Former All-American Dan Dickau analyzes the future of college basketball on the West Coast
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00:00 Welcome back to another episode of the Gonzaga Nation podcast. Christian Pedersen joined by
00:04 Dan Dickow. We are back in what feels like, I sort of want to say the post-apocalyptic college
00:12 world that we now live in, where the traditional governments have fallen and everything is anarchy
00:17 while schools move all across the country to realign. We've talked a lot about this as WCC
00:24 specific, but also a little bit of this as general specific. We want to, I think as we go into the
00:30 school year, just kind of, you know, let's get all of it left that we've got conference realignment
00:36 talk out of the way. Let's empty the file on it and let's move forward. Dan, you and I both
00:44 were athletes who, well baseball players are athletes, quote unquote. You guys were both,
00:49 you and I were both athletes that participated in PAC sports. I want to say it was PAC 8 or 10 when
00:55 you were there. Easy on the PAC 8 there. It was the PAC 10 for sure. It was like the 70s.
01:01 My mom was a PAC 8 rower. You were PAC 10. I was PAC 10. I was PAC 12. Like we have West Coast
01:09 ties. You were one of the best WCC basketball players of all time. So you are the, you know,
01:13 you have done it for the people that they want to hear it. But we both are familiar with kind of
01:17 what this means to the West Coast. And now it's over. Is the PAC West happening? Is Gonzaga now
01:25 the preeminent power broker on the West Coast? Like I'm a little bit confused as to,
01:30 I don't see a way that the PAC anything ever comes back. And I almost feel like the WCC is now,
01:36 or maybe they're, they're vying with the Mountain West for like, who is the new big kid on the
01:43 block? Like what are your thoughts? There's so many ways and directions that this can go. And
01:49 we've touched on it a little bit over the last couple of weeks, but it keeps needing to be
01:53 talked about because it seems like every couple of days, there's a great article that comes out
01:58 with someone who's got insight from a new conversation. I don't want to say from a
02:03 power broker, but from somebody who's in the know or a decision maker. So, you know, I think right
02:09 now, Gonzaga's poised well being in the WCC. If you just look at the conference is next year,
02:16 after all this alignment begins, right? The WCC is the best basketball conference on the West Coast
02:24 followed closely by the Mountain West, right? I mean, when you, when you have Gonzaga, I think
02:29 that automatically goes, puts you at the top slot. St. Mary's is the top 25 automatically
02:35 keeps you at that top slot. The Mountain West might be deeper per se with depth for the middle
02:41 ground, at least historically, but the WCC has gotten better, I think. So, you know, that's
02:47 something to talk about really quick and touch upon. But when you talk about what's going to be
02:54 the lay of the land and is the pack two schools that are remaining being Oregon State, Washington
03:00 State going to go to the Mountain West? And I touched on this a week or two ago. That's a very
03:05 strong possibility. I think those schools fit as far as geographically, because a lot of the
03:11 Mountain West, when you look at it, Colorado State is in Fort Collins, a smaller city. Laramie for
03:19 University of Wyoming is a smaller city. You look at a few of those type of cities in college towns
03:28 that fits right better than that fits alongside Pullman and Corvallis.
03:33 But the interesting thing is the Pac-12 and the pack, whether it was the Pac-8, the Pac-10,
03:41 the Pac-12, that league in that name recognition carries a lot of weight. It carries a lot of
03:50 money that is by way of success in the NCAA tournament that has to get divvied up. So,
03:57 all these teams and programs, athletic departments that have left to go to different places and
04:02 leagues, there's still money in the pot that has to be distributed. And when they leave,
04:07 they forfeit that money. So, right now, the way I understand it is that money goes to Oregon State
04:12 and to Washington State. So, if they wanted to make a run at rebuilding the pack,
04:20 whatever you call it, calling it the Pac-West, bringing some Mountain West schools, maybe taking
04:25 a run at some WCC schools, they might have some money to throw there. You might also have some
04:31 name recognition for your media rights to be of value and entertain some thoughts there.
04:38 The question though is, remember a couple months back, and you would know this because you live
04:42 in San Diego, San Diego State wanted to get out of the Mountain West and go to the Pac-12, right?
04:50 They would have had to pay an exit fee. What if there was a merger between the Pac-2
04:55 and the Mountain West that would not force anybody to pay a merger or, sorry, an exit fee,
05:04 and you would merge those two entities together? Would the Pac-12 network stay?
05:07 What would the Mountain West media rights deals look like? Because currently, CBS Sports Network
05:14 has a deal with them. FS1 has a smaller one with them, but it doesn't rival with the Pac-12
05:19 networks tries to do in its entirety every year. Those are a couple of big picture thoughts that
05:26 continue to come to mind. If that were to come to fruition, do they take a run at Gonzaga? Do
05:31 they take a run at St. Mary's, even though they don't have football? I saw the wheel spinning
05:36 in your head. I kept going, throw your question out. You bring up something that I keyed in on
05:42 when I was doing show prep for this today. I know, I do show prep. I'm just the comic gesture here.
05:48 But, and I want to ask this in a way that is not disrespectful to the WCC,
05:54 but is there an inherent increase in value from teams like LMU and St. Mary's moving from being
06:05 in the WCC to being in the Pac-12? If they are the same schools playing in just a different
06:13 conference, is there an increase in the media? Because it felt to me like, yes, the Pac-12
06:17 doesn't have enough media money to save USC and UCLA, but it also felt like maybe this is a snail
06:26 moving into a larger shell and able to grow into it by being the Pac-12. Am I way off on that?
06:32 Well, I mean, that's a good point. That's another rabbit hole to go down because I think with this
06:40 conference realignment, you can go in so many different ways and it makes sense in so many
06:45 different ways. But I think when you look at the two schools that are left for the Pac, right,
06:52 those are not media markets whatsoever. Corvallis, Pullman, they're just not.
06:58 Or are they traditional powerhouses within the-
07:01 No, they've been really good in cycles. I mean, Washington State's been good in cycles at many
07:06 different sports, right? Oregon State just made an elite eight run a couple of years back and
07:12 their football team is poised to have a heck of a year right now. But-
07:16 Looking like they might win the Pac-2 championship.
07:19 They could, but they're cyclical with their success typically. You don't pencil them,
07:25 you write them in pen as being a contender yearly. But when you look at those media markets
07:32 and then you add the media markets of, say, for example, the Mountain West, you're looking at
07:40 San Diego. It's a good market, but it's not LA. It's not the Bay Area. It's not Seattle even.
07:45 You look at-
07:46 And that's where I came across-
07:47 Not huge.
07:48 Is Los Angeles, USF, San Francisco. And even though, like you said, no football, no this,
07:54 no that, it's still, we put an out... There is a new Los Angeles team back in the Pac-12. Does
08:00 that inherently make LMU more valuable? I mean, I think it would, but then I think
08:05 the WCC tries to play their cards in regards to what I was kind of talking about. Like, look,
08:10 the Mountain West, then I think Boise is a nice size market, but it's not a media driver by any
08:17 stretch. Las Vegas with UNLV would probably be the crown jewel of that league in regards to
08:24 ability to drive eyeballs with media. But at the same time, their basketball team hasn't been good
08:32 in a long time. I think Kevin Kruger is doing a great job there. But when you think of Vegas,
08:36 it's not the Tarkanian days. You're not-
08:39 I was going to say, there's nobody with a couple of backs in the team.
08:43 Basketball, you're paying attention to Vegas for gambling and different things. NBA Summer League,
08:47 you think of... So what I'm getting at is the WCC is primed in some good media markets.
08:53 Portland is a better media market than Oregon, or sorry, than Corvallis. The Bay Area for the
09:01 WCC where their offices are in the South Bay Area, you've got St. Mary's, San Francisco,
09:08 you've got Santa Clara. I mean, in Pacific, an hour and 15 minute drive away. So you're covered
09:18 in the Bay Area. And then the LA area that you alluded to, LMU and Pepperdine are right there.
09:22 And I've said this, again, I think that the long-term best thought process would be
09:30 a Big East centric league for Gonzaga because it's basketball centric where you go to West
09:35 Division, a Midwest and an East. That's out of the picture for now. But say the WCC did want
09:42 to expand. I think you got to look at, and some Gonzaga fans might not like me for saying this
09:47 because it's in the backyard. I think you got to look at Seattle U. It's a media market that
09:53 is going to open a lot of doors, right? It's an up and coming program. They've been really good
09:57 in the WAC the last few years. Then the other two schools, if the WCC really wanted to get
10:06 aggressive, because you could go from nine schools to 12 in a hurry if you got these three schools
10:11 done. You go Seattle U, you go Denver U. They're not great, right? But it's a bigger media market
10:17 West of the Rockies, okay? Or in the Rockies. So I'm not sure, they might be in the Horizon,
10:24 they might be in the Summit. I'm not sure what league they're in right now, but it's a major
10:29 media market. Then the third school that you go to to get up to 12 schools would be Grand Canyon
10:36 University, also out of the WAC, right? You got those three schools, I mean, you're covering
10:42 the major media markets in the West Coast. You'd have Seattle, you'd have Portland,
10:48 you'd have the Bay, you'd have LA, you'd have Denver, and you'd have Phoenix. Holy cow,
10:55 what more could you ask for? Yeah, then, well, I'm sorry, the WCC also has San Diego. So you got
11:01 that media market as well. I mean, you've got it all covered. About the only one that maybe you
11:06 might want to kind of reach out to would be Boise State, but they're fine. They got football,
11:12 they're covered there in the Mountain West. That's something that who knows, keep your eye on
11:17 that. You never know about that. Yeah. You're not wrong for forgetting USD. That campus is literally
11:22 away from where I'm recording this. And I forget that they exist sometimes athletically. Denver is
11:28 in, look, Steve Lavin, all the smoke. You're welcome to come over and say hi whenever.
11:32 Denver is in the Summit League. You are absolutely right about these media markets. I also,
11:37 I know that this is a basketball centric podcast and that's how we engage the lens through which
11:43 we view most of this. But you're also you're talking about some schools that are really good
11:48 at other stuff. Denver is one of the best men's lacrosse programs in the country. Gonzaga and USD
11:54 both have really good baseball. USF has fantastic. You're not talking about things where it's like.
12:00 In the way that the WCC basketball season plays out is indicative of the strength of the rest of
12:07 all of these schools across all the other sports. It would be fairly athletically successful
12:14 conference on a national level. Yeah. And I think the other thing about those three schools in
12:19 particular, when you look at the WCC, they're private Christian universities. The majority of
12:24 them are Catholic Jesuit schools. Seattle U, they fit that bill, right? Denver University,
12:31 they fit that bill. Grand Canyon, private Christian university. I mean, those three schools
12:37 fit the bill much better than saying, hey, you know what? We like what UC Santa Barbara does.
12:42 Let's go get them. That's not going to work. So, it's something that I think if you give it
12:49 some thought, it makes sense. To prevent some of that merger. Are you saying that,
12:53 like where you were saying there could be a WCC PAC 12 merger. Does branching out outside of the
13:01 smaller religious institutions become a barrier that WCC is not willing to cross and that schools
13:07 would then have to leave outright to go to greener, bigger pastures? No, I don't think that's necessarily
13:13 true. But I think, you know, those three schools that I mentioned, not having a football program,
13:21 the size of an Oregon State or a Washington State, or if you're talking a Mountain West school that
13:25 you might try to pull in like a Boise State or UNLV with the two next best media markets.
13:32 Those- Fair enough. Yeah, I get what you're saying.
13:34 It's supposed to make the fold easy enough to come in without any major changes to all of it.
13:39 And then closing that all out feels kind of like you're describing sort of the big East
13:45 in the 1980s and 90s, like where Syracuse, Gonzaga, Rutger, like you're worried about
13:51 their basketball programs and nothing else all year long because it's just a good, solid throwdown.
13:56 Like that feels like- Yeah, you never know. I mean, and the way that, again, the way that
13:59 college athletics is going is, you know, these larger conferences, right? I mean, you're looking
14:07 at 16, 17, 18 teams in a couple of these conferences now. You know, the WCC being
14:13 one of the smaller ones with nine, yeah, it helps for scheduling. But if you get the right schools,
14:20 why not take a run at getting up to 12? I'm with it, man. I'm absolutely with it.
14:25 We want to know what you guys think. So make sure you hit us up at Fan Nation Zags
14:29 on all the social media. You can find Dan at DanDickout21. Not giving you out anything of
14:34 mine because I don't want the smoke unless it's from USD Basketball. Go ahead, USD Social, get
14:38 at me. But seriously, we want to hear from your guys' input because this is- Dan and I know
14:42 nothing about what's going on. Dan has been friends with commissioners and we still have no
14:47 actual insight as to where any of this ends up. So we're curious what you guys want in terms of
14:51 how this all ends up and who knows, maybe we'll put Betty Nods out there and get a community
14:57 pool going for who's going to take which pundit square of where all this ends up settling out.
15:03 Though we are your source for any more information like that. So until next time, Dan, we will say
15:08 thank you very much everyone for tuning in and make sure you search and subscribe.
15:11 Gonzaga Nation, wherever you get your podcasts.
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