Larry Scott and the Pac-12 are still looking to resolve officiating questions. Photo by Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports

It’s not over until an independent review says it is.

The Pac-12 announced Tuesday afternoon that it will commission an independent review of the circumstances surrounding “all of the officiating and coaching events during and following the recent Pac-12 Men’s Basketball Tournament.”

Those events have already resulted in the resignation of Ed Rush, the league’s coordinator of men’s basketball officials.

The issue now is the same as it was after Jeff Goodman of CBSSports.com first reported that the league was investigating Rush for comments he made to officials about “targeting” Arizona Wildcats coach Sean Miller.

And that issue is trust.

The coaches, the fans, the players, need to have reasonable trust in a level playing field when it comes to officiating.

“Nothing is more important to the Pac-12, or to me personally, than maintaining confidence in our integrity,” Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott said in a statement.

Here is the complete statement from the conference:

Walnut Creek, Calif. – Pac-12 CEO Group Chair Edward J. Ray and Commissioner Larry Scott have decided to commission an independent review of the officiating dispute that arose during the recent Pac-12 Men’s Basketball Tournament, the Conference announced today.

The independent review will examine all of the officiating and coaching events during and following the recent Pac-12 Men’s Basketball Tournament.

In addition, Ray and Scott expect that the review will contribute to a broader examination of the officiating program. The review will report directly to the Executive Committee of the Conference’s CEO Group governing board.

“After considering the matter, Commissioner Scott and I agree that an independent review is important to maintain the confidence of our members, and of the public, in the integrity of our competition,” President Ray said.

“While the review will focus primarily on the tournament, we expect that it will inform a broader examination of our men’s basketball officiating and help us provide the best possible program.”

Commenting on the independent review, Commissioner Scott said: “Nothing is more important to the Pac-12, or to me personally, than maintaining confidence in our integrity. Given the conflicting media reports, it is important that we do whatever we can to understand all the facts, not only to resolve the questions about officiating during the tournament but also to learn lessons that will help us make changes and improvements to our overall program.”

Experts who are entirely independent of the Pac-12 Conference will conduct the review. The Executive Committee will select the experts and establish a timetable for the review shortly. It is expected to be completed in time for the CEO Group’s June meeting.

Related: Javier Morales breaks down how far Pac-12 refs advanced in the NCAA Tournament

Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott announced Wednesday afternoon the creation of a national Pac-12 television network and six regional networks, using four different cable operators.

The network will debut in August 2012.

Scott, in a news conference in Los Angeles, said that the regional networks “will cater to the unique tastes and interests of our fans in those markets” and that they will “super-serve our fans by tailoring to them what they care most about.”

The six regions break down along traditional lines — Washington, Oregon, northern California, southern California, Arizona and the league’s new “Mountain” region with the addition of Colorado and Utah.

Scott said the national network would televise at least 350 events, with at least another 500 on the regional networks. Every football and men’s basketball game that isn’t carried by one of the league’s other television partners will be shown on the national Pac-12 network.

This will also mean a significant increase in the coverage of women’s sports and Olympic sports.

Upon first glance, this looks like another win for the innovative Scott and the formerly stodgy Pac-10.

Here is the release from the Pac-12:

NEW YORK –In an innovative arrangement providing unprecedented exposure for its athletic and academic programs, the Pac-12 Conference announced today the creation of Pac-12 Networks, which will include a national network and six regional networks, in conjunction with four of the nation’s largest cable operators: Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Cox Communications and Bright House Networks.

In addition to broadly distributing the Pac-12 Networks, the four cable operators are utilizing iN DEMAND to provide certain production and operations services to the Pac-12 Networks, which will continue to be wholly owned by the Pac-12 Conference.

This transformative arrangement, set to begin in August 2012, marks the first time a U.S. collegiate conference or any other programmer has launched a collection of networks across a variety of platforms rather than a sole network. And it includes “TV everywhere” rights, permitting the networks to be viewed outside customers’ homes on any digital device, such as smartphones and tablet computers, creating a virtual “Pac-12 Everywhere.”

Expressing his excitement with the new agreement, Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott said, “As we explored the potential for a Pac-12 network, it became clear that we could customize programming towards local interests and provide our students, alumni, and many fans the widest possible range of events with the best opportunity to see the schools they care about most.”

Scott praised Melinda Witmer as Chairman of iN DEMAND for bringing iN DEMAND and its potential to the discussions. “This is an example of how innovative organizations can collaborate to create something that is entirely original and that willserve the college sports fan better than anything that has existed before,” he said. “We look forward to taking advantage of our cable partners’ vast production, marketing and advertising resources to serve our fans both through the regional networks and the national network.”

Ms. Witmer, who is also Executive Vice President and Chief Video and Content Officer for Time Warner Cable, said: “iN DEMAND is proud to be part of this groundbreaking plan to bring millions of Pac-12 fans a unique blend of national and regional programming. This innovative deal demonstrates the strengths of the cable platform, and the unique ability we have to provide deep local, regional and national programming on multiple platforms and multiple devices – giving our customers the ability to watch their favorite teams anywhere. We are pleased to be associated with these leading universities, and look forward to working with them and the Conference to make this innovative arrangement a success.”

The six regional networks will be established in Northern California, Southern California, Oregon, Washington, Arizona and Mountain regions.

The deal complements a major national broadcast and cable agreement announced in May. At that time, the Conference announced the creation of Pac-12 Media Enterprises, the first step in creating the TV networks that are being announced today. Pac-12 Media Enterprises is also expected to eventually announce distribution arrangements covering satellite and telco transmission.

Regional and National Network Programming

Under the agreement announced today, Pac-12 Networks eventually will telecast a total of 850 live events annually – 350 on the national feed and 500 on the regional feeds — including every football game and every men’s basketball game that isn’t carried by national telecast partners. Additional events will include spring football, and every sport played by Pac-12 programs including all conference championships. Pac-12 also will be working to launch additional content on broadband.

The agreement will provide unprecedented exposure for women’s sports, as well as exposure for both men’s and women’s programs that have been traditionally underserved on television. This includes extensive coverage of Pac 12 athletes in Olympic sports, where the Pac-12 has had more success than any other U.S. conference. Over 200 Pac-12 athletes competed in the 2008 Beijing Olympics, and if the Pac-12 were its own country it would have finished sixth in the total medal count.

Pac 12 Networks will feature extensive educational, academic and lifestyle programming from the Pac-12 Institutions, some of the most renowned and recognizable higher education institutions in the world. Programming will extend beyond athletics to other subjects of interest to students, faculty, alumni and fans of the Pac-12 universities.

Through this agreement Pac-12 Networks will be available nationwide to almost 40 million cable customers. Within the Pac-12 Conference’s six-state footprint, Pac-12 Networks will be broadly distributed and available to Pac-12’s far-flung alumni and fans across the country.

Terms of the arrangement were not disclosed.

Arizona will be part of the new Pac-12 South in football, starting next season, league commissioner Larry Scott announced today.

The Wildcats will join Arizona State, USC, UCLA and newcomers Utah and Colorado in the South. The Pac-10 North will be Cal, Stanford, Oregon, Oregon State, Washington and Washington State.

No other sport will have divisions.

Scott said the division split breaks down nicely between geography, market size and historical competitive balance. Teams will play each opponent in its division every year, as well as four cross-divisional games.

Some traditional rivalries have been secured, Scott said, with the Northern California schools guaranteed to play the Southern California schools each year. That certainly helped sell Stanford and Cal on the idea of being split from its California brothers.

“There was a deep appreciation in this conference of the historic rivalries,” Scott said. “That was something our board was very keen to preserve.”

Scott said the league is about 30 to 45 days away from putting together the specific football schedule for next season.

Scott said the conference championship game in football will be held at the home site of the No. 1 overall seed. That would be determined by best conference record among the division champs, with head-to-head result, if applicable, serving as the first tiebreaker.

The men’s and women’s basketball schedules will continue to feature 18 conference games.

Instead of a full home-and-home round-robin, however, teams will play home-and-away against their traditional rival (so, Arizona and Arizona State will still play twice a year), and then will play, on a yearly rotating basis, six other home-and-home series and four single games.

So, for example, Arizona will play UCLA twice in a season in six out of every 10 years. Scott added that the intent is for all 12 teams to participate in the league’s postseason basketball tournament.

Scott said the league is content to be at 12 schools for now, and the league will be further exploring a Pac-12 television network.

One of the major decisions by the Pac-12 schools is to move to equal revenue sharing of media rights, starting in the 2012-13 school year. The league has used an appearance-based model that tilted more of the money toward those on TV the most.

According to the San Jose Mercury News, here is the breakdown from the 2007-08 and 2008-09 seasons in league revenue from football bowl appearances (split equally), the NCAA basketball tournament (split equally) and the TV money (not split equally):

USC: $22,904,973
Oregon: $18,438,293
UCLA: $18,012,614
California: $17,464,382
Oregon State: $17,167,040
Arizona State: $16,656,606
Washington: $16,598,735
Arizona: $15,402,227
Washington State: $14,356,743
Stanford: $14,114,638

Between being aligned with the Southern California schools in the South, and the move to equal revenue sharing, this looks like a win-win for Arizona.

Arizona athletic director Greg Byrne met with the local media Thursday afternoon, saying these decisions were good for Arizona and good for the league. KOLD-TV (Channel 13) has a video of the Byrne interview on its site.

Nice effort by Pac-10 commissioner Larry Scott to swing for the fences, but he’s back to his fall-back plan. He already has added Colorado to the Pac-10, and now figures to make a play for Utah to get to a dozen, which would trigger a conference championship game in football.

If you’re an Arizona fan, are you relieved that the Pac-10 isn’t going to be the nation’s first super conference? The proposed 16-team league could have meant a big boost in revenues, but it would have been a change of culture and rivalries if the Wildcats had been aligned with Texas, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and Texas A&M. Not everybody likes big change.

Now, what Arizona and Pac-10 get is smaller change. Scott said expansion could end with Colorado, which hardly seems worth the trouble.

With the move, the Buffaloes might find more recruiting territory open up in California, which is what they need because they haven’t been very competitive in football and men’s basketball in recent seasons. The Buffs don’t change the competitive balance of the Pac-10, as Texas and Oklahoma would have … so for Pac-10 fans, it will mostly be business as usual.

For Texas, it ultimately was a money decision. Of course. What else would it be? By holding the remaining 10 teams in the Big 12 together, Texas is free to start its own TV network, which wouldn’t have been possible in the Pac-10.

The Denver Post quoted a source close to the expansion negotiations that Texas, in the 11th-hour talks, wanted “a better revenue sharing deal and their own network” if it joined the Pac-10.

Scott’s deadline for expansion is the end of the year, before the negotiating begins for a new TV contract. He has time to figure out his next move, if it’s anything beyond adding Utah.

In pursing the Big 12 teams, Scott was bolder than anyone thought possible — and way more creative than former commissioner Tom Hansen — but now he might be out of geographic options.

Still, Scott has signaled that the Pac-10 will be progressive — in expansion and marketing — which is a positive sign for the health of the league.

UPDATE (4:53 p.m.): Here is the official statement from Larry Scott:
“University of Texas President Bill Powers has informed us that the 10 remaining schools in the Big 12 Conference intend to stay together. We are excited about the future of the Pac-10 Conference and we will continue to evaluate future expansion opportunities under the guidelines previously set forth by our Presidents and Chancellors.”

It's not the Pac-10 anymore.

The Arizona Wildcats were just standing around, minding their own business, when they changed conferences.

I hate that. I hate change. I like Arizona’s conference just the way it is. I mean, was.

The walls began to come tumbling down Thursday when Colorado accepted an invitation to the Pac-10 … and then will come an announcement that Nebraska is joining the Big Ten … and then, probably early next week, five other schools from the Big 12 will become members of the Pac-10.

Or Pac-16. Or Pac-XVI. Or whatever they want to call it.

The landscape that Arizona has known for the past 32 seasons is gone. Unless the runaway train of realignment gets derailed at the last minute, UA and Arizona State are set to be thrown into the non-Pacific Division of the Pacific-10 Conference, along with Texas, Oklahoma, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Oklahoma State and Colorado.

Starting in the 2012-13 school year, they will have essentially switched conferences. Almost everything changes. Rivalries. Recruiting approaches. Competition. Culture.

Gone is the perfect symmetry of 10 conference teams. Five geographically aligned travel pairs. A full round-robin in football. The rhythm of Thursday-Saturday basketball weeks.

But now that ground-shaking change is here, there is only one thing left to do: Embrace it.

This is what we wanted.

This is what we asked for when we — that would be me and almost all of you, I would think — criticized the Pac-10 for TV deals that lacked sufficient exposure and cold hard cash for its members.

This is what we asked for when we begged for better bowl arrangements that could compare to other conferences.

This is what we asked for when we perceived a national lack of respect for the Pac-10.

We asked for it. Yeah, well, we got it.

New commissioner Larry Scott hasn’t just been nibbling around the edges of progress. He devoured it.

“My opinion is that we needed to be aggressive in our approach, and Larry has already shown that that is the approach he’s taking,” new Arizona athletic director Greg Byrne said Thursday at a news conference.

“When you look at what’s taking place, whether anything happens additionally, I think the Pac-10 has been talked more about in the past 10 days than we probably have been across the country in years.

“And that’s a good thing for our brand, for our league, and that obviously has a big impact on the University of Arizona because that makes our visibility even stronger across the country.”

This change won’t be boring in football. Arizona in the same division as Texas and Oklahoma? Arizona in the same division as Oklahoma State and booster T. Boone Pickens, the Big 12′s version of Oregon’s Phil Knight? Good luck, right?

Arizona can’t compete right now with Texas Tech’s facilities.

But what is it that coaches always say as their teams prepare to take on a big foe? Don’t consider it an overwhelming obstacle, think of it as an opportunity.

Having Texas and Oklahoma come to Tucson every other year is exciting stuff. Shoot, those teams might even help Arizona State sell out Sun Devil Stadium.

The new yearly rivalries would take some getting used to, but we would.

“Any time you have change there is going to be resistance to it,” Byrne said.

“I’ve always said on my tombstone I want it to say, ‘People are always open to change as long as it doesn’t inconvenience them.’ I think just like anything else people will adapt. To say that you can go through life without any change would be a very boring life.”

Arizona, and the other Pac-10 schools, stands to make about $20 million a year from a new television deal in an expanded conference, at least double the current take.

With that kind of money doing the talking, the status quo had no chance.

Instead of the Pac-10′s old way of holding onto the past while everything changed around it, Scott is the one leading the charge.

Since the Pac-10 last expanded with the addition of Arizona and Arizona State in 1978, every other conference has undergone some sort of transformation — sometimes just a little (the Big Ten adding Penn State) and sometimes quite a lot (the Big 8 and Southwest Conference merging in 1996 into the soon-to-be dead Big 12).

In 1978, the Big East didn’t exist. Conference USA, the Mountain West and the Sun Belt conferences came much later. The WAC went from seven teams in 1978 to as many as 16 teams and now sits at nine.

Twenty-five Division I-A teams — including many of the biggest names in college football — were still independent in 1978. Now, there are only three independents.

Things change.

The new Pac-10 will be different. But it will be good.

RELATED LINK: What does Colorado add to the Pac-10?