Gonzaga in talks with Huge 12 about becoming a member of convention

Gonzaga’s athletic director met in individual with the Huge 12 commissioner final week as a part of broader discussions concerning the Zags becoming a member of the Huge 12, sources instructed ESPN. The discussions are a part of the potential of a seismic transfer of the basketball powerhouse leaving the West Coast Convention to an influence convention.

Huge 12 Commissioner Brett Yormark met with Gonzaga athletic director Chris Standiford on the Hyatt in Frisco, Texas, whereas the Zags had been within the Dallas space to play Tennessee in a scrimmage, based on sources.

The transfer backs up Yormark’s guarantees of the Huge 12 to be aggressive and “open for enterprise,” and will additionally find yourself shifting the panorama of school basketball.

Sources point out that Gonzaga has been exploring its convention choices, because it has emerged as one of many premier basketball packages in the whole nation. Each the Pac-12 and Huge East have been engaged with Gonzaga, based on sources, however the extent of these conversations are unsure.

Gonzaga performs within the West Coast Convention, a mid-major convention that Gonzaga has constantly dominated because it has grown into one of many prime packages within the sport. The college has been clear with the WCC about its conversations.

The Huge 12 focusing on Gonzaga as a possible addition to bolster its basketball is no surprise, because the convention has been regarded in current seasons as the highest basketball league within the nation. The Huge 12 boasts the final two males’s basketball nationwide champions — Kansas and Baylor — and had been an extra time loss by Texas Tech in 2019 from having three consecutive NCAA champions.

The addition of Gonzaga to the Huge 12 can be an enormous shift within the panorama, as it will perpetuate the Huge 12’s fame atop the game. Gonzaga’s males’s basketball program has performed within the nationwide title recreation in 2017 and 2021. Gonzaga has been a No. 1 seen within the NCAA event in 4 of the previous 5 years.

Yormark has been open concerning the league’s need to develop. He is spoken brazenly about including a fourth time zone and packages with nationwide cache. The Huge 12 and its tv companions, ESPN and Fox, are close to settlement on a six-year extension that features a vital pay increase. How any potential payout would trickle down to a faculty with out soccer is unsure, however the thought of Gonzaga enjoying Kansas, Baylor, BYU and Texas Tech in league play can be engaging to tv companions.

The notion of Gonzaga probably becoming a member of the Huge 12 was introduced up by the convention with its tv companions in a cursory method in conversations concerning the league’s new tv deal just lately. However the potential addition had nothing to do with the Huge 12’s closing deal.

“It was hinted at,” mentioned an individual aware of the Huge 12 deal. “It got here up in a quiet method. It is a optimistic, but it surely’s not a monetary game-changer.”