LAS VEGAS — At halftime of the Utah-Arizona State first-round conference tournament game, the Pac-12 mascots engaged in a game of musical chairs. As the mascots started to get eliminated — Tommy the Trojan, Wilma the Wildcat, then Puddles the Duck — it was hard not to think of the state of the conference as a whole, especially when Benny the Beaver was the only one left with a chair (or rather, inflatable donut).
Some PAC-12 mascot musical chair fun pic.twitter.com/ldRYc7SMDG
— Malaina Humphreys (@mmalainaa) March 7, 2024
In the chaos of conference realignment, most of the Pac-12 schools grabbed any available chair they could find, no matter what league it came in. Ten schools jumped ship, leaving Oregon State and Washington State clinging to the remnants of a once-proud conference, like Benny holding onto that inflatable for dear life.
In Las Vegas during the Pac-12 tournament, the conference’s cloudy future dampens the mood of the festivities. Even as teams celebrate big wins, they’re left lamenting the fact that these opponents won’t be on their schedule next season, that the coaches they’ve formed lasting bonds with won’t be making the trip to their arenas anymore. There are still resumes to build and a championship to win, but an undercurrent of sadness rippled over what has been lost.
For the moment, all anyone can do is focus on the games at hand and the March magic being created. Even Puddles the Duck, on the day that Oregon suffered the largest defeat (49 points) in Pac-12 history, jumps on top of the pile of mascots after he’s already lost the game. Savor the moment, no matter what comes next.
Before the Cardinal’s opening game against California, Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer told Yahoo Sports, “I’m just heartbroken about what has happened. I’m sick. I don’t even want to think about it. I want to enjoy this tournament that we’re at right now.”
All season, the Pac-12 has put together a worthy finale. It’s the ultimate validation of the combined effort of the conference’s coaches to collectively improve their level of play.
They check in on each other when teams are going through hard times. Oregon State head coach Scott Rueck recalled VanDerveer coming up to him on his first recruiting trip to welcome him, back when he considered himself just a fan.
Natasha Adair, in her second season at Arizona State, has won four conference games over two years, including just one in 2022-23. She’s in a familiar position to what many Pac-12 coaches experienced in their first seasons, trying to leapfrog other programs that kept getting better. As Utah coach Lynne Roberts says, “This league makes fools of all of us at some point.” But VanDerveer, Rueck and Oregon coach Kelly Graves have all reached out, commiserating and making sure their newbie was taking care of herself.
“That’s just the community in our league,” Adair said. “That’s the integrity of the coaches in our league. And I think that’s the sad part of just seeing everything disbursed. But the one thing that I will say is you have colleagues and friends for life.”
Earlier this season, UCLA coach Cori Close talked about a summit of the Pac-12 coaches about a decade ago. The conference had just finished last in the Power 5 in important metrics of success, and it wanted to figure out a way to go from worst to first. In addition to scheduling strategically, the coaches agreed not to badmouth each other in public and to build up the other programs whenever possible.
“I think it is the absolute key,” Close said. “We knew the East Coast bias of half of them are asleep when we play, we had to pound our chest for the sake of each other. If we didn’t have a good game, it’s my responsibility to say what a credit to them.”
In the intervening years since that meeting, five different teams have made the Final Four, four of them for the first time. Kelsey Plum set the Division I scoring record in 2017 and was one of two of the national players of the year, along with Sabrina Ionescu in 2017. Stanford won the national title in 2021 in an all-Pac-12 championship game versus Arizona. But the conference’s depth has arguably never shined through as much as this year.
The season began with two teams springing upsets on opening day: USC took down No. 7 Ohio State in JuJu Watkins’ spectacular freshman debut, while Colorado convincingly defeated the top-ranked defending national champions, LSU. Eight teams have been ranked in the Top 25, five in the top five, with four in position to host first- and second-round games in the NCAA Tournament and potentially two in line for No. 1 seeds. Even in Las Vegas, coaches have been touting the NCAA Tournament cases of their opponents.
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Stanford center Cameron Brink is a frontrunner for national defensive player of the year, and Watkins is likely to win the country’s best freshman award. VanDerveer broke the all-time record for wins by a Division I coach in January. UCLA, USC and Colorado have all set single-game attendance records. The quality of play in this conference has never been better, and business is booming alongside it.
“It’s been an honor to coach in it,” Roberts said. “And I look at some of the coaches that I compete against, and it’s legends, right? And the players that have come through this league since I’ve been here, it’s just incredible. I think it’s fitting that the league finished on the note that we did. Like I said, I’m proud to be part of it.”
The success of this season won’t be completely determined until the NCAA Tournament, but there’s enough pride in what has already been accomplished. The conference has been such a gauntlet that the teams can’t help but celebrate wins at this point.
“You want to perform well, for sure,” Rueck said. “If this is the end, let’s go out in style and do the best we can.”
(Photo of Tara VanDerveer, left, and Natasha Adair on Jan. 26: Chris Coduto / Getty Images)
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