Winds of change: college basketball enters a new world following massive realignment

Updated Oct. 28, 2024 12:28 p.m. ET

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College basketball has undergone a massive upheaval in a short time.

The transfer portal has created what amounts to free agency, with players switching teams like wardrobe changes at a Broadway show and forcing coaches to rebuild their rosters annually.

Name, image and likeness compensation deals have changed the game off the court, providing financial opportunities for athletes that weren't there just a few years ago while adding another layer of recruiting and retention headaches to coaching staffs. Extra eligibility for players because of the pandemic impacted rosters, too.

The latest jolt: Conference realignment, which has shifted — consolidated? — power in college hoops.

Well, maybe outside of two-time reigning champion UConn.

“I don’t know what business anybody has been in where there hasn’t been significant changes over time if you’ve been in the business for three or four decades,” said Bill Self, coach at top-ranked Kansas. “We’re going through one of those changes now and people probably aren’t as comfortable with the change — as I’m not, either — but I do think we’ll get through it and it’ll balance out, and we’ll be at a place that we’re much more comfortable in a short amount of time.”

The latest realignment round, namely a contraction and eventual re-expansion of the Pac-12, started as a slow burn. Texas and Oklahoma kicked things off by leaving the Big 12 for the Southeastern Conference, then longtime Pac-12 rivals USC and UCLA bolted to the Big Ten.

Colorado ignited a flurry of further Pac-12 defections by opting to leave for the Big 12, a move that persuaded Arizona, Arizona State and Utah to join the Buffaloes. Oregon and Washington left for the Big Ten. California and Stanford followed suit, heading off to the Atlantic Coast Conference.

That left Washington State and Oregon State as the only remainders of the “Conference of Champions.” All of these changes took effect this summer, setting up a season of change in college sports.

The Pac-12 has since announced a rebuild, mostly by raiding the Mountain West Conference, causing a ripple effect. Even longtime holdout Gonzaga plans to leave the West Coast Conference for the new Pac-12 in 2026.

The jumbling has forged four massive conferences with nearly coast-to-coast footprints, adding depth and talent to already-strong conferences. The changes also have forced coaches to adjust, while fans might need scorecards to remember who's playing where.

“Sometimes new is exciting,” Michigan State coach Tom Izzo said. “Sometimes we want to be stuck in our ways, but we’re not going to be able to be stuck in our ways, so I’m going to embrace that part.”

Tony Bennett took the opposite route. The longtime Virginia coach followed the footsteps of Villanova's Jay Wright two years ago by walking away from the sport at a relatively young age of 55. Bennett won a national championship in 2019, but grew weary of the 24-hour merry-go-round that college coaching has become and retired less than a month before Virginia's opener next week.

“The game and college athletics is not in a healthy spot and there needs to be change,” Bennett said, calling himself a square peg in a round hole. “I think I was equipped to do the job here the old way. That’s who I am and that’s how it was. My staff has buoyed me along to get to this point, but there needs to be change.”

UConn's Dan Hurley has flourished in the changing winds.

Hurley won his first championship in 2022, retooled his roster and did it again. After flirting with the Los Angeles Lakers' job, he had to rebuild the roster again — forward Alex Karaban is the only returning starter — but has what he calls his deepest roster as the Huskies try to become the first team to win three consecutive national titles since John Wooden-led UCLA won its seventh straight in 1973.

“I owe it to the people that invest in me and invest in these players to literally drive the people around to you places that they don’t think they can get to in such a pathological, sick, obsessive way that you’re just pursuing championships so hard,” Hurley said.

Every team in the country is pursuing that coveted national title. It's just many will be doing it from new conferences in this era of turmoil.

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