NCAA Tournament: San Diego State’s epic run leaves Pac-12 with no choice but to expand
The conference cannot ignore SDSU's run to the NCAA championship or the expansion opportunity presented as a gift from March Madness.
Immediately upon being appointed commissioner of the Pac-12 in the spring of 2021, George Kliavkoff drilled past the “Conference of Champions” sobriquet and spoke the truth for all to hear.
“Our greatest weakness, if we’re honest with ourselves,” he said, “is the number of years it’s been since we won a football or men’s basketball championship.”
San Diego State just came closer to winning the men’s basketball championship than any Pac-12 school in 17 years.
The Aztecs lost to Connecticut 76-59 in the NCAA title game on Monday night, ending an enthralling run through the madness that included an upset of No. 1 seed (Alabama) and a dramatic victory in the semifinals (over Florida Atlantic).
Not since UCLA’s loss to Florida in 2006 has a Pac-12 team played on the last Monday of the season.
(It has been nine years since the conference produced a participant in the football championship game: Oregon lost to Ohio State at the end of the 2014 season.)
Given Kliavkoff’s stated desire for rings in the revenue sports — and everything else in the Aztecs’ favor (more on that in a moment) — a formal invitation for Pac-12 membership seemingly will be delivered to SDSU president Adela de la Torre in a matter of days or weeks.
If the Pac-12 presidents and chancellors decide not to invite the Aztecs, well, the conference might as well fold up shop and send each school on its merry way.
The Aztecs are an offering from the basketball gods. And if you haven’t been paying attention lately, know this: The Pac-12 could use a gift or two.
The lumps of coal are piling up.
Plenty has gone wrong for the conference over the past eight or 10 years. Granted, many of the problems were self-inflicted — the results of strategic miscalculations by the presidents and former commissioner Larry Scott. But goodness, the missteps have been as relentless as the atmospheric rivers battering California this winter.
Now, in the Pac-12’s desperate days and wobbly weeks, March Madness delivers San Diego State.
The Aztecs already had a strong case for membership, what with the quality of their football and basketball programs, their improving academic profile and their proximity to the crater left behind by USC and UCLA.
SDSU’s run to the championship game is less about cementing its basketball bona fides than about giving Pac-12 schools and fans something to feel good about after all these years of stumbles, bumbles and defeatism.
The Aztecs aren’t any more qualified for Pac-12 membership having reached the title game than if they had lost in the Sweet 16 or Elite Eight. They were already qualified.
But the optics around expansion have changed with their charge to the finale.
The momentum and the mood have changed.
Here are the Aztecs, a gift horse on a silver platter carried down a gilded chimney on Christmas Eve.
Not even the Pac-12 presidents can turn down that present, right?
Three additional thoughts on the Aztecs and Pac-12 expansion:
— Because the conference abandoned the division format in football, an even number of schools is not essential. The Pac-12 could simply add SDSU and move forward with 11.
However, a source told the Hotline recently that an even number of schools was the preferred outcome of the expansion decision. So anything that strengthens SDSU’s case for membership seemingly benefits a second school.
In that regard, SMU stands as a potential winner from the Aztecs’ romp through the NCAAs.
— SDSU accumulated five NCAA units with its run to the Final Four.
Based on the NCAA’s revenue distribution model, those units will carry a value of more than $11 million over the six-year payout cycle. Also, they would remain with the Mountain West in the event the Aztecs switch leagues.
(Each unit represents a game played, with the championship excluded from the formula.)
Over that same timespan, only one Pac-12 school has collected more than SDSU’s eight units: UCLA has 13, and they will remain with the conference once the Bruins depart for the Big Ten.
In fact, SDSU has more NCAA units over the past five tournaments than Cal, Stanford, Utah, Washington State, Washington and Colorado combined.
— Anyone notice a difference in the flow of SDSU’s tournament games compared to those of the Pac-12’s four participants?
The second half wasn’t hospitable for the quartet – -in particular, the second half of the second half.
UCLA lost a seven-point lead against Gonzaga; Arizona State wilted in the final minutes against TCU; USC lost critical ground late to Michigan State; and Arizona simply collapsed down the stretch against Princeton.
Meanwhile, the Aztecs rallied from nine down in the second half to eliminate No. 1 seed Alabama.
They rallied from seven down to beat Creighton in the Elite Eight.
And they came from 14 down with 14 minutes left to oust FAU in the semifinals.
Their entire run through the NCAAs was built on grit, moxie and clutch shooting.
We’re not suggesting every Pac-12 program is lacking those qualities. But a few are, for sure.
Perhaps the Aztecs could share their formula … when the invitation comes.
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