The BCS national championship game between Auburn and Oregon should be a dandy. Dynamic offenses. Played at a fast pace. Star players, including Heisman Trophy winner Cam Newton of Auburn.

And it’s the SEC vs. the Pac-10.

This is a rare postseason clash for the leagues at any level. The last time an SEC team played a Pac-10 squad in the postseason it was 1989. Washington beat Florida 34-7 in the Freedom Bowl.

The SEC vs. the Pac-10: You know which conference is going to get the benefit of the doubt in this matchup.

(more…)

The Arizona Wildcats were picked second in the Pac-10 media’s preseason poll, which sounds about right.

There really isn’t much to debate. Washington, which is the defending Pac-10 tournament champ and has four returning starters, is the logical No. 1. Take your pick of reloading superpowers for second: Arizona or UCLA.

The fear with the Wildcats is that new starting point guard MoMo Jones won’t be up to the challenge on a team that has returning starters at every other position. Put me in the camp that isn’t worried … too much. Jones should be fine.

Here are the results of the poll:

1. Washington
2. Arizona
3. UCLA
4. Arizona State
5. Washington State
6. USC
7. Cal
8. Oregon State
9. Stanford
10. Oregon

Via the Pac-10, here are quotes from Arizona coach Sean Miller and sophomore forward Derrick Williams:

(more…)

Colorado won’t be leaving the Big 12 ahead of schedule. So, does the Pac-10 change its new logo to the Pac-11 for next season?

Utah is leaving the Mountain West Conference for the Pac-10, beginning next season. But the Buffs, according to the Boulder Daily Camera, will remain in the Big 12 for the next two season, as originally planned.

The Buffs were hoping to be able to wriggle out of their arrangement with the Big 12 a year away in order to go into their new conference with Utah hand-in-hand. Meanwhile, the Big 12 also will play with 11 teams in the 2011-12 school year, as Nebraska will leave for the Big Ten (which will really be 12).

According to the Daily Camera,

CU gave the Big 12 two years’ notice of its intention to leave the league back in June, meeting the criteria spelled out in Big 12 bylaws. The Buffs would have to forfeit 50 percent of conference distributions for those two years.

Nebraska and Utah made their conference realignment announcements after CU, leading to speculation about speeding up the time line for the Buffs to move by a year. Big 12 bylaws require schools to forfeit 80 percent of conference distributions with just one year notice of an intention to leave.

Big 12 officials have publicly quoted the 80 percent as the total CU will owe almost from the beginning, despite the fact the Buffs gave two years’ notice. …

The Pac-12 has agreed to help CU with some of the cost to switch leagues, but millions can be saved by simply remaining in the Big 12 an extra year. Colorado officials have estimated they could forfeit between $9 and $14.5 million in conference distributions.

Arizona Wildcats football coach Mike Stoops has outlasted Dirk Koetter and Karl Dorrell, two Stanford coaches, two Washington coaches, and he hasn’t brought the program any NCAA sanctions, as the regime of Pete Carroll did at USC.

Inheriting a team that had won four Pac-10 games in three seasons, Stoops won two conference contests in his first season of 2004. And then two more in 2005.

It’s been a steady climb — to four wins, and then four wins, and then five wins and, last season, six conference victories and a tie for second place.

Overall, he’s 23-29 in league play, but I was curious as to how it all breaks down.

So, I compiled all the main game stats from 52 conference games, threw them into an Excel sheet … and then waited to see what hit me.

(more…)

The Pac-10 athletic directors will have a conference call Wednesday — and will meet in Los Angeles on July 30 — but Arizona’s Greg Byrne doesn’t expect a decision to be made by then on how the league will realign with expansion.

“I think there are a lot of issues we all have to work through,” Byrne said Tuesday in a press conference at McKale Center to discuss various matters. “And it’s a critical decision for everybody involved.”

Utah will join the league from the Mountain West Conference for the 2011-12 school year, with Colorado set to come on board the following season, although it’s still possible the Buffaloes could move up that timetable.

Byrne estimated there are six to eight different scenarios for creating football divisions.

“How many are really legitimate, I don’t know,” he said. “But there are choices, that is for sure.”

(more…)

Utah is expected to officially accept an invitation to join the Pac-10 on Thursday, expanding the league to 12 teams.

Colorado made it 11 teams last week, when we examined what the Buffaloes bring to the league in terms of the major sports. Let’s do the same with the Utes:

Football

Utah, as a member of the Mountain West Conference, has gone undefeated in two of the past six seasons. Now, we’ll get an answer to the criticism, “Yeah, but could they do it in a BCS conference?

Since 2003 — which was Urban Meyer‘s first season as coach — the Utes have gone 69-19. They routed Pittsburgh in the Fiesta Bowl to cap the 2004 perfect season and smacked Alabama in the Sugar Bowl to finish the 2008 season at 13-0 under Kyle Whittingham.

Utah is 3-3 against the Pac-10 in the past four seasons and 7-3 against the Pac-10 dating to 2003.

The Utes have won nine consecutive bowl games, the longest streak in the nation.

If they were in the Pac-10 this season, they would be considered part of a big pack chasing presumed favorites Oregon and USC. Utah is ranked No. 22 in the preseason by The Sporting News, No. 25 by Lindy’s and 28th by Phil Steele’s magazine.

Consider this: Utah turned to true freshman quarterback Jordan Wynn late last season, and he passed for 336 yards in a Poinsettia Bowl victory against future conference foe Cal, earning bowl MVP honors. The Utes figure to join the Pac-10 in 2012, when Wynn will be a senior and, most likely, one of top quarterbacks in the league.

Last meeting against Arizona: Nov. 2, 2005 — Utah 27, Arizona 24 (in Salt Lake City)

(more…)

Texas has turned down an offer to join the Pac-10, which means the league’s desire to expand to 16 — which seemed likely for the past few days — is not going to happen.

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.”

More Pac-10 expansion likely is on the way, but all we know for sure right now is that Colorado is in, starting in 2012. OK, so let’s look at what the Buffaloes bring to the league in the biggest of sports:

Football

Right now, not much. It’s been two decades since Colorado split the national championship, helped by the infamous fifth-down call near the Missouri goal line. The Buffs finished 11-1-1, finishing first in the AP poll, but the coaches voted for Georgia Tech (11-0-1).

Colorado has had four consecutive losing seasons under Dan Hawkins, who is 16-33 at the school after a successful run at Boise State. He would have been fired after last season — even he said he was “fortunate” to retain his job — but the athletic department wasn’t in a financial position to buy him out of his contract for more $3 million.

That could be a much different story after this season if he doesn’t pull off a huge turnaround … which no one really expects.

Colorado was 3-9 last season — 2-6 in the Big 12.

If the Buffs were in the Pac-10 this season, they’d be ranked ahead of only Washington State.

Last meeting against Arizona: Sept. 27, 1986 — Arizona 24, Colorado 21 (the Buffs hold a 12-1 lead in the series, which dates to 1931.)

Basketball

Not much tradition here. Colorado hasn’t been to the NCAA Tournament since 2003 and has advanced only twice since 1969.

The Buffs have a new coach — Tad Boyle, who replaces Jeff Bzdelik, who left to take over at Wake Forest. Boyle was a mere 56-66 at Northern Colorado, but he moved up the coaching ladder because of a 25-8 mark with the Bears last season.

Last meeting against Arizona: Nov. 24, 2009 — Arizona 91, Colorado 87 (OT) in Maui

Women’s basketball

Colorado hasn’t been to the NCAA Tournament since 2003-04 season, when it made its fourth consecutive appearance. Since then, the Buffs have only one season with a winning record.

CU’s home average attendance of 2,407 was 11th in the Big 12, although that attendance mark would have been fifth in the Pac-10, which is largely indifferent to women’s hoops.

Last meeting against Arizona: Nov. 24, 1991 — Colorado 74, Arizona 53

Softball

Nothing to see here. Colorado doesn’t have softball.

Baseball

Nothing to see here. Colorado doesn’t have baseball.

In a conference call with media Thursday, Pac-10 commissioner Larry Scott said of Colorado, “There is no requirement that they add any sports, but we have discussed that the profile of sports that are offered are compatible. We have discussed adding baseball or softball but there is no contingency.”

TV market

Here’s what the Pac-10 really likes. Colorado delivers the Denver area, the 16th-largest TV market in the nation.

“As we know,” said Arizona athletic director Greg Byrne, “television has a tremendous impact on what takes place with your contracts right now, and that’s an important revenue source for every league out there. …

“To have the Colorado television market as part of that will obviously be great exposure for our league and will be great exposure in our part of the country from a television perspective.”

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?

How does everyone feel about the NIT?

Arizona’s streak of consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances, held together by string and bubble gum by interim head coaches in the past two seasons, finally snapped Thursday Thursday afternoon at 25 years.

UCLA eliminated the Wildcats 75-69 in the quarterfinals of the Pac-10 tournament at Staples Center in Los Angeles.

First-year coach Sean Miller coaxed a 16-15 record out of his young team, getting a winning record with victories in its final three games of the regular season. That late surge allowed the Wildcats to be a viable candidate for the NIT, which unofficially does not invite teams with sub-.500 records.

The first round of the 32-team NIT will be held Tuesday and Wednesday at on-campus sites.

The NIT likely will include such traditional powers as North Carolina, UConn and even Memphis, which is coached by former Arizona player and assistant coach Josh Pastner. The Tigers lost Thursday to Houston in the quarterfinals of the Conference USA tournament.

“It’s about doing the best we can do, and we would be honored to be in the NIT,” UA assistant coach James Whitford said on the KCUB 1290-AM postgame show.

“There is going to some really good teams in it. UConn is going to be in it. North Carolina is going to be in it. There are going to be some teams you are traditionally used to seeing in the NCAAs — Arizona, obviously being one of them — that aren’t going to be there.

“That tournament is a very good tournament … and we hope to be a part of it.”

Arizona needed to win the Pac-10 tournament to grab the league’s automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. Arizona’s streak was two off the all-time record, set by North Carolina. The new longest streak belongs to Kansas, which will be making its 21st consecutive appearance next week.

HALFTIME
Arizona has been a second-half team lately and will need to be again after trailing UCLA 37-33 at halftime of a Pac-10 quarterfinal at Staples Center.

The Wildcats allowed far too many easy baskets to the Bruins, and UCLA freshman post player Reeves Nelson schooled any of three UA defenders — Derrick Williams, Kyryl Natyazhko and Alex Jacobson.

Arizona won its final three games of the regular season despite trailing at halftime in each of those games.

UCLA shot 63 percent in the first half — and Nelson had 12 points and six rebounds — but the Bruins couldn’t shake the Wildcats.

“You know, UCLA is really good on offense; I don’t think they get enough credit,” UA coach Sean Miller told Fox Sports Net at halftime. “With Reeves Nelson playing, he really gives them an inside presence and he’s hurt us, obviously. We have not had an answer for his physicality.”

Nelson had missed the previous four games because of any eye injury. For Arizona, forward Kevin Parrom, who had missed four games because of a foot injury, played and moved well i the first half.

In beating UCLA last week, Arizona held the Bruins to 33.3 percent shooting in the second half. In a double-overtime win over USC on Saturday, the Wildcats held the Trojans to 31.7 percent shooting after halftime.

PREGAME:
Arizona coach Sean Miller said he considers his Wildcats and UCLA to be evenly matched, with the betting line favoring the Bruins by one point.

Arizona won both regular season meetings, including a 78-73 victory in Tucson a week ago. It was a two-point game with 17 seconds left.

That was part of a regular-season three-game winning streak in which Arizona won all three games after trailing at halftime. The Cats were down 14 to UCLA in the second half.

The ensuing confidence from those games is the best thing Arizona could have hoped for. Miller said, “We’re not fighting ourselves.”

“It’s not to where we have nothing to play for, we’re not playing well, we’re beaten down, we have no energy. To me, we’re the furthest thing from that type of team. I don’t know if that means we’re going to win or not. But we’ll see where that goes from there.”

Meanwhile, UCLA claims it is optimistic, too.

Arizona starts two freshmen — Freshman All-American forward Derrick Williams and forward Solomon Hill — and could play as many as five in this afternoon’s Pac-10 quarterfinal against the Bruins at Staples Center.

If healthy big man Reeves Nelson is back in the starting lineup for UCLA, the Bruins also will start two freshmen (forward Tyler Honeycutt being the other).

Miller admitted his young players could be affected by the pressure of the tournament setting in an NBA arena.

“We have a lot of freshman with great experience, but this is a first,” he said. “This is different.”

Arizona has won three in a row against the Bruins, dating to last season. Before that, UCLA had won eight in a row in the series.

Check back later for more on the Arizona-UCLA game, which start a little after 1 p.m. Tucson time.