The Pac-12 has entered its bleakest days in quite some time regarding the sport of basketball. Its moniker as a power conference is quieting.
As someone tasked with the responsibility of covering America’s most depressing basketball conference, my job after another week of foul results is simple: laugh at the carnage and try not to let it ruin my soul. This wouldn’t be so sadness-inducing if Oregon had shown any signs whatsoever of being good–which they haven’t. And now that my son Bol Bol (yes, that’s how much I’m obsessed with him) is sidelined, I’m in desperate need of an electromagnetic shock to wake my super-fandom back up, because it’s waning in presence recently.
Maybe (maybe) if we go and suffocate Baylor and just beat their brakes off by like 50 and Bol Bol returns, I’ll be reeled back into the excitement. For now, I’ll take solace in the fact that our league is hotter garbage than Lindsay Lohan’s personal life.
I’m going to speak on that for a moment. The Pac-12 is unreasonably pitiful this year. It’s no secret the Pac-12 is the neglected child in terms of power conferences. For a while now the League has been trending in the opposite direction. Top recruits are few in far between apart from UCLA and Oregon, and UCLA’s been disappointing under the Alford regime.
Coaching is as bad as it’s been as well. The only programs truly comfortable with their current coaching situation are Arizona State with Bobby Hurley, Oregon with Dana Altman, and Washington with Mike Hopkins. I know I make jokes and puns about Wyking (Why Coach?) Jones, but how does a goofy like him still have a job as prestigious as California? They had a quality head man in Cuonzo Martin, who, despite slightly underachieving, made tournaments and garnered program excitement by snagging 5-stars like Ivan Rabb and Jaylen Brown. But he left for Missouri and that should tell you all you need to know about Cal. They were out-sold by Missouri. Let that sink in.
But what gives other teams the upper hand over those in the Pac-12 when it comes to program appeal? Well, I have a theory–a Pac-12 theory.
It all starts with the Pac-12 Network. It’s appalling. Have you ever tried watching it using the app or website? It’s a fool’s errand. Additionally, the station is NOT nationally televised, which is a real kicker when it comes to brand exposure, of which the League has almost zero.
College Basketball is an east coast sport, and that’s just a fact, like it or not. All of the media members not named Aaron Torres live and cover the sport from there. Games are broadcasted from 7-11PM every evening and each nightly slate generally features one or two big-time matchups between ACC, Big 12, Big 10 or SEC. Not the Pac-12. No, those games come on afterward, when most of the sport’s biggest supporters are fast asleep.
A very small portion of fans watching Pac-12 games at midnight Eastern time aren’t either 1.) Loyal to one of the teams, or 2.) Smoking marijuana along with Bill Walton.
Very few aside from the dedicated fanbases care or ever consume Pac-12 basketball. West Coast basketball no longer conjures up the images of Lonzo Ball or Oregon’s 2016 Final Four run of two years ago. This year, Gonzaga and Nevada have stolen the show. If you’re gonna stay up and watch basketball at 1AM, you might as well watch the Zags and the Wolf Pack, who are both far and away better and more exciting than any Pac-12 team.
The Pac-12 is riding on the brink of irrelevance, and more losses to the Santa Clara’s of the world could mark the coronation of the League as the laughingstock of college basketball. But perhaps we’ve already reached that point.
Anyways…the rankings, here they are. (PS: don’t take real stock in the order. No one is impressive right now.)