Pac-12's Bold Realignment: A Game-Changer for College Sports?
The Pac-12 Conference shakes up the college sports landscape by adding San Diego State, Boise State, Colorado State, and Fresno State, while missing out on four AAC schools. Misreporting about Gonzaga's involvement adds to the intrigue. Meanwhile, the Mountain West faces a lawsuit over poaching fees, potentially costing millions per school. The ACC basketball schedule release brings excitement, with new members Cal, Stanford, and SMU set to challenge established powers. Key matchups like Duke vs. UNC promise thrilling action. How will these new ACC teams fare against the giants of the conference?
Join us for an engaging discussion on these pivotal changes and their impact on college sports. Listen now for exclusive insights and expert analysis!
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[MUSIC PLAYING] It's the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. Five-hour energy shots give you the feeling of alertness and energy you need to get in the zone and get things done. With zero sugar, a convenient portable size, and coming in several flavors like watermelon, tropical burst, or my personal favorite grape, it's exactly what you need to get through the day. Head to five-hourenergy.com, the set number five-hourenergy.com, and use our code locked on CFB to receive 20% off your order. This offer is only valid until September 30th on one order and cannot be used with other promotions. The code is not good on subscription orders. Go to five-hourenergy.com today. The Pac-12's edition of four new schools was followed up by a quartet of AAC school staying home and some misreporting about Gonzaga. [MUSIC PLAYING] You are a Lockdown College Basketball, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. Hey there, what's up? Welcome into the Lockdown College Basketball Podcast, the only daily national college hoop show out there. I'm your host, Isaac Shade, and you're joining me at The Place to get your college basketball content every single day. It's part of the Lockdown Podcast Network. I want to remind you that you can get every episode ad-free on Amazon Music. Special shout out to all the every day you're joining us and all the great members of the Lockdown College Basketball Discord. Welcome in. Let's get after it. This show is brought to you today by FanDuel. Place your first $5 bet, and you'll get started with $200 in bonus bets guaranteed. Visit FanDuel.com to get started. Here's where we're going today. We're going to unpack the latest and wackiest, wackiest news in realignment. We're going to talk about the ACC schedule, which finally dropped on Tuesday. Although they're still ahead of the big 12. We don't have that one yet. And so we're going to talk about what that looks like for Cal and Stanford and SMU and all my favorite games I'm looking forward to in the ACC. All of that coming up today. So, man, OK, conference realignment update. Y'all, this thing, on Monday afternoon, it was the most bonkers couple hours of nothing, honestly. So let's remember, the Pack 12 rises up out of the ashes like a Phoenix with San Diego State, with Boise State, Colorado State, and Fresno State. And then on Monday when it seemed like, hey, we could add four schools from the ACC, then we'll have our eight plus sum and be ripped, roaring to go. But that is not what happened. Chief Lee, I thought Memphis was going to go for this. I really, really did. I don't know about you. I'd be curious to hear your thoughts. But I thought Memphis would jump ship from the ACC, go to the Pack 12, which all things told, once everything was in, I think it was going to be a better both basketball and football product than the American is that Memphis is in now, especially if you land Gonzaga. And, you know, these other San Diego State and good grief. But Memphis stays home or stays in the ACC, as do-- oh, by the way, USF, South Florida, Tulane, and UTSA, San Antonio. All four of those are sticking with the AAC. And then stuff got really wacky after that news. Because, I mean, literally minutes after the AAC stuff was announced, Brett McMurphy reported from sources that Gonzaga had agreed with the Pack 12 to join the Pack 12. Leave the WCC and come be part of this new conference. And, I mean, I had gotten to the point where I was preparing social media stuff for us to send out for lockdown college basketball. And then, right about that time, somebody said, ah, you need to check back in on that. And it turns out it was wrong reporting from Brett McMurphy. Yeah, I mean, this is Brett McMurphy. Just doesn't get stuff wrong. But something was missing somewhere. And then-- but the weird thing with Gonzaga is that not only were they going to join the Pack 12, obviously, they wouldn't have football. But they were going to be given a full revenue share as part of the-- it's like, good night. But it would make sense because Gonzaga of everyone you've got, everyone you've brought in, and everyone it seems like you're bringing in, they're the dominant basketball entity. They are going to be your premier basketball team. But again, that was wrong. Now, later on Monday, it started to pick up steam for Utah State. It sounded like they had agreed in principle. And then on Tuesday evening, a little bit before I recorded this show, Utah State officially-- like everything became official, it went out. And it's like, OK, here we go. But the Pack 12 isn't making a big deal about it as they did with the previous 14s from the Mountain West. And then UNLV was seemingly next, but they wanted to make sure everything is what they were looking for and all of this so they didn't do anything Monday night. As I record this Tuesday night, still nothing happening. So let's go back because what on earth happened with Gonzaga, right? Like, that seemed like it was done, and it makes a lot of sense. Well, ESPN's Kyle Bonagura said this. Quote, "Conversations with Gonzaga started when the AAC schools were still in play." Again, that was Memphis, Tulane, South Florida, and UTSA. Kyle goes on, "Without them, the revenue projections are less, makes sense, which impacts what a hypothetical deal looks like with Gonzaga. Football likely needs to be dealt with before basketball schools truly enter." I hear that. That makes a lot of sense to me. I wish it didn't have to be that way, but I understand it. It's kind of like if you're a company and you lose both your boss and a mid-level manager, you're not going to rehire the mid-level manager until you've hired the big boss who can then go hire the mid-level manager. That just makes sense to allow that to happen. Similarly here, with football playing a bigger role in this, the Pac-12 is going to want to get in those football entities before they bring in the Gonzaga's of the world. Although, the Gonzaga of it all is great. I mean, clearly, Brett, your mark has been trying to do this with the big 12, knowing that he's not getting football with Gonzaga. So I really feel like they need to come back to the drawing board, but I get this. And then on Tuesday, stuff got wacky in a whole brand new way. On Tuesday, not the Mountain West Conference filing a lawsuit to the Pac-12. No, it was the other way around. The team that's poaching the schools is filing for a lawsuit against the Mountain West, but here's why. They were upset about a poaching fee that the Mountain West had added in last year when these two conference entered into their scheduling agreement. At that point, Mountain West wanted to protect itself, to safeguard itself against the Pac-12 coming in and raiding these teams. So they added a poaching fee. As CBS reports, part of that agreement, the Pac-12 would have to pay $10 million and more dollars per school in damages, and that's before you even get to the $17 million exit fee that each team has to pay. Whoo, that is a steep price of money. So basically, the way this works is these fees start at first school. They-- Pac-12 would have to pay $10 million. Next school, $10.5. And not just $10.5, like the $10 and the $10.5. The third school, it would add $11 million and so on and so on. So, for example, if UNLV decides to become school six to leave the Mountain West, that means the Pac-12 would have to pay them $12 and a half million, $10, $10 and a half, $11 and $11 and a half 12. Yeah, $12 and a half million, that's crazy. So Gloria Navarez, the Mountain West Commissioner, came out, had this long statement, but part of it included this that I thought was really telling. The Pac-12 has taken advantage of our willingness to help them and enter into a scheduling agreement. Now that they have carried out their plan to recruit certain Mountain West schools, or I would say raid Mountain West schools, they want to walk back what they legally agreed to. There has to be a consequence to these types of actions. Yeah, I mean, it's pretty brazen of the Mountain West-- or, excuse me, of the Pac-12 to say, hey, we'd like all these schools and we'd like to not pay you the money that we all agreed to put in place when we entered our scheduling agreement. Let's just not have that. No, Pac-12, you can't do that. What are we doing? Anyway, so that's now in the works as well. What is next for the Pac-12? Well, I thought Memphis was going to be in. Again, they weren't, and they aren't. So the pivot to me then became some of what has now happened, because the pivot to me was Utah State, UNLV. Once you had those, that gets you to 8 in your FPS viability. Now you can go grab Gonzaga. Even if you still grab other schools after that, it's just about getting to that 8, so you can be an FPS team again. Not power four, not power five, not an automatic qualifier, nothing like that. In basketball, they'll get an AQ. I just meant in the CFP they wouldn't, if you're thinking in those terms. But none of this is what had happened yet. However, as I already said, Utah State did agree to everything on Tuesday night and it became official. I really, so now they have seven. They need one more for FPS viability. I think UNLV makes a ton of sense. Obviously that's yet again, another big, big, big, big, big investment to get a school out of the mountain west. And then after UNLV, I'd go get Gonzaga. But I wouldn't stop there. That's 19s. I would add work to add two more to get to a total of 11. This is similar to like what the Big East does. They have 11 schools. They play a 20 game conference schedule, and it's just a true home and home against the other 10 schools. Perfect, and gives you a true and fair and honest representation of what every school is because they all have to play everybody at home and they all have to play everyone on the road. The Pac-12 could be that. We're just gonna have to wait and see. But it ain't gonna be Memphis or those other AAC schools. I get this deal done so you can get Gonzaga. That, somebody's gonna have Gonzaga and I would wanna be first to that table. It is kind of funny. There's been some funny jokes going around like, "Hey, the Jacksonville Jaguars should try to get an invite to the Mountain West." Oof, that's tough. Now, along with UNLV, the other Mountain West school to continue to watch is Air Force, does anything change or play differently with them? Yeah, but as of right now, still nothing with Gonzaga, nothing with Memphis. I mean, clearly Memphis is sticking at home, but those to me were the most exciting plays and nothing's happening right now with either one of them. So that's where we are with the Pac-12 and the Mountain West and the AAC and Gonzaga. There's going to be more to come, but that's where we stand as of late Tuesday evening. Now, the AAC, not AAC, the ACC released their conference schedule on Tuesday night where things gonna look like for the three new schools and the rest of the ACC. We'll talk about that in just a second. Right after I tell you about Roy, it's time to highlight our Roy Player of the Week. Roy is a new platform that lets fans make contributions directly to their favorite athletes. All you gotta do is download Roy for iOS or Android and a referral code locked on and you'll automatically be entered into a sweepstakes to win $5,000 cash. No purchase necessary, it's voidware prohibited. Now, for this Roy Player of the Week, we've selected James Madison's quarterback, Alonza Barnett III, because holy cow, did you see what he did to North Carolina on Saturday? Blowout wins 70 to 50. He had seven touchdowns responsible for it. So we're giving him $100 on Roy. If you were as impressed as we were with Barnett's performance on Saturday, you can show him some love to just hop on Roy and throw in a few bucks. If everyone pitches in $10, it adds up fast for Alonza. Now, you have the chance to show your appreciation as well and and for his standout performance this week. And you know, he's gonna probably keep doing some things for James Madison this year so you can keep tabs on that. So get off the sidelines and into the NIL game with Roy. This episode's also brought to you by LinkedIn. When you're hiring for your small business, you wanna find quality professionals that are right for the role. 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Again, that's linkedin.com/lockedoncollege to post your job for free, terms and conditions apply. The ACC became the fourth of the power of five conferences to release their schedule to us. They happened on Tuesday night in a live show on ACC Network. Here we go. Let me get into the nitty gritty and then we'll talk about what you need to know about the ACC this year. So 20 game schedule continues. The makeup of that now that there are 18 schools is that it's seven away-only games, seven home-only games, and then three teams against which you play a home and away. There are two partners who are your same partners every year and then there's one that will rotate between various schools. That is a 180 total ACC games during the regular season. Absolutely crazy. Now, first thing you need to know before we get to the SMU and Cal and Stanford of it all is that the ACC is continuing their trend that dates back to the 2019-20 season. That was the advent, the birth of the ACC Network. That's why this started with the ACC having conference games mixed into the non-conference part of the schedule. That started in 2019-20, excuse me, that season. It didn't happen the next year 'cause that was the wacky COVID year where everything got truncated, but every season since it has happened in 2021, 22, 23, and 24. So this will be the sixth year of it happening. And this year, the way it's gonna play out is each team will play their first conference game on the weekend of December 7th and 8th. That's the Saturday and Sunday. With 18 teams, there will be nine games. Eight of them will take place on Saturday and then Duke at Louisville on Sunday. Should be a really intriguing game with a much, hopefully much improved Louisville team. We're excited to see how that plays out. I also wanna say a word of thanks to the ACC because unlike the other's conferences, the ACC actually gave us a lot of tip times and a lot of TV schedules. We didn't get that really at all from some of the other conferences. So this is great. What a win, way to go ACC. That is how this will play out. But the big, big, big, big, big storyline in this side of thing before we get to talking about the games that I'm really excited for is Cal and Stanford and SMU and how the scheduling is going to work with them. Would the ACC continue in some hybrid version of the Pac-12's partner traveling schedule? What, maybe they would do something like that. Just come up with some sort of plan for the ACC and that's exactly what they've done. I'll just go ahead and tell you right now, SMU's schedule, it's pretty much a typical schedule 'cause there are so much closer to the other schools than the Cali teams are. But, woo, SMU has a brutal, brutal opening schedule. Are you ready for this, that opening weekend game? So they play on Saturday, December 7th. They host Virginia, at least they're hosting. And then their first game of the main chunk of the ACC season is at home on January 4th against Duke. Their very next ACC game is away on January 7th at North Carolina. So SMU, welcome to the ACC. Your first three games are Virginia, Duke and North Carolina. Congratulations, you're probably gonna be 0-3. Like, wow, that's tough ACC schedulers, you guys are savage. As for Stanford and Cal, they are essentially doing a traveling partner sort of situation where they're like, at home one weekend, they're gone the next, at home one weekend, gone the next. And so let me just kind of lay out for you how this schedule is going to work. Most weeks, they play a Wednesday and Saturday game. And typically it's both at home or both on the road, although there is one split. So on January 1st and 4th, that's a Wednesday and Saturday, the Cal and Stanford will play Clemson and Pitt on the road and then flip-flop. One will play one Wednesday, one will play the other on Saturday and then go to the other school. The next weekend, January 8th and 11, I say weekend, it's Wednesday and Saturday, they'll be back at home playing the Virginia school. So one plays Virginia on Wednesday, one plays Virginia Tech on Wednesday and then they flip-flop on Saturday. And then it's back away on January 15th and 18th. Again, Wednesday and Saturday. Stanford is at Wake and at North Carolina, Cal is at North Carolina and at NC State. Then they're back home the next weekend and it just keeps going back and forth like this. There is a break where they go back to it's kind of like it's Georgia Tech in Duke. So it's not really back to North Carolina. It's one team in North Carolina and one team in Georgia, but they'll do that. And then what's nice is after that, they come back and get a Wednesday off and have Saturday at home where they play each other at Stanford, that's February 22nd. And then they're home the week after that, February 26th and March 1st, hosting SMU and BC. So a really, really interesting way that the ACC schedulers have chosen to do Cal and Stanford's schedule. I actually think it makes a lot of sense. And one of my big takeaways from this, one of my like takes is that I love, what I love that this is done to the ACC schedule is that it's regimented it a little more. The Saturday games are more consistent that we have a lot more Wednesday games, a lot fewer Sunday games because of all this. But I really do like the schedule. Now, here's something that is odd to me though. Obviously the ACC had to like pair up schools when they did this and some of them make sense. Clemson and Pitt being together, what? Syracuse and SMU, no. Georgia Tech and Duke, you've got three other North Carolina schools to pair Duke with. Probably the school you wanna pair them with is there are tribal, you've got SMU and BC. That doesn't seem to make a lot of sense either. I'm sure there are reasons for those pairing choices and that those are way above my pay grade. But let me just, I mean, literally in five minutes or less, I came up with this. Nine pairs, you ready? Cal and Stanford, duh, Florida State and Miami, duh. Georgia Tech and Clemson, I don't know if that's duh, but it makes a ton of sense. Atlanta up to Clemson, which isn't very far into South Carolina, just go straight up I-85. It's not a very far drive. Duke in North Carolina, of course, staying in the state Wake Forest and NC State, of course. Both Virginia schools, Virginia and Virginia Tech. And then you get down to where you've got Syracuse, Boston College, Louisville, Pitt, Notre Dame and SMU. And these six, it's a little bit tougher 'cause SMU is off by itself. It doesn't really have a natural geographic partner, whereas the others do. Looking at the map, then it makes most sense to put Syracuse and Boston College together. And then as I look at it, it makes sense to put Louisville and Pittsburgh together. There's a little bit of a distance there, but here's why I say that. I don't wanna send either of those schools to be partnered with SMU, but you know who I would love to send to be partnered with SMU? Notre Dame, the team that is still too good to come join us in football, but it plays with us in everything else. So your punishment, we're just gonna make live hell for you. You're paired with SMU, congratulations Notre Dame. Look, those pairings make a ton of sense. Why are we just doing it that way? Anyway, I feel like they should be following my advice, but who am I and what do I know? Anyway, so that's where the ACC scheduling is. Pretty interesting how they're doing it. More importantly, I wanna talk about the games that we're excited about, what we're looking forward to, and that's what we're gonna do in just a second. 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All right, with the ACC schedule release on Tuesday night, I went through and just looked for games that I'm either very excited about or are intriguing to me for one reason or another, and I wanna share those with you. Look, we just have to. We have to start right out of the gate with Duke and North Carolina and both of the games that they'll play against each other. One of the things that's cool is that the first game this year has been moved back more into the middle of the ACC schedule. This one's at Duke on Saturday, February 1st at 6.30 PM on ESPN. The second game is at North Carolina to end the regular season Saturday, March 8th, also at 6.30, also on ESPN. So make sure to keep your eyes out for those games. But outside of the, what everyone kind of looks at is the most obvious duh, those are the games we're looking at. Here's some others for me that I think are intriguing for various reasons. The first of which is Virginia at Miami. They only play once this year. That's Wednesday, January 29th, obviously in Miami. Here's why I'm intrigued by this game. These are two teams that last year really fell off. Miami's coming off an elite eight and then a final four in the two previous years and then just didn't have it last year, man. And it doesn't make sense to me because it made sense on paper, but all the pieces just don't always fit. That is the transfer portal era. Virginia also wasn't really Virginia last year. They made the tournament. I don't think they should have. And so I say all that to say, this is a really intriguing matchup to me because it's two teams trying to work their way back to ACC and national prominence this year, a year removed from what happened last year. But Miami's trying to do it without Nor chad O'Mere who's off to Baylor. You just got all these stuff, Virginia lost their, you know, Reese Beakman's out the door, Ryan Duns out the door. So they got to replenish a bunch of stuff. It's just going to be interesting. And I think both of these teams should be better, but I would have said the same thing last year. So watch out for Virginia at Miami next. We already mentioned Duke. I try to not throw teams in too many times into these, but I did want to mention this one, Duke at Louisville. To me, this is one of the more intriguing games of that opening weekend. And it's the standalone Sunday game on Sunday, December 8th. This is Louisville's moment right out of the gate in ACC play to have a measuring stick of where they're at. Are we back? Did we reset? Has Pat Kelsey come in and done enough to get us back to ACC and national relevance? It's going to be tough because following the Kenny, the Kenny Payne era of these past two years, I mean, it's just the morale is the if, but Pat Kelsey, man, he has come in and infused this program with great energy. There's great buzz, but you bring in all these new players. How do they mesh? How do they come together? We're going to have to watch out for that. But if Louisville wants to prove this, they can do it in the standalone window on Sunday, December 8th. And would Duke come into town? No better way than to start off your ACC schedule with a win there. Next, Clemson at NC State. They play once this year. That is on February 1st, that Saturday, the same that we have the first Duke in North Carolina game. Why, by the way, is this game on the CW? I just, we should not be putting even remotely big games on the CW. They should be getting B and C tier ACC games. Anyway, what intrigues me about this matchup is A, these are two teams that lost their dominant big man last year. DJ and PJ, DJ Burns for, excuse me, for NC State and PJ Hall for Clemson. These are two teams that both have a pretty, like a calling card of like, hey, we get down in the dirt and we make life difficult and physical for you and you gotta go to a war with us to win a basketball game. And so I'm very excited to see this one and what things look like in the post PJ Hall, post DJ Burns era as Clemson visits NC State. Next, pit at Syracuse. These are two teams that are up in the same kind of neck of the woods there. They actually play twice, January 25th at Syracuse, February 18th at Pittsburgh. This is kind of the flip of Clemson and NC State who lost their bigs. Pit and Q's both lose big time guards. Syracuse loses Judah Mintz. Pit loses Bob Carrington. Guys who had, you know, really been carrying those backwards and they've got more coming, right? You know, like Pit. So I was Jalen Lowe, for example. And Pit has been, feels like they've been coming along a little bit. They've been making some strides in the ACC. They, on the flip of Virginia, Pit should have been in the tournament last year, unequivocally, yes. Syracuse is in their second year under red Autry. Are they gonna be able to continue taking steps forward? I don't know. This is a very intriguing matchup to me and I love that we get it twice. Couple more for you. Georgia Tech and Notre Dame. They, this is two teams that also play twice on New Year's Eve in Atlanta and then January 28th in South Bend. Why I like, why I'm intrigued by this game is, last year you saw it in spurts where Damon Stottamier just kind of had a little bit of a fire lit under Georgia Tech. And every now and again, they would pop up and nip somebody, get somebody. And Notre Dame had some of that coming, like they, they really found things toward the end of the season there. And they've got a couple of young guys who are now sophomores that, that I think could make this Notre Dame team much better than a lot of people expect it to be. So I picked this pairing, this matchup because Georgia Tech and Notre Dame both had like ideas of being good last year at times, but they just couldn't find the consistency. Can they do so this year? And how's that gonna look against each other? Next, kind of wrapping this up. Wake, and this is two games, hosts, North Carolina and Duke in back-to-back games, both of which are gonna be on ESPN in late January. January 21st, a Tuesday, wake hosts North Carolina. Then that very Saturday, they host Duke. Oh my, have fun Wake Forest, but seriously, it's gonna be super fun to see Hunter Salas against these backwards at North Carolina and Duke. And Can Steve Forbes pick up at least one of those two games, that would be really, really big for the Demon Deacons to hold serve at home against at least one of North Carolina or Duke. And then finally, just a question I'm looking at and thinking at is can any of the three newbies pick up any like big time wins in conference? Can they, can any of Cal or Stanford or SMU knock off a Duke or a North Carolina Miami, Virginia? Some of these schools that have been really strong in the ACC lately. So that'll be really interesting. Like how do they cement themselves in the ACC? That's gonna be a storyline to watch, certainly as the ACC play gets going. All right, gang, that's it for today's episode. Thanks so much for tuning in. Obviously we're gonna keep you up to date on all the wackiness that's happening in the Mountain West, Pac-12, AAC, WCC, whole thing that's going on. So we'll stay in tabs with that. And plenty more team previews, Leaf, Tulim and I are gonna have Purdue for you tomorrow. And then Andy and I will have a conference preview for you on Friday. So stay tuned for all of that. If you haven't subscribed to the show on audio and video, make sure you do it so you don't miss a single second of Locked On College basketball. If you're not part of the Locked On College basketball Discord, man, we'd love to have you there as well, where we chat college basketball all the time. All right, gang, as always, apologies to the lawyer family. Let's go wildcats and until tomorrow. Peace. 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