There was a new twist, a small sense of awkwardness in the air during the conference basketball tournaments in Las Vegas last week.
Across the desert of southern Nevada, the sport’s western power structures gathered in fragments. The West Coast Conference, Big West Conference, Western Athletic Conference, and Mountain West Conference all stage their championships within driving distance of each other. Not long ago, you could have added the Pac-12 to that list, too. And, in a way, you still can. The league is expected to return to Las Vegas, likely at the Garden Arena, in 2027.
But this year felt very different.
Because in each arena, behind every handshake, postgame presser, and clipped hallway conversation, there was an unspoken reality … these were endings masquerading as basketball championships.
Every one of these leagues is dealing with some version of a breakup. And in a twist that almost feels scripted, each conference tournament winner is headed elsewhere on July 1, 2026.
Gonzaga to the rebuilt Pac-12.
Utah State to the same destination.
Hawai‘i is stepping fully into the Mountain West.
Cal Baptist is moving into the Big West.
Even the championship matchups themselves carried a sense of déjà vu mixed with foreshadowing. Utah State and San Diego State met for an MWC title, both bound for the Pac-12. Cal Baptist and Utah Valley are crossing paths again, with a future Big West reunion looming. The present and future play out simultaneously, sometimes on the same hardwood.
And hovering over all of it, yes, the lawsuits. Those can wait for another story.
This one belonged to the feeling.
For all the realignment talk that has consumed the sport, what stood out most in Las Vegas wasn’t anger or even anxiety. It was something quieter. Something harder to quantify.
Bittersweet.
Utah State head coach Jerrod Calhoun said it plainly, and in doing so, probably spoke for more than just his locker room.
“It’s bittersweet,” Calhoun said. “This league, I can remember staying up late as a youngster, watching these games back home at 10:00, 11:00, and we’re in it now. To have a chance to win another title and be a part of this league, it’s pretty awesome, and it’s kind of bittersweet for the Aggies.”
That word came up often. In conversations with coaches. In passing remarks from administrators. Even in the tone of media sessions that, at times, tried to avoid the obvious.
Because the obvious was everywhere.
At Mountain West Football Media Days months earlier, even players acknowledged the noise. DeAngelo Irvin Jr. brushed it off in the way players often do, grounding everything back to the game itself.
“We hear the noise,” Irvin said. “But it doesn’t matter what conference we’re in or who we’re playing. If we win, everything else takes care of itself.”
And that was the fascinating divide.
On the court, none of it seemed to matter. Coaches coached. Players played. The stakes were still real. The possessions still mattered. The urgency didn’t change.
Off the court, though, you could feel it.
Fans talked about it in concourses and lines. Media debated it, sometimes from less-than-ideal vantage points behind the basket. Social media, as always, amplified everything, from who “left” versus who was “left behind” to whether a game could even be properly covered from a baseline seat.
One coach, on his way out of the league next year, laughed about it in passing.
“It truly doesn’t matter,” he said. “They’re just looking for things now to be mad about. Let’s just play.”
And that, in many ways, became the theme of the week.
Because if you zoomed out even further, this moment didn’t feel entirely new. It felt familiar, almost cyclical.
Take a step back and look at what was once the WAC 16:
Air Force
BYU
Colorado State
Hawai‘i
New Mexico
San Diego State
Utah
UTEP
Wyoming
With additions that followed:
Fresno State
UNLV
Rice
SMU
TCU
Tulsa
San Jose State
Those names don’t feel distant. They feel… semi-current.
Rearranged. Rebranded. Repositioned.
And yes, both leagues did a good job of rebuilding.
So when people talk about the “new” Pac-12, or the reshaped Mountain West, it’s hard not to see echoes of what college basketball on the West Coast has always been. What was old has a way of becoming new again.
Which made the scenes inside Thomas & Mack and beyond feel even more layered.
Because while the structure of the sport continues to shift, the core elements that make it matter haven’t changed.
San Diego State head coach Brian Dutcher captured that perfectly when reflecting on the Mountain West’s future and one of its defining rivalries.
“It’s an epic rivalry, and it’s not just about the teams,” Dutcher said. “It’s about the fan bases. When we play New Mexico, this building is full. So now the charge for the Mountain West is to fill the building with someone other than New Mexico fans, now that the Aztec fans are taking their support to another conference. So hopefully the new teams they’ve added will support the teams like the Aztec fans do and the Lobo fans do and fill this building, because it’s a conference worthy of following.”
That’s the part that lingers.
Because for all the conversation about media rights, exit fees, invitations, and alignments, what filled those arenas in Las Vegas wasn’t any of that. It was people. It was history. It was a rivalry.
You could feel it most in games like New Mexico and San Diego State. The kind of environment that doesn’t need a label or a contract to validate it. It just exists. Loud. Emotional. Fun. Sometimes hostile in the way only college sports can be.
Nevada head coach Steve Alford pointed to the competitive toll that environment takes, even as the league prepares to change.
“This has always been a great basketball league,” Alford said. “I think that we beat up on each other… It’s obviously going to change going into next year, and we’ve got to reboot and figure out how we’re going to get teams in next year.”
And that’s the reality.
Reboots and rebrands are coming. New alignments. New identities. New schedules.
But what Las Vegas showed, in all its overlapping tournaments and intertwined futures, is that the foundation remains stubbornly intact.
Because the games still matter. The rivalries still carry weight. The fans still show up.
And maybe that’s why it all felt so bittersweet.
That is no disrespect to the future Utah State-Texas State game or the future UC Davis-Air Force bout.
It’s just going to be different … and that’s OK.
Because even as everything changes, there’s a growing sense that something familiar is quietly finding its way back.
Maybe in a few years, we’ll look up and realize the “new” Pac-12 feels a lot like the old Mountain West. Maybe the Mountain West reshapes itself into something that echoes the WAC. Maybe the names on the banners change, but the energy in the buildings doesn’t. Rivalries and narratives will be formed.
In a landscape constantly chasing what’s next, Las Vegas offered a reminder of what endures.
Not the conferences, not a lawsuit, but the fans, alumni, and donors that make these leagues special.
