‘This one was different.’ Gonzaga accepts invitation to newly formed Pac-12, ending 45-year tenure in WCC

Not long after Gonzaga and its fledgling athletic department joined the West Coast Conference in 1979, the school’s longtime athletic director, Mike Roth, began hearing murmurs.

“There were years when members wondered why Gonzaga was in the conference as far as, were we good enough to be in the (WCC)?” said Roth, who returned to his alma mater as a men’s basketball assistant in 1982. “Of course, that changed and Gonzaga athletics was able to change the whole university.”

Over the past five decades, the nature of the questions surrounding Gonzaga’s membership in the WCC began to change as well.

Had Gonzaga, with its now globally recognized men’s basketball brand, outgrown a conference that’s struggled to keep pace on the court and invest in the same way the Zags have?

Would the risks of eventually leaving the WCC outweigh the rewards?

If such a move did make sense, what would it look like?

After years of discussion, deliberation and dialogue with a number of conferences – the Big East came first, then the Mountain West, a previous iteration of the Pac-12 followed and eventually the Big 12 expressed interest – Gonzaga found a solution that made sense, and at the right time, accepting an invitation to the newly formed Pac-12 Tuesday morning.

“I think it’s well-documented, we’ve talked to a lot of folks. I think the key thing is, this one was different and it was different enough to make a move,” Gonzaga AD Chris Standiford told The Spokesman-Review on Tuesday. “The timing was fortuitous for us in some ways, in the context of where the media market is today versus where it was a couple years ago. But it became evident over the course of the weekend, there’s just a ton of alignment.”

The conference shift signifies one of Gonzaga’s biggest – and final – maneuvers under outgoing President Thayne McCulloh, who’s retiring after the 2024-25 academic year.

“It’s happened very, very quickly,” McCulloh said. “We began conversations in the very, very recent past and those conversations moved quickly and they accelerated quickly.”

Gonzaga will finish the 2024-25 and 2025-26 seasons in the WCC before formally joining the Pac-12 in all sports on July 1, 2026. The private Jesuit school in Spokane, which touts an enrollment of roughly 7,300 students and hasn’t sponsored football since 1941, brings its prestigious basketball program to a conference mostly consisting of larger, football-playing public state institutions.

For now, the conference has eight members, including traditional Pac-12 members Washington State and Oregon State, along with five add-ons from the Mountain West: Boise State, San Diego State, Colorado State, Fresno State and Utah State.

The Pac-12 needs to secure at least one more football member to guarantee its status as an FBS conference, but there’s reason to think Gonzaga could entice other targets, given its track record on the basketball court after advancing to nine consecutive Sweet 16s and making two national championship appearances within the past seven tournaments.

“Today represents an exciting milestone for the Pac-12 as we welcome another outstanding institution with a rich history of success into our league,” said Pac-12 Commissioner Teresa Gould, who has history with Gonzaga dating to her tenure as the WCC’s associate commissioner.

Particulars regarding the financial components of Gonzaga’s deal in the Pac-12 haven’t been publicly disclosed, but Standiford assured , “This is a better situation for us financially, without question.”

Even without a football program, the school is expected to receive “something close to” a full revenue share in the conference, according to Matt Norlander of CBS Sports.

Standiford didn’t provide details on Gonzaga’s buyout from the WCC, but indicated the conference has not “built up robust barriers to exit because they’ve got great alignment in membership.” The WCC required a $500,000 exit fee from BYU when it left to join the Big 12 – a sum that pales in comparison to the reported $17 million that will be paid out by each Mountain West school leaving for the Pac-12.

By virtue of its new partnership, Gonzaga will also forfeit any “units” it earns by qualifying for, or winning games, in the NCAA Tournament each of the next two years.

“That’s part of the difficulty in making these decisions,” Standiford said. “But it’s an innovative revenue distribution policy we helped drive back in 2017 or so whenever we did it. So it’s what we signed up for.”

The Pac-12’s search for an eighth football member will resume, but it’s possible the conference will also explore nonfootball candidates that could strengthen its basketball presence.

According to ESPN’s Kyle Bonagura, the Pac-12 has held initial discussions with one of Gonzaga’s longest-tenured WCC rivals, Saint Mary’s, along with future WCC program Grand Canyon, but the conference will focus on securing at least one more football member before exploring other potential basketball options.

Memphis recently turned down an offer from the Pac-12 to remain in the American Athletic Conference, but some interpreted comments from AD Ed Scott – who said “that (Pac-12) deal was not a good deal” – to suggest the university would reconsider a more lucrative offer if one was presented. The Tigers boast a strong football program and rich men’s basketball history.

Other football options, such as Sacramento State, New Mexico State and Texas State, would be less attractive than Memphis. UConn, once considered a potential Pac-12 member for football only, won’t be joining the conference, according to a report Tuesday from the Hartford Courant.

“What that eighth, ninth, 10th, I don’t know what it’s going to be … what that team ends up being I have full faith in the membership they’re going to make a really smart decision and we’ll have a vote in that and we’ll be able to go through that process with them and our perspective will be heard,” Standiford said. “That was an important aspect of us.”

As it’s assembled, the reconstructed Pac-12 could make up the nation’s strongest midmajor basketball conference, particularly with the addition of Gonzaga, which has amassed a record of 716-143 in 25 seasons under coach Mark Few.

It also consists of San Diego State, an NCAA Tournament regular that advanced to the national championship game in 2023, as well as Boise State, which has made five NCAA Tournament appearances under former Gonzaga assistant Leon Rice and won two regular-season Mountain West championships. Washington State, Colorado State and Utah State all earned at-large berths and won at least one game during the 2024 NCAA Tournament.

“My goal for us is to be the premier basketball league west of the Mississippi (River),” Rice told local reporters last week after initial reports surfaced linking Gonzaga to the Pac-12. “Let’s go get the best basketball teams, not only geographically but in the whole country. I think we’ll have the mindset as a conference to go do that.”

For Gonzaga, it’s not quite the basketball upgrade the Big 12 or Big East would’ve been, but signifies a significant upgrade nonetheless.

In 2023-24, the WCC’s nine programs finished the season with an average KenPom rating of 170, even with Gonzaga (No. 12) and Saint Mary’s (No. 22) hovering near the top. The eight future Pac-12 schools, meanwhile, finished the season with an average rating of 74.8, with five of those schools sitting inside the top 50.

“I was just joking about this. I was feeling pretty good about myself, being in two straight Sweet 16s,” SDSU coach Brian Dutcher told the San Diego Union Tribune. “Now we’ve got someone in the league who’s been to nine straight. Any basketball league where you say San Diego State and Gonzaga are part of it, that’s a pretty impressive league.”