Erick Doxey photo
After leaving San Francisco, WSU head coach Kyle Smith will be playing WCC basketball again soon.
Realignment has finally reached the West Coast Conference, but shockingly Gonzaga’s not the story.
CBS Sports’ Matt Norlander reported on Wednesday that the West Coast Conference will be adding Washington State and Oregon State in all sports except football and baseball for at least two years starting in the summer of 2024. The WCC is expected to vote on the additions as soon as Thursday.
After the other Pac-12 schools abandoned the conference to join bigger football conferences, Wazzu and OSU have become known as the Pac-2. It began last year, when USC and UCLA announced their intention to join the Big 10 Conference starting in 2024. That set in motion a series of dominoes which ultimately killed the centenarian Conference of Champions.
According to the reporting, the agreement between the Pac-2 and WCC is for almost all sports. The Cougs and Beavs already have a scheduling agreement in place with the Mountain West for football. The other exception is baseball, where things are still TBD. Oregon State is a national power in baseball and feels capable of going independent (and Wazzu might follow suit for some reason).
And while this should create exciting matchups in sports ranging from volleyball to cross country, this temporary merger is being made because of men's and women's basketball.
Norlander reports that the two schools will be treated as full members of the WCC for the next two seasons. They will play a full conference schedule, their games will count in the standings and they will be eligible for the conference tournament, and by extension for the league’s automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.
The words “next two seasons” are important as this is not a permanent deal. It lasts only through the 2025-26 season, which not coincidentally is when the College Football Playoff’s TV deal with ESPN is set to expire.
On the hardwood, the WCC is a reasonable fit for both OSU and WSU and the arrangement should be mutually beneficial. While neither school is a basketball power (despite OSU shockingly making the Elite Eight in 2021), they're both teams that should be competitive in the WCC. The two teams will help replace the loss of BYU, a consistent presence in the top-half of the league standings for the past decade until it moved to the Big 12 after last season.
For Gonzaga specifically, the additions will add some regional rivalries and help bolster a less-than-challenging league schedule in January and February.
On the men’s side, Gonzaga and WSU have met 150 times, with the Cougars holding a 98-52 edge in the series. But the two have not played since 2015, when Gonzaga effectively decided it was too good to waste its time on the Wazzu. Nobody within the program will admit to it, but it’s true. For the next two years, some of the same people who put a stop to the rivalry will have to make a couple awkward trips down to Pullman.
They might not be happy about it, but it will be good for the team, the fans and the sport of college basketball at large. It’s a regional rivalry that should be played annually, and now they don’t have a choice in the matter.
The WSU and OSU women's teams joining the WCC is actually a bigger boon in terms of adding quality to the WCC. Washington State's program has been on the rise in recent years, even winning the ultra tough Pac-12 Tournament last year, and Oregon State is a nearly perennial threat to hang around the Top 25.
On the women’s side, the Zags and Cougs are on better terms. The two teams have met every season since 2010 save for the wonky, coronavirus-addled 2020-21 season. They played an overtime thriller in Pullman back in November, with a top-25 ranked WSU team pulling out the win. Since the two programs began their annual series just over a decade ago, the Zags hold an 8-5 edge over the Cougars.
Oregon State is a different story. Despite the proximity of being located just one state over, the Zags' men and women have combined to play the Beavers only 15 times. The men’s side has almost no history, as the two schools have not met since before Mark Few took over as head coach.
While the Beavers don’t bring much in terms of quality or history on the men’s side, the women’s team has excelled. In 13 seasons under head coach Scott Rueck, the Beavers have made seven NCAA Tournament appearances. In 2015, the Zags knocked the Beavers out in the second round. In 2019, the Beavers returned the favor.
They should be an immediate challenger to Gonzaga at the top of the WCC much like BYU was before its departure.
Who knows what will happen after this two-year relationship, but the Pac-2 joining the WCC should be a lot of fun while it lasts.
UP NEXT
Men
Gonzaga vs. Jackson State • Wed, Dec. 20 at 6 pm • KHQ & ROOT
Gonzaga vs. San Diego State • Fri, Dec. 29 at 6 pm • ESPN2
Women
Gonzaga vs. New Mexico • Fri, Dec. 22 at 1 pm • ESPN+
