University of Pacific to Join WCC in 2013

The WCC had been able to avoid the mess of realignment for 30 years until adding Brigham Young this past season. BYU was a good addition, especially for the bread and butter of the conference, basketball. Now though the conference has joined in the craze of destructive realignment.
I cover WCC basketball so I don't know too much about Pacific's competitiveness in other sports. I do know however that without basketball the WCC is on the level of the Sun Belt, Atlantic Sun or SWAC, small and unimportant.

Pacific had a solid couple seasons in the mid 2000's. From 2004-2006 they made the NCAA tournament. They won one game in the first two years. The Tigers haven't been back since and have only one other time (1997) in the 30 years of WCC stability I mentioned earlier.

This season the Tigers won 11 of 30 games played. They finished 7th in the 9 team Big West. Stat guru Ken Pomeroy has the Tigers ranked at 286 out of 345 D-1 teams. Pepperdine, the lowest ranked WCC team, sits at 289th. Pacific lost to the Santa Clara Broncos who went win-less in the WCC.

I could go on and on about just how bad the Pacific Tigers are. I won't, I think I've proven that point. After the jump I'll explain why this is a horrible move by the WCC. Once again, I'm talking about basketball here.

 
WCC Commissioner Jamie Zaninovich, who has been instrumental in elevating the conference to it's current status, said of the addition "Pacific brings to the West Coast Conference a strong geographical rival with excellent on-campus facilities and a recent history of athletic success in sports that are priorities for the WCC."

One of those sports would be Basketball. Recent being 2006.

The positives of this addition are few. The WCC gets a stronger hold in California, particularly it's Central Valley. Less competitive teams such as Pepperdine or Santa Clara, who may have trouble scheduling home games against D-1 opponents, now have another home game. Competitive schools like Gonzaga, Saint Mary's, Brigham Young and whichever teams are close on their heels (like USF and LMU were this year) get two more easy wins.

However, those two easy wins are at the expense of quality wins. With 10 teams now in the WCC it is highly likely that the league will stick with it's true round robin regular season, where each team plays every other team twice. That will take two games away from out of conference scheduling. Gonzaga or BYU (Saint Mary's doesn't schedule any quality teams but I won't get into that) could have scheduled  games against a major conference team or a strong mid major that would have boosted their SOS regardless of the result. A win in those games boosts not only the team's tournament profile but that of the conference as well.

NCAA teams are allowed to play 29 regular season games or 26 plus a preseason tournament such as the Maui Invitational. Currently the WCC regular season is comprised of 16 games, allowing teams to schedule 13 out of conference games. That number will drop to 11 with the addition of Pacific.

The only team Gonzaga scheduled that Ken Pomeroy has ranked lower than Pacific this past season was Longwood. The Longwood game was played after the end of the WCC season as a Senior Night game. It was scheduled to be an easy win to allow the senior class a fun, easy way to end their career at the Kennel. The team ranked closest to Pacific that Gonzaga played in the out of conference slate was crosstown rival #220 Eastern Washington in the first game of the year.

In case I haven't gotten my point across here it is bluntly. I am not happy about the addition of Pacific. I believe it hurts the top teams in the WCC, the teams that make the NCAA tournament. I don't believe it is in any way beneficial, except maybe in saving money in travel costs for Bay Area schools, for the rest of the teams in the WCC. I don't believe it is beneficial for the national perception of a conference that is trying to raise its profile.

Welcome to the WCC, University of the Pacific. Prove you're worthy, for goodness sake, please prove you're worthy.