Former Gonzaga All-American Dan Dickau shares his insight on Gonzaga's potential move to the Big 12, what the WCC's success over the Pac-12 means and the status of USC's Bronny James
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00:00 It's Christian Pedersen joined by Dan Dick. Welcome back to another episode of the Gonzaga
00:03 Nation podcast. You're catching us on a mailbag edition. That's where we answer
00:08 fan submitted questions. And I shouldn't even say we, because still today, despite me having
00:15 fake accounts that I could submit questions from, no one has asked a question of me that you guys
00:19 all just want to pick Dan's beautiful basketball brain. Dan, I'm going to ask you if you're ready,
00:24 but I also, unfortunately, that means I have to ask you a question that we had told the viewers
00:28 and we had promised was dead and buried. But PAC 12, Big 12, conference realignment,
00:34 any latest rumors? It seems like there's been some legal jumble jargon that comes out about
00:40 certain injunctions and blocking of schools here and there to the other. I'm still lost and confused
00:44 and kind of waiting until you give us an update. So what's the latest? You know, the update is,
00:50 there's still no clarity on what the heck's going on with the PAC 2. I mean, you had that big
00:56 kind of announcement about two weeks ago that, you know, no one else in the PAC 12 has voting
01:04 rights except for Oregon State, Washington State. Now it sounds like there was an appeal filed and
01:10 there's now maybe a little bit of question mark in regards to, is that going to be overturned?
01:18 Is it going to stay? What not? I mean, it's almost one of those things where it's hard to
01:22 follow in all totality because you know that all 10 schools are foot out the door looking for their
01:29 next opportunity. Two are trying to hold tight and hold on to whatever they can salvage in regards to
01:35 name of the league, who might join the league, where they might go. I mean, there's so many balls
01:40 in the air for Oregon State, Washington State. It's really not fair to those guys, but you know,
01:44 there's so much money at stake and there's also the name recognition of the league at stake
01:49 that you don't want to just go away that I think, you know, both sides are trying to do everything
01:53 they can to get themselves the best deal possible. I get it. I understand it, but I also don't like
02:00 it. I wish all the schools would have stuck around the PAC 12 and made something work,
02:06 but there's no use crying over spilled milk. You kind of got to move on. But what I'm hearing
02:12 though is, you know, Oregon State and Washington State sounds like their football schedules are
02:17 fairly well settled in regards to a best way to call it would be a scheduling arrangement with
02:25 the Mountain West. They're not joining the Mountain West. The Mountain West is not joining
02:30 the PAC 12, although I think that's something that could happen down the road and it's probably
02:36 being negotiated out. How would that look if there is a quote reverse merger? Because the term
02:41 and the name PAC 12, whatever it becomes, has a whole lot more juice and a whole lot more
02:48 credibility than the Mountain West does in history. So what I'm hearing is on the basketball side,
02:57 you know, football, you got to what schedule 10, 11 games, basketball, you got, you know,
03:03 10, 11 games in additionally. Well, if you're not in a league that has eight, nine, 10, 11,
03:09 12 members, you got to find a whole lot of games. And so Oregon State and Washington State men's
03:13 basketball and women's basketball are really trying to piece together anything they can
03:17 moving forward. Because many times these schedules, you know, against the bigger schools
03:22 takes a little bit of time to get them going. So you got to look out in the future a bit,
03:27 but when you don't know what your league schedule looks like, you're basically up in arms trying to
03:33 swat it at nothing. So it's really hard to predict. Now in regards to the big 12,
03:39 you know, I had a conversation with somebody in the other day that's on the know, and this wasn't
03:46 a Gonzaga person. It's just somebody in college athletics. You know, they essentially told me,
03:52 hey, Gonzaga is doing their due diligence and why wouldn't they? The big 12 is essentially
03:56 doing their due diligence. Why wouldn't they? There's interest on both sides. But what happens
04:02 is that many times, and he says he thinks this is maybe what is happening, a mediator,
04:09 a consultant who's in the middle of college athletics that is kind of tasked with surveying
04:14 the landscape and be like, oh, you might work in that league. Well, you might work in that league.
04:18 Well, is there anything that could be happening here? Is there a deal that could be brokered?
04:24 It happens all the time. It just happens that the Gonzaga one is a lot more
04:30 interesting to people in the media, especially basketball fans at the college level. And so
04:35 the league might think their values here. Gonzaga might think the values here. Can you meet in the
04:40 middle ground? You know, but there's so many different caveats that have to be looked at,
04:45 but there are middlemen, I'm sure, that are presenting things to the league. There's
04:50 middlemen presenting things to Gonzaga. There's the leagues that have to kind of work through
04:56 things. Basically, what I see it as right now is a huge stall. You know, I think with all the news
05:04 that has come out at different points, if it was really going to happen, they all would have wanted
05:09 to button it up and have it happen sooner rather than continue to drag out. So my stance on this is
05:16 I think Gonzaga is in the WCC for the foreseeable future. I don't see anything happening quickly.
05:24 Now, you know, ever we're changing world of college athletics, that could change in a heartbeat,
05:28 but I don't see that being the case. I say get all the Pac-12 mascots, get them into a Hunger
05:35 Games style arena combat to just duke it out. And then winning mascot gets determined the fate of
05:40 all the scoops. Tired. I'm almost at this point just tired of the drama. Like I, I, I, this is a
05:46 Pac-12. I think I'd have to go with the Trojan. I mean, right. They're a warrior. Let's see, but
05:52 the men of Troy, there's a couple of big bears involved in that. Like the Trojan bear, you got
05:58 swords, you got chariots, you're riding horses. I think you're good. All right. I like it. What,
06:03 what, you know, let's do that podcast instead of actual objective analysis of potentially where
06:08 Gonzaga let's go in that direction, please. Well, the ducks and beavers would be downright
06:12 just done day one. I mean, they wouldn't even last 10 minutes because you got Buffalo, you got
06:18 bears, you got wild cats, you got cougars, huskies, ducks and beavers are done. Yeah. Most likely,
06:25 unless you're hiding somewhere or the tree. I mean, Stanford, I mean, cut that thing down.
06:31 You're done too. Yeah. No, no, that's the, they all collectively, everyone goes after Stanford,
06:36 the tree first. Seriously though, the, it feeds in perfectly to our next question of someone said
06:42 sent in on X, Y, or the WCC schools are four and one potentially gonna, depending on how the rest
06:50 of this or next week goes, could be six or seven and one against PAC 12 schools. Does something
06:56 like this boost Gonzaga and the WCC is value and maybe switch them back into school acquisition
07:03 mode. I don't know if that means anything given for the last couple of minutes, you've been talking
07:08 about the PAC 12, maybe isn't anything anymore, but it also does seem kind of relevant that maybe
07:12 recency biases, Hey, look, our stock is going up a little bit right now. So let's stand pat.
07:20 Well, they've, they've beaten, you know, the supposed schools above them in, in the rankings,
07:26 the, the power conference schools in the PAC 12. So they have done that, but unfortunately for the
07:32 league, they've also struggled in some of the games that they really needed to win. And I'm
07:36 talking to St. Mary's I'm talking to a certain extent, the, the two losses for San Francisco,
07:42 they were right there. They could have won both of those. So a little bit of disappointment
07:47 in letting the, a few games slip for the WCC, but you know all in all there's the league's got some
07:55 more opportunities coming up. I know you know, Gonzaga has got USC, Gonzaga has got U-Dub coming
08:01 up. You know, some of the other schools have, I believe Cal in Utah and Colorado still on their
08:07 schedule as well. So who knows? I mean, I think all said and done if guns, if Gonzaga and the WCC
08:13 could have a positive above 500 record against the PAC 12 this year, that would be great.
08:18 It could be amazing. I am curious now that we think down this question,
08:22 what really is the sample size needed to consider the value of a lead? Like, do you go,
08:30 is the PAC 12s value based off of the last two years, the last 10 years, the last 25?
08:37 I'm curious now that we just, I don't, and I know you don't have an answer for me, but like
08:41 how many years back do you go to calculate the value of the WCC when putting in all of this
08:48 relations? Cause it seems like maybe the last five to 10 years are a lot better than the previous 10
08:53 to 20 years or something like that. Yeah. I mean, I think a lot of that is, you know, there's cycles
08:58 in sports, there's cycles in college athletics and basketball and there's cycles within leagues
09:03 and how good they are. You know, a few years back, PAC 12, I think I had two teams, maybe three in
09:09 the NCAA tournament. They had years, they've had seven in the NCAA tournament. They've had years
09:14 where, you know, in unexpected, like Oregon state advances to the elite eight, they've had years
09:19 where all the teams that made the tournament were out first weekend. So, you know, I think when you
09:26 look at the PAC 12, it's been, they're all, they always have an enormous amount of talent. I mean,
09:32 I think the league wise, they, I believe they're the third in regards to players that are in the
09:39 NBA. So talent wise, you know, they're, they are head and shoulders above the WCC and I don't,
09:45 I wouldn't have seen that changing even if the PAC 12 stayed as a league moving forward. But
09:52 I think when you look at it for the WCC, they've scheduled PAC 12 teams, but you also haven't seen
10:01 outside of maybe Gonzaga scheduling the top tier. You know, you're not seeing, you know,
10:09 St. Mary's getting a game with Arizona or UCLA because the WCC's higher teams are good enough
10:16 where not everybody wants to schedule them. Now, I'm not saying St. Mary's would beat Arizona. I'm
10:21 not saying, you know, Santa Clara would beat UCLA, USC, but I'm just saying the league has been
10:28 pretty good and pretty smart about which supposed power. - You're identifying that as being the next
10:34 stepping stone. That's where the real upward value is, is that if two or three other schools
10:40 want to foray into playing a Kentucky, a X, Y, or Z other top 10 to 25 blue blood type program.
10:50 I'm hearing you. - Yep. - All right, Dan, our final question that we got, and as a reminder,
10:54 you guys can submit these questions at fan nation Zags on all the social media. You can bug Dan
10:58 himself at dandickout21. Dan, someone wants to know if we're going to see Brawny against Gonzaga
11:03 in Vegas. - Great question. I think there's a chance. I mean, I don't have insider information,
11:10 but if you follow it, you know, he's picked up his workouts. He's now in pre-game workouts,
11:17 which is obviously a huge step. And you look at the fact that they probably are thinking,
11:26 "Hey, we might need some more depth against a good Gonzaga team." It's in Vegas. Who doesn't
11:32 like a good show in an entrance in Vegas? The other part that's interesting and unique is the
11:38 Lakers have a night off that night. And maybe, and I'm just speculating, maybe Brawny would love to
11:45 have LeBron in attendance for his first game at the college level. - See what Dan did there? Dan
11:54 realizes that the James family is playing 4D chess, and that's the true, that's true show prep
11:59 right there. Cross-referencing the Lakers schedule with LeBron's kids' injury recovery from all that.
12:05 Dan, thank you very much for joining us for another Mailbag Edition. Reminder to check out
12:10 everything that Dan is doing. It's not just the two of us blathering away on a mailbag. There's
12:14 tons of content every week covering all the WCC teams, interviewing players, interviewing analysts.
12:19 He's got a bunch of people coming in and out of that studio 24/7, 365, to give you guys nothing
12:24 but the best Gonzaga basketball coverage. Until next time, we'll see you soon. - Awesome. Good