George Kliavkoff followed the custom for a conference commissioner and handed the Pac-12 Championship trophy to Washington coach Kalen DeBoer. Kliavkoff then quickly got out of the way. He has been at the center of the Pac-12 meltdown and with this almost certainly the conference's last championship game. So Kliavkoff could hardly be blamed for wanting the spotlight shone elsewhere. As joyous as the third-ranked Huskies felt about defeating No. 5 Oregon 34-31 for a spot in the College Football Playoff, those emotions also were tempered about what's being left behind.
Oregon State, Washington State and the Mountain West have announced a football scheduling agreement for the 2024 season. It gives the two schools six opponents each and keeps open the possibility that they will operate as a two-team conference for at least a year. All 12 Mountain West schools will be involved and Oregon State and Washington State will each play three homes games and three road games against members of the conference. The Mountain West will play a seven-game conference schedule and the games against Oregon State and Washington State will not count against the conference standings.
Now that the Power Five is about to become a Power Four in college sports, the schools left out of conference realignment are looking at creative ways to stay relevant.
The Atlantic Coast Conference presidents have chosen not to vote on whether to add Stanford and California to the league. That's according to two people with knowledge of the situation who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because neither the ACC nor the schools disclosed their internal discussions publicly. The ACC's inaction keeps the Northern California schools in limbo as they look for an escape from the crumbling Pac-12. The ACC has also been looking at SMU, the Dallas-based school from the American Athletic Conference, as an expansion target.
Tyler Kolek and David Joplin each scored 17 points, and No. 6 Marquette moved into the Big East championship game for the first time by holding off No. 11 UConn 70-68. UConn had a chance to tie or win in the final seconds, but coach Dan Hurley elected not to call a timeout. Jordan Hawkins missed badly on a contested, desperation 3 at the buzzer. Plus more action from around college basketball on Friday.
Jalen Jackson scored 13 of his season-high 17 points in the second half, Owen Dease came off the bench to add a career-high 16 and Texas A&M-Corpus Christi defeated Northwestern State 75-71 to win its second straight Southern Conference Tournament championship on Wednesday.
The highly contagious Omicron subvariant BA.2 is now the dominant strain of Covid-19 in the United States, causing an estimated 54.9% of all new Covid-19 infections last week, according to new data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
