Conference schedule could get trickier next season for Arizona, Big 12 teams

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Thanks to the Pac-12’s geographic symmetry and travel partner system, the Arizona Wildcats spent decades taking a maximum of 10 flights and a bus ride to Tempe to play all of their conference away games every season.

In their first swing through the Big 12 this season, they took 16 flights. Plus that same bus ride up I-10 to Tempe.

The Big 12 also usually paired regular Saturday games with those on Mondays and Tuesdays, turning Wednesday into a “new Sunday” for rest. Except for weeks when there was a game on Wednesday, in which case there was no “Sunday” at all, nor a real Thursday.

Or something like that.

It could get even trickier next season. Brian Thornton, the Big 12’s vice president for men’s basketball, told the Star that the Big 12 would sometimes have games every night of the week next season, meaning the Wildcats could face a Wednesday-Saturday, a Friday-Monday or a Friday-Tuesday combination.

Anything goes, within some parameters, at least.

“When you’re playing six or seven days a week, you’re not going to have the traditional Pac-12 model where you’re Thursday-Saturday, Thursday-Saturday, Thursday-Saturday,” he said. “It’s almost more akin to an NBA schedule than the traditional weekend-weekday, weekend-weekday type of situation.”

Of course, the schedules are largely driven by longtime partner ESPN and now Fox, which is scheduled to carry more men’s basketball games next season under the Big 12’s extended rights agreement through 2031.

Thornton said the Big 12 is at a “little bit of the mercy” of its media partners, which are allowed to choose the matchups they want on the platforms they want within conference parameters.

“That’s something that we’ll continue to work through,” Thornton said. “Obviously, we want to do right by our institutions, and look at what matchups make sense.”

But while the Pac-12 tried to minimize time away from campus by pairing up teams into travel partners, who would typically play at another set of nearby travel partners over a three- or four-day period, the Big 12’s disparate geography makes that a challenge.

Arizona was handed two two-game trips this season, pairing Cincinnati and West Virginia in early January, while traveling to Texas Tech and Oklahoma State later that month. Some other Big 12 teams were also assigned back-to-back road games at Arizona and ASU, or BYU and Utah, but not always.

And while teams in the historical Big 12 heartland can reach each other easily, there’s always the question of what to do with UCF, which is near exactly nobody.

“It’s never gonna be perfect,” Thornton said. “You’re not gonna make everybody happy. We try to do the best we can to put people in a position to be successful. We don’t want teams to have to play three road games in a row, so we try to mitigate that as much as possible. Not to say that it won’t happen. It will.

“But if you play two games in a row on the road, ideally you play two in a row at home … we want to just try to be as balanced as possible.”

Another problem: Some coaches like playing Pac-12-style two-game trips, and others don’t. Colorado coach Tad Boyle complained that the league sent the Buffs to ASU in early January — followed by a game at UCF four days later — then sent them back to Arizona to face the Wildcats at McKale three weeks later.

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Then there was Houston, which was assigned a Feb. 15 game at McKale and a Feb. 18 game at ASU — and opted to fly home in between games.

“Five p.m. Saturday (after playing UA) until 7 p.m. Tuesday is a long time,” Houston coach Kelvin Sampson said.

However things work out next season, the Big 12 will at least give teams some breathing room.

Thornton said the Big 12 would try holding only 18 conference games next season, meaning each team will likely have two weeks in which they are assigned only one game. The league’s 20-game schedule this season — and a coaches’ vote against having any games before Christmas — meant a 10-week grind of two games every week, with travel usually involved.

But even that leaves some problems.

For one, teams will now have two more nonconference games to play as they wish, giving coaches the chance to schedule softer teams that could boost their nonconference record — and maybe their job security — but also hurt the conference’s collective strength of schedule and NET ratings.

Thornton said the league would continue to work with its teams on “nonconference parameters,” making sure the extra two games are filled in a way that makes sense.

“You obviously want to have quality nonconference games because that’s what sets the tone for how strong your conference is going to be when you go into the NCAA Tournament, with seeding and selection,” Thornton said. “That’s something we’ll have to work through.”

Also, for Arizona — and maybe ESPN or Fox — there’s an additional issue.

Playing an 18-game schedule will allow each team to play only three others twice, and historical rivals will be one of them. That means Arizona will have only two other “double-play” opponents in addition to the Sun Devils, theoretically reducing the chance the Wildcats will face Kansas twice each season.

That’s a pairing both Arizona fans and media partners have desired, and Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark said in October the league would study the issue after assigning the teams to meet only once this season.

“That’s a marquee matchup, as we all know, and one the fans want to see,” Yormark said.

It’s one of many issues the Big 12 has to work on, for next season and beyond.

Media partners “would love those matchups, but that’s not something that we are necessarily fully committed to,” Thornton said. “They can have their perspective, and we appreciate that.

“But we also have to make sure that we have the right competitive balance across our league. We have to try to figure out what trips make sense for our institutions, and make sure our schedule in general works.”