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West Virginia coach Bob Huggins will not be satisfied that Gonzaga, a powerhouse in recent times, will maintain its success if it makes the transfer to the Huge 12, considered one of America’s premier leagues in males’s school basketball.
ESPN’s Pete Thamel reported Wednesday that Huge 12 commissioner Brett Yormark and Gonzaga athletic director Chris Standiford had met in Texas just lately to debate the chance, which might make the Huge 12 a league that may rival and sure surpass another in males’s basketball.
“I might suppose it might be an amazing awakening for Gonzaga [to join the Big 12],” Huggins instructed reporters on Thursday.
Sources additionally instructed Thamel that each the Pac-12 and the Huge East had “engaged with” Gonzaga as effectively, however the extent of these conversations is unknown.
All through its run as a males’s school basketball standout over the previous 20 years, Gonzaga has been slighted by Energy 5 coaches who’ve overtly questioned whether or not this system may duplicate that success in a significant convention. Starting with the 1999-2000 season, coach Mark Few has didn’t win the West Coast Convention regular-season title — or a minimum of a share of it — solely twice (2000, 2012), however this system has not received a nationwide championship.
Gonzaga’s supporters, nevertheless, counter with its consistency, its current monitor report within the NCAA match and the variety of NBA draft picks it has despatched to the subsequent stage. Gonzaga has performed in two of the previous 5 nationwide championship video games. And since 2014, this system has not missed the second weekend of the NCAA match.
The varsity additionally has produced 11 first-round picks underneath Few.
West Virginia has produced one first-round decide within the NBA draft since 1968. However the Huge 12 has been considered one of America’s finest leagues over the previous decade, and two of its members, Baylor and Kansas, have claimed the previous two nationwide championships. The arrival of Houston in 2023 will solely improve the league’s expertise pool.
That gauntlet — the Huge 12’s groups at present play each different workforce within the league twice throughout the convention schedule — is among the hardest slates in school basketball.
“To get on this league and play who we play day-after-day, I might suppose it might be an amazing awakening,” Huggins mentioned about Gonzaga. “You do not get to make your personal schedule within the Huge 12.”
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