A Grip on Sports: The rebuilt Pac-12 has reached the NCAA’s legal football age but there is one more school it needs to tap to be complete
A GRIP ON SPORTS • Welcome back Pac-12. And a big hearty welcome to Texas State, the conference of champions’ most-recent addition. Is it possible for you to continue to grow your football program while also significantly improve your basketball ones? Asking for eight friends.
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• Yes, the Bobcats from San Marcos had one main selling point. They have FBS football, have been better than OK at it recently and were available – eager even – for poaching. Everything else, including how much it would cost, the Texas location and success in all other sports, was secondary.
Good thing, too.
After all, the current edition of Texas State basketball, either gender, isn’t going to excite anyone. Nor help with the reconstituted Pac-12’s all-important NET ratings. At least it won’t if it stays on the 2024-25 trajectory.
The Bobcat men finished 198th in the NCAA’s final NET rankings last season. Among the incoming schools, only Fresno State (298) was worse. And the Bulldogs were actually better in one metric: Quad 4 losses, with just four. Texas State had five. Of course Fresno was 0-22 in the other three NCAA quads, while the Bobcats picked one Quad two win and five in Quad three.
In other words, they were awful but might be just good enough to hand someone an NCAA-killing loss.
The Texas State women are even worse, which can’t make Gonzaga, Oregon State and Washington State (fixed from earlier) – the new conference’s best programs – all that happy. Not only did the Bobcats pull a Fresno – winless in the top three quads – they also lost 12 Quad-four games. No wonder they finished 253rd in NET.
It’s not as if basketball has a rich tradition to draw upon either, at least on the men’s side. The last time Texas State finished in the top 100 of Ken Pomeroy’s respected metrics? That would 2020, when the 21-11 Bobcats checked in at 93.
By the way, it was the only time in the last 10 seasons the program finished in Pomeroy’s top 100.
Yes, I understand this addition was all about football. And adding depth to the programming available for TV partners CBS and whomever else the Pac-12 can add. But basketball is going to drive the national narrative for the conference, at least for a significant part of the year. And adding Texas State doesn’t help build what is a solid resume for seven of the nine schools.
Everyone from Bangor, Maine to Bisbee, Arizona knows who Gonzaga is. And how well Mark Few’s program has performed in the past two decades. San Diego State has a rich recent history as well. Utah State is respected. Same with Colorado State and Boise State. Oregon State was good once, had one great NCAA run recently and has potential to have another one. When Washington State has the right coach in place, it has shined.
Heck, even Fresno State, the bottom-feeding men’s program, was excellent 40 years ago and was OK when Jerry Tarkanian was in charge.
Texas State? It moves the dial all right. Just in the wrong direction.
The solution? Next Monday announce the addition of Saint Mary’s. Add another top-five West Coast program. Balance the scales, so to speak. On one side is the Gaels’ rich basketball tradition, on the other is the sparse Texas State one.
Now if the two schools could just trade arenas, that would be nice too.
• I capped my Monday night by watching George Kirby pitch with precision once again. It was good to see, as a top-shelf Kirby gives the M’s a fourth starter capable of near-perfect performances.
It was even better to see Randy Arozarena hit a home run, something he hadn’t done in almost three weeks. Then hit another one, a three-run blast that blew open the game. A hot Arozarena, something he’s been recently – sans the power component – gives the M’s much-needed lineup depth.
At the top of the pyramid, though, stands Cal Raleigh. He did something last night no one in baseball has done outside the Steroid Era. Raleigh’s seventh-inning solo home run gave him 33 as June ended. Only five players have hit at least that many before July 1: Ken Griffey Jr., Sammy Sosa and Mark McGuire in 1998. Barry Bonds in 2001. That’s it. A pretty impressive list.
One could argue, pretty persuasively, the M’s have the only two who did it without chemical enhancement. And that Raleigh’s feat is the most impressive because his home games are in T-Mobile, the place fly balls go to die.
Then again, he is using a torpedo bat. Maybe that will keep him out of the Hall of Fame someday.
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WSU: The Texas State addition is the big news, of course, even if the school’s acceptance seemed a formality. Jim Meehan has all the nuts and bolts of the decision in today’s S-R. … Jon Wilner opined about it in the S-R as well and had a news story in the Mercury News. … John Canzano added his thoughts while also looking ahead. He also has his usual Monday mailbag. … Regional news? It sure is, with the Times’ Matt Calkins posting this column today. … The other 2026 incoming members have a great interest in the addition. … National acknowledgement? Sure. But, again, it didn’t move the dial all that much in the closed-shop world of college football. … Elsewhere in the (current, old and future) Pac-12 and the nation, we have another mailbag to pass along. It is from Christian Caple and focuses upon Washington’s football program. … And one more mailbag. This one from The Athletic. It focuses upon the media landscape. … Now this is an NIL deal I would have wanted back in the day. And, of course, it is for an Arizona State football player. … In basketball news, the new look, and new plan, for the Washington men has come into focus during summer practice. … Colorado will have two players available for its overseas trip it wasn’t expecting. … In baseball news, another Oregon State starter has entered the portal. … Finally, it’s true, isn’t it? Every year recently college athletic departments have had to adjust to major change. This year might be the most jarring one of all.
Gonzaga: Rumors about a special international addition have swirled around the Zag men’s basketball program for months. But Mario Saint-Supéry’s decision to head to Spokane wasn’t official until Monday. The Spanish guard with an impressive resume signed a financial aid agreement with GU and is already in town, prepping for next season. Theo Lawson has that and more in this story.
EWU and Idaho: Around the Big Sky, a Montana men’s basketball player was trying to get a fifth season. The courts said no. … Despite dealing with an Achilles injury, Damian Lillard is still hosting Weber State’s alumni tournament in August.
Indians: We mentioned yesterday the loss of a couple of key parts of Spokane’s offense. The promotions of Charlie Condon and Jared Thomas became official Monday. Dave Nichol’s weekly Indians’ notebook delves into that.
Seahawks: There is an expectation nationally the Hawk defense will take great strides in coach Mike Macdonald’s second season in charge. … Strange bedfellows indeed. DK Metcalf and Jalen Ramsey on the same NFL team? Yes, it has happened.
Kraken: Moms and hockey players. Seems as if they go together like PB and J.
Mariners: One other thing the M’s offense did last night in the 6-2 win? It gave Dan Wilson the opportunity to rest the top shelf of the bullpen, other than Matt Brash. The pen was taxed a lot in Texas. …It also allowed Jorge Polanco another day of rest, as he tries to shake off knee soreness. … We linked this story on Raleigh and lineup protection when it ran in the Times. It is on the S-R site today. … The Mariners are one of the muddled middle teams in MLB. Not good enough to be among the best, not bad enough to sink to the bottom third. … Nothing is over until it’s over. Was it Yogi Berra or Bluto Blutarsky who said that? Or me? Not sure. Anyway, ESPN and MLB are talking again. About the self-proclaimed World Wide Leader extending its expiring contract.
Storm: Seattle has an all-star starter in its lineup. It is Nneka Ogwumike. Of course. It is her 10th WNBA All-Star selection, tied for third-most all-time. … The WNBA is going to expand again.
Sounders: Mexico is playing its Gold Cup semifinal Wednesday night in San Jose. It will face Honduras. Organizers are worried the crowd count will be diminished some by fear of ICE raids at the stadium.
Sonics: Lenny Wilkins can’t wait until his statue can be a meeting place for folks headed into Climate Pledge Arena to watch the reborn Sonics.
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• In one year the West Coast’s sports landscape will change once again. The Pac-12 Conference, once home, at varied times, to the universities of Montana and Idaho, as well and USC and Stanford, will rise from the ashes again. The conference should have a mascot of its own: a Phoenix. And the mythical bird should be kept in the headmaster’s office at Oregon State, the one member who was part of the conference from the beginning in 1915. Until later …