The Mountain West has established itself as the preeminent mid-major league in college basketball in recent years. San Diego State won the 2023 national title game. The league has sent six teams to the 2024 NCAA Tournament. While conference realignment has wreaked havoc, the stability of the Mountain West has put it on a level all its own, overtaking the American and Atlantic 10 as the best mid-major league in college basketball. It has also been the best late-night basketball games to watch, surpassing even the Pac-12 in viewership.

And now it is like all the others: plunged into chaos by football and greed.

The only good news from a basketball perspective is that the new Six Pac team makes sense geographically, at least (for now), as San Diego State, Colorado State, Boise State and Fresno State join Oregon State and Washington State as the two Pac-12 holdovers take steps to revitalize their brands.

To borrow a basketball term, this league is more of a mid-major league in football, but the four new additions from the Mountain West could justify this move on the basketball court and give the new Pac-12 a chance to establish itself as more than just a College Football Playoff contender.

San Diego State, Colorado State and Boise State have all been top-tier Mountain West basketball teams, and their ability to make regular NCAA tournament appearances could improve if the Pac-12 decides to make further moves in the basketball space. In particular, luring Gonzaga from the West Coast Conference would cement the league as one of the top six basketball conferences. Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark has flirted with Gonzaga for the past two years and has not yet been able to convince enough of his membership that adding a basketball-only member would be beneficial. But the Pac-12 needs numbers and brand recognition.

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Is ACC at risk as the conference realigns or is it doing well (for now)?

The Pac-12 must have at least eight football schools by 2026 to be recognized as an NCAA and Football Bowl Subdivision conference and to earn one of the five automatic berths in the 12-team College Football Playoff for its champion. To create an eight-game conference schedule that can compete with its FBS counterparts, it would need at least nine members. In basketball, 10 teams is the ideal number for the round-robin schedule, especially if you can avoid a bad lower division—that’s why the Big 12 has done so well in computerized statistics for so many years. Getting rid of the last-place teams in the Mountain West could benefit the future performances of the Aztecs, Rams and Broncos. Two games against Gonzaga every year certainly wouldn’t hurt, either.

The Pac-12 should be as selective as possible in which G5 schools it targets. (Our Chris Vannini broke down the possible options.) Let’s say the best-case scenario for the league would be to add two G5 schools with recent success in football — poaching Memphis and Tulane from the American League, for example. From there, it would make sense to chase another basketball-only member and continue to focus on its basketball branding. It might be easier to attract those schools than find a host of football schools to jump ship. Those possible options include:

• Holy Mary: The Gaels, Gonzaga’s biggest rival in the WCC, have appeared in 10 of the last 19 NCAA tournaments.
• Grand Canyon: The Antelopes will join the WCC in 2025, have strong financial backing in basketball, play in one of the best environments in the country and have reached three of the last four NCAA tournaments under Bryce Drew. And if Gonzaga leaves, the WCC is no longer as enticing as a landing spot for Grand Canyon. Adding the Antelopes would also give the Pac-12 a place in the Phoenix market again after losing Arizona and Arizona State.
• Wichita State: The departure of Memphis would be another blow to the AAC basketball brand, which is already in decline after losing Houston and Cincinnati. Wichita State would likely jump at the chance to play in the same league as Gonzaga; the Shockers saw themselves as the Gonzaga of the Midwest not so long ago.

A Pac-12 with Gonzaga plus a combination of those other additions would yield multiple NCAA Tournament appearances each year. The current Mountain West has been the seventh-best league in college basketball the past two years, fielding four teams in 2023 before increasing to six last year.

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Which schools could the new Pac-12 target? UNLV, Wyoming, Tulane, Memphis and many more

As for the rest of the Mountain West, the conference must retain eight members to keep its FBS status, and it’s possible some of the remaining schools will still drop out. (UNLV seems like an ideal destination for the Pac-12, though it might have a tough time breaking away from its partner in the Nevada University System.) Adding New Mexico State would make sense for the Mountain West, as the Aggies are already rivals of New Mexico and in the region. Of course, logic and expediency have rarely played a role in the realignment circus, and even the most practical solutions to rebuild college basketball’s product around historic rivalries and geography seem like fantasy to basketball fans.

Sports still have at least some leverage in television negotiations. The Big 12 and Big East have done well by building stronger basketball leagues — Yormark has publicly touted the possibility of selling his league’s football and basketball rights as separate television deals when the Big 12’s current rights deal expires at the end of the decade. The Big East signed a new deal with Fox, NBC and TNT this summer that will run from 2025-26 to 2030-31.

And although the ACC and Big 12 are a step below the Big Ten and SEC financially in football, they still enjoy somewhat equal status in basketball. The Big East is also close by. This new Pac-12 won’t be able to compete with the big four leagues in football, but adding a top-10 basketball program like Gonzaga could earn the coveted high-major designation, or at least get closer than the old Mountain West.

Gonzaga has done well with its dominance in the WCC, but the team also loves money. The temptation to pour a few extra million into NCAA tournament units each year has made Gonzaga’s final exit from the WCC seem inevitable. After conquering one of the most interesting basketball conferences in the country and setting off another realignment dominoes, the Pac-12 has a chance to bolster its own reputation on the court along the way. In the Mountain West, it’s now a matter of survival.

(Photo: James Snook / USA Today)