Big Ten MBB: Year 2 offers little hope for the West Coast quartet as losses and irrelevance mount
The sample size remains small but is no longer tiny. Not with two seasons, four teams, and 160 games as evidence. Not with all the miles traveled, the time zones crossed, and the dollars spent. Not with all the losses accrued.
Life in the Big Ten has been a grind for the Oregon, UCLA, USC and Washington men’s basketball programs that joined the conference in 2024.
That’s not surprising given the adjustment and the logistics. Nor is it a means of casting judgment on their decisions to leave the Pac-12 for the Big Ten. The move was about football and money to the exclusion of all other matters.
But the on-court results are cause to wonder if their fates will change in coming years or whether the four programs are destined for a life on the periphery — for mediocre records, modest NET rankings and, at best, forever status on the NCAA Tournament bubble.
Their second regular season of conference play concluded Saturday night.
The carnage is easy to spot.
UCLA was the most successful, producing a 13-7 conference record for the second consecutive season — good for a sixth-place tie and second-tier status.
Oregon finished tied for 15th, faring much worse (5-15) than it did a year ago.
USC? As was the case last season, the Trojans (7-13) ended tied for 12th.
Washington joined USC in that spot, an improvement over the Huskies’ dead-last finish in their inaugural Big Ten season.
All told, the quartet is 68-92 in conference play across two seasons.
Only UCLA is positioned for an at-large berth in the NCAA Tournament, although the Bruins are closer to the bubble than to a seed befitting their tradition and reputation. Coach Mick Cronin’s tenure in Westwood seemingly peaked years ago, before NIL and the transfer portal came to dominate the sport.
Oregon was derailed by injuries. Without a miracle run through the Big Ten tournament, 67-year-old coach Dana Altman will miss the NCAAs for the third time in five years.
Washington remains in recovery mode as second-year coach Danny Sprinkle struggles to muster proof he can construct a program capable of reaching the NCAAs.
USC is floundering with seven consecutive losses, a dismissed star (Chad Baker-Mazara), and a coach (Eric Musselman) grasping for answers.
Nationally, they are irrelevant. Regionally, their impact is diminishing. Too many of their games are played thousands of miles away, often at odd times on the West Coast. And when playing at home, they often host opponents that have no resonance and generate little buzz.
The travel poses a massive challenge for all four programs — in both directions.
Crossing the country would be arduous once. They don’t do it once. They do it four times for conference play, creating compounding fatigue over the long season.
And when they return home, the quartet sometimes faces opponents that have been on the West Coast for days and are better rested.
Here’s an example: Washington lost to Illinois and beat Northwestern on a late-January road trip, returned home and had three days before facing Iowa. But because the Hawkeyes were coming off a game in Eugene, they had been in the Pacific Northwest longer than UW. Their bodies were better adjusted. (Iowa won in Seattle by 10.)
Another challenge: The West Coast teams have little home-court advantage because their arenas are rarely full and often half empty.
Washington averaged 7,712 per conference game in Alaska Airlines Arena this season, which was 77 percent of capacity.
UCLA was worse, averaging 8,678 fans at Pauley Pavilion — that’s just 63 percent of capacity.
USC had a similar attendance rate, with an average of 6,398 at the Galen Center, or 62.4 percent.
Oregon? Even worse: an average of 6,352 fans in Matthew Knight Arena, or 51.4 percent.
But when they hit the road, the West Coast teams walk off their long flights and into raucous arenas with 14,000 (or more) fans.
Across two seasons, UCLA, USC, Oregon and Washington are 17-39 in conference games played on the other side of the Rockies.
USC: 5-9
Oregon: 5-9
Washington: 4-10
UCLA: 3-11.
What can change the trajectories, both on the road and overall?
It’s difficult to see a path to sustained success because every last dollar and ounce of energy is being plowed into football — certainly at USC, Oregon and Washington, and, to an extent, at UCLA.
Even the Bruins, a basketball blue blood, recognize that floundering football is a ticket to the athletic abyss in the new era.
They spent less on basketball than Illinois in the 2024-25 fiscal year.
Oregon spent less than Minnesota.
Washington spent less than Penn State.
Admittedly, we’re painting with a broad brush.
The full financial picture won’t become clear until next winter, when the budgets for the 2026 fiscal year — the first with revenue sharing — are made public.
But there’s zero reason to expect a significant dollar diversion into basketball when the demand for football success has never been greater.
Nobody wants to be left behind when the next round of realignment (likely) arrives in the early 2030s.
Everyone wants to be well-positioned in the event the Big Ten adopts a revenue distribution model based on performance.
And they all fear the doom cycle in which mediocre football creates donor indifference that leads to tighter budgets that result in depleted resources and escalating losses and compounding apathy and, eventually, Olympic sports on the cutting board.
Basketball was an afterthought when the four schools joined the Big Ten, and understandably so.
For proof, look no further than the long flights, empty seats, forgettable seasons and creeping irrelevance.
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