‘Adapt or die’: The Pac-12’s demise is near. How will its basketball legacy live on?

LAS VEGAS — For one of the final times, Pac-12 men’s and women’s basketball coaches and players gathered in one place last week at the Park MGM Las Vegas for the league’s media days.

There was no commissioner George Kliavkoff, a central figure in the conference realignment mess that is about to break up the 108-year-old power conference.

Instead, players and coaches from the league’s current 12 schools fielded a steady stream of questions about the future beyond this season, while also talking about the present and what one final go-round could look like for the tradition-rich Pac-12.

“Everyone is united in trying to make this the best season ever,” Colorado women’s basketball coach JR Payne said in Las Vegas.

During the two days of basketball media events, there was less uncertainty about the future than there was when the Pac-12 held its football media day in July — that came just before the latest round of conference realignment really kicked into gear and led to eight Pac-12 teams joining USC and UCLA in their exodus from the league, starting next year.

Instead, there was resolve among basketball coaches and players to make the best of what is a difficult situation.

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“There’s sadness that this is ending. I think we all love this conference. But this decision wasn’t made about women’s basketball,” said Utah women’s coach Lynne Roberts, whose team is the preseason favorite to win the Pac-12.

“My dad always taught me, don’t think about things you can’t control. I can’t control it, so I want to do the best job we can in this last year in the Pac-12, enjoy these friendships and rivalries and then move on. Change is always hard but sometimes it’s not bad. I’m excited for a new challenge — everything is going to be new, which is sometimes fun.”

What Pac-12 basketball has meant to college athletics

There are many throughout the Pac-12 basketball community who grew up with the long-standing conference being a part of everyday life.

First-year California men’s basketball coach Mark Madsen grew up in the Bay Area, played at Stanford and was a longtime Los Angeles Laker.

“I’m incredibly sad about the breakup of the Pac-12,” said Madsen, who coached Utah Valley the past four seasons before taking a job in his home state this offseason. “In the back of my mind, there’s always the hope, 20 years from now, 15 years from now, things don’t work out with some of these other conferences and it gets put back together in some way.”

Arizona women’s basketball coach Adia Barnes is a Southern California native, played at Arizona and then for the WNBA’s Sacramento Monarchs and Seattle Storm, among others, before beginning her coaching career. She started as an assistant coach at Washington before taking over the Wildcats head job in 2016.

“It’s just crazy to think that one day the Pac-12 won’t be there, and it’s in the near future,” Barnes said. “I was a Pac-10 player, so obviously I was a West Coast person, it’s just weird to think there won’t be a major conference on the West Coast. That’s surreal.”

One of the biggest names associated with Pac-12 basketball is Stanford women’s coach Tara VanDerveer — the Hall of Fame head coach is heading into her 39th season with the Cardinal. She has inspired both players and coaches alike during her nearly four decades on the West Coast.

“The Pac-12 is something really special. We’re heartbroken that it’s done and it’s unbelievable — I’m still in a state of denial about it,” VanDerveer said. “My whole life has been coaching in the Pac-12, basically. I mean, 39 years of coaching at Stanford, it’s a long time.”

VanDerveer accounts for three of the five national championships won by Pac-12 schools since the NCAA began its women’s tournament in 1982 — the other two came from USC.

While Payne wasn’t born out West, she’s acutely aware of the impact that the West Coast has had on the basketball world.

She played at Saint Mary’s in the West Coast Conference, and her coaching career has taken her all around the West — from Gonzaga to Boise State to Santa Clara as an assistant before head coaching gigs at Southern Utah and again at Santa Clara. Then she landed the Colorado job in 2016.

She gave credit to people like VanDerveer, who have been pioneers in the Pac-12 and helped encourage the next generations.

“I’ve been a part of the last seven years, where we’ve had a tremendous amount of success,” Payne said of Pac-12 women’s basketball. “But most of us grew up loving the Pac-10 at the time, and then the Pac-12. I think people like Tara VanDerveer, people that have coached women’s college basketball at a high level for a really long time, opened doors for people like me.

“It set the stage for young women that are playing right now in the Pac-12. There’s nothing anybody could do to ever erase the success that has happened in this conference.”

On the men’s basketball side, there is an even more rich tradition of winning national championships. Oregon won the first NCAA men’s basketball title in 1939, and current Pac-12 members account for 15 of the 83 NCAA championships — led by a record 11 from UCLA.

Utah men’s basketball’s Craig Smith — who called himself a “newbie” to the Pac-12 world as the Utes’ third-year head coach — brought attention to the championship-level impact that the league has across all college athletics.

The self-proclaimed “Conference of Champions” has claimed 553 national championships from its member institutions, per the league.

“The long history of sustained success all across the (Pac-12) landscape — whether it’s men’s basketball or football or gymnastics or women’s volleyball or just, you name it — that’s a hard thing (to lose). The landscape in college athletics, look how much that’s changed in just the last three to four years,” Smith said.

Focus on the here and now

Coaches around the league remain steadfast in focusing on what they can control — in this case, that’s the upcoming season, when the league’s 12 teams will compete in the same conference for the final time.

“I’ve always really liked the league. I thought it was really competitive. Even in years that people said our league was down, I don’t think it was,” said Oregon’s Dana Altman, who is tied for the longest tenured men’s basketball head coach in the Pac-12 with Colorado’s Tad Boyle.

“So from my perspective, you know I’m disappointed. I’m excited at the same time because now we’ve got new challenges ahead of us, and that keeps you going.”

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There are optimistic projections this season could be a good one for the league in basketball yet again.

“There’s so much good basketball in front of us, and that’s what we’re thinking about,” USC women’s coach Lindsay Gottlieb said.

One year after four Pac-12 teams made the men’s NCAA Tournament, with one — UCLA — advancing to the Sweet Sixteen, five Pac-12 programs are projected to make this year’s NCAA tourney in ESPN’s latest bracketology. Joe Lunardi has Arizona as a No. 3 seed, highest among Pac-12 teams.

The outlook is more promising on the women’s side.

Seven Pac-12 teams made the 2023 women’s NCAA Tournament, and three of those — Utah, UCLA and Colorado — made it to the Sweet Sixteen. ESPN’s latest bracketology expects the league will qualify nine teams — or 75% of its members — for this year’s tournament, with UCLA a projected No. 1 seed and Utah a No. 2.

“I really owe it to our team to focus on the here and now, and that’s what we try to do and to really enjoy the journey with this team because there are no guarantees,” VanDerveer said.

Barnes, whose team has made the NCAA Tournament three straight seasons and was the national runner-up three years ago, said the future beyond the Pac-12 is on the periphery, but the focus is making the most out of this last Pac-12 season together.

“Right now, we’re so focused on this year and winning. You’re not thinking about the transition at all, you’re thinking about winning now with your group and making sure these college players have the best experience ever,” Barnes said.

“You’re just living in the moment, and this is going to be some of the best basketball. ... We’re going to get dispersed and we’re going to make all of these conferences better.”

What the future holds

Looking beyond the upcoming season, there will be wholesale changes with eight current Pac-12 programs going different directions, breaking off into three other power conferences.

USC, UCLA, Oregon and Washington are headed to the Big Ten in 2024; Utah, Arizona, Arizona State and Colorado will join the Big 12; and California and Stanford will become ACC members.

That leaves Oregon State and Washington State — who joined the original rendition of the Pac-12, the Pacific Coast Conference, in the mid-1910s — without longterm conference answers for now.

Madsen sees the positives in joining forces with the ACC, another traditionally strong conference. The ACC, like the Pac-12, also claims 15 men’s basketball championships from its institutions, tied for most in the game.

“Where some doors close, other doors will open. I’m sure a lot of these West Coast rivalries, even though we’re in different conferences, a lot of us are still going to try to find a way to play each other and keep some of those rivalries going, even though it’s not in the same conference,” Madsen said.

“... The ACC has always been a phenomenal basketball conference. Already in recruiting, it’s been phenomenal to talk about the ACC because we can talk about having a West Coast presence. We can talk about having an East Coast presence.”

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There will be scheduling challenges to work out, particularly with West Coast teams joining predominantly East Coast leagues in the Big Ten and ACC.

Altman suggested that could lead to more regionalized nonconference scheduling, to help minimize the travel.

“We’re going to have enough travel during conference going to the East Coast. I’d love to stay on the West Coast and play some nonconference games,” he said. “I’d love to play Arizona and keep that going. Arizona State, Utah, Colorado.

“… Since we’re going to have a lot of travel in our conference schedule, nonconference, I’d like to keep it more regional.”

For Oregon State and Washington State, the future is still unclear.

Will they be able to hold together the Pac-12 (or Pac-2 at this point) and be able to rebuild the conference, or could the two schools join, say, the Mountain West Conference?

Oregon State men’s basketball coach Wayne Tinkle wasn’t concerned that things will sort themselves out in time.

“Yeah, that’s up in the air. I’m not a blame guy. I’m more of a solution guy. It’s sad that, as a guy that grew up mostly in the northwest and Spokane, I never saw this coming. It is what it is,” he said. “We’ve got to find a way to deal with it, but I know this. Who we are at Oregon State and Washington State could probably be painted with the same brush. We find ways to solve problems.

“I know we’re working hard to find, not just solutions, but solutions that are going to help us prosper moving forward.”

VanDerveer even jokes that perhaps she’ll coach long enough to join the Big 12 as well.

“It’s been fun in the Pac-12, it’s been fun in the Big Ten (she was the head coach at Ohio State in the 1980s), it could be fun in the ACC,” she said. “I’m really looking forward to Stanford playing Duke, North Carolina, Virginia Tech, Virginia. When you’re trying to get fans to come watch, that’s a no-brainer. They’re going to come watch those games.”

There are no certainties more realignment won’t continue to shift the conference landscape at the highest levels of college sports. With TV contracts the main driving force behind these decisions, it’s safer to assume more changes will come in future years.

“It is what it is — the whole landscape is changing. Adapt or die,” Roberts said.