships and landing multiple BCS bowl bids the next goal is to fill the Pac-10’s improving bowl slots every single year. While we’re at it, Mr. Scott needs to go out and take a couple of the Big 12’s bowl tie-ins now that they’re short a couple teams and they’re going to saddle half of them with an extra conference loss each year.

The main argument you’re going to hear in favor of keeping the nine-game league schedule is that Pac-10 teams don’t have fans with blind brand loyalty. To sell tickets they either have to A) win a lot, or B) play big-name teams.

In the short term it’s going to cost you money two ways. You have to buy a second NAU-type game every year, and you know it’s going to attract a smaller crowd.

The mindset that causes the smaller crowd is the mindset that has to change. If the Pac-12 truly wants to be a national player it needs to convince its fans to buy in, and that means buying football tickets for games against bad teams.

It’s the sports equivalent of “Think Globally, Act Locally.” The Pac-12 fan is being asked to say, “I want my team and conference to do better nationally so that’s why I’m going to pay to watch my guys play North Texas instead of Oregon State.”

It will be interesting to watch. There’s no question that, from the standpoint of on-field competition, it stinks. We The People have every right to mourn the death of the perfectly balanced conference. But if we’re going to step away from perfection (and expanding to 12 officially steps away) we have to go all the way. If you’re going to tear off the bow of your boat for firewood you may as well burn the whole thing.

You’re trading a better game in September or October in hopes of landing a much better game in January.

At least in the Pac-12 it will be a valid hope. In the SEC South Carolina is only playing eight conference games so Florida has a better chance to make a BCS bowl. The Pac-10 doesn’t have a clear-cut #2 program behind USC so everybody will get a crack at a dream season if the talent and the schedule converge just right.

For the Arizona fan, hey, it’s not like the nine-game conference schedule was working out for the Wildcats anyway. If the Cats rode an easy conference schedule into the Pac-12 championship game and pulled off an upset, would you complain about paying for that New Mexico State game as you traveled to Pasadena? Me neither.

The world of the Pacific-10 has shifted. It’s like the company you worked for was bought out. It doesn’t exist anymore so there’s no sense in wishing for the way things were. You have to get to work adapting to the new culture and looking for the new opportunities.

(I realize the hole in the analogy is that in the real world you can look for a new job when things change around you. But in the economy of college athletic conferences there aren’t a lot of people hiring. Sure you could join the Mountain West but that’s one heck of a pay cut. And now back to your regularly scheduled analogy.)

The Pac-12 is here. Pass the cupcakes.