For the first time since its inception, Selection Sunday won’t feature any teams from the Pac-12. The conference is on a two-season hiatus following the departure of 10 schools and the temporary relocation of Washington State and Oregon State into the West Coast Conference.
But what if we suspend reality and pretend the new Pac-12 — the Pac-12 that will exist for the 2026-27 basketball season — is up and running as a competitive entity with the eight committed schools: Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State, Gonzaga, Oregon State, San Diego State, Utah State and Washington State.
How would that group of eight fare on March 16, when the NCAA Tournament field is revealed?
Three of the eight teams are tracking for at-large berths (Gonzaga, Utah State and San Diego State), while two more are on the bubble (Boise State and Colorado State).
That total compares favorably to the former Pac-12, which would be sending only three teams to March Madness: Arizona, UCLA and Oregon are locks; nobody else is close to the bubble.
And with three likely bids, the new Pac-12 seemingly would fare better than the rebuilt Mountain West, which has just one school, New Mexico, on a trajectory for the at-large pool.
To gain greater insight into how three conferences that don’t currently exist compare to each other — we love dabbling in alternate universes — the Hotline applied the current NET rankings to the former Pac-12 collection of teams, the rebuilt Pac-12 and the rebuilt Mountain West.
— The average NET ranking for the 12 teams in the Pac-12 as it existed prior to this season is 73.4.
— The average NET ranking for the Pac-12 as it will exist in 2026-27 is 83.6.
(Note: We included Washington State and Oregon State in the calculations for both the former Pac-12 and the new Pac-12. The Beavers are No. 80; the Cougars, No. 113.)
— The average NET for the Mountain West in its future form is 152.2.
— We even added a dose of reality: The average NET ranking of the 18 teams in the ACC this season is 96.1.
Because a single team can drag down the entire conference, we eliminated the lowest NET ranking and re-ran the numbers.
Without the worst team, here are the average NETs (in order):
New Pac-12 schools: 55.7
Former Pac-12 schools: 68.6
Current ACC schools: 88.6
New Mountain West schools: 131.8
What’s more, the new Pac-12 has six teams in the top 100 of the NET, or 75 percent of the membership committed to join next year.
The collection of former Pac-12 schools has nine of 12 teams in the top 100, while the new Mountain West has just four of its nine.
Granted, it’s not an entirely valid comparison because the Pac-12 legacy schools are, for the most part, playing more difficult schedules in their new homes in the ACC, Big 12 and Big Ten.
But they also have an advantage: With larger budgets supported by conference media deals, they can manipulate their non-conference schedules to create the least amount of downside risk within the NET ranking.
They pay creampuffs for home games and play challenging games at neutral sites, greatly reducing the likelihood of Quadrant III and IV losses.
Because of the multiplier effect in the NET, a lofty non-conference winning percentage protects teams once round-robin competition begins. That’s why Colorado is No. 100 in the NET, for example, despite owning a 2-16 record in Big 12 play.
The schedule manipulation does not completely offset the difference in schedule strength once conference play begins.
We suspect several Pac-12 legacy schools would be performing better had the conference remained intact than they are in their new leagues. (Arizona State and USC come immediately to mind.)
But the comparison of the former Pac-12 to the new Pac-12 isn’t unreasonable, either. Strip out the historical success of UCLA and Arizona, and there isn’t much difference between the two.
And clearly, the new Pac-12 is outperforming the new Mountain West.
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