With the lifespan of the Pacific 12 Conference down to a mere few more months, the proud but moribund league’s final baseball season will begin this weekend.
The 11 conference schools that compete in baseball, excluding Colorado, can only hope for as sweet a swan song as the Pac-12’s football and women’s basketball seasons provided.
Washington, which advanced to the College Football Playoff championship game before falling to Michigan, headed a contingent of three Pac-12 teams that finished among the top 11 in the final Associated Press rankings. The Huskies were second, Oregon sixth, and Arizona 11th.
With the NCAA women’s basketball tournament around the corner, six Pac-12 teams are ranked in this week’s AP poll. Regular-season champion Stanford leads the way at No. 2, followed by No. 5 USC and No. 7 UCLA. Oregon State is 13th, Colorado 18th, and Utah 22nd.
By contrast, only one Pac-12 baseball team is ranked after the first two weeks of non-conference play. Oregon State is No. 4 in the latest Baseball America rankings and fifth in the USA Today coaches’ poll.
Stanford, which is bidding for a fourth consecutive trip to the College World Series, was 15th according to Baseball America and 23rd in USA Today’s rankings in preseason polls, while USA Today had UCLA 24th. While the Cardinal and Bruins have endured pedestrian starts and since dropped out of both Top 25s, they were among four other Pac-12 teams, along with Oregon and California, that received votes from USA Today’s panel of coaches this week.
The Pac-12, of course, is preparing for a breakup that will see 10 of its teams in other conferences beginning in the fall. UCLA, USC, Oregon, and Washington are bound for the Big Ten, while Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado, and Utah are headed for the Big 12. California and Stanford are set to join the Atlantic Coast Conference.
The self-proclaimed Conference of Champions, the Pac-12 will be down to Oregon State and Washington State, which hope to somehow rebuild a league that began as the Pacific Coast Conference in 1915.
UCLA pitcher Luke Jewett (35) after a February 2023 game. (UCLA)
Also formerly known as the Athletic Association of Western Universities, the Pac-8, and the Pac-10, the conference has produced 29 national championships in baseball, including a combined five by Arizona and Arizona State before they joined the league in 1978.
USC leads the way with 12 College World Series championships, the most recent in 1998. Arizona State has won five national titles, but none since 1981. Only Oregon State, in 2006, 2007, and 2018, UCLA in 2013, and Arizona, with its fourth national championship in 2012, have taken home College World Series trophies since the turn of the century.
Stanford and Cal have each won two national championships in baseball, the Cardinal back-to-back in 1987 and 1988, and the Golden Bears in 1947 and 1957.
Oregon State was the choice of Pac-12 coaches in their preseason poll to win this year’s conference championship. The Beavers, who are off to an 11–1 start in non-conference play, are the lone Pac-12 team not involved in conference play this weekend. Instead, Oregon State will host Cal State Northridge of the Big West in a four-game series beginning March 7.
Two-time defending champion Stanford, picked by Pac-12 coaches to finish second this year, will be at Washington in one of five conference series set for March 8–10. The Cardinal has split 12 non-conference games thus far, while the Huskies are 3–5–1.
UCLA, the third choice of league coaches, is 5–6 in non-conference play and will open the Pac-12 campaign at Cal. The Golden Bears (8-3) are coming off a 5-0 victory over rival Stanford in a March 5 non-conference game.
USC, picked to finish fifth by conference coaches, will open the Pac-12 season against visiting Arizona. The Trojans, 3–9 after a 6–5 victory March 5 at Cal State Fullerton, are playing most of this season’s home schedule, including this weekend’s set, at Great Park in Irvine because of renovations going on at Dedeaux Field in Los Angeles. The Wildcats are off to a 5–6 start.
This weekend’s other conference-opening series are Oregon (8–3) at Arizona State (6–6), and Utah (9–3) at Washington State (7–4).
The 30-game Pac-12 season runs through May 18. The conference tournament, which will determine the league’s automatic NCAA Tournament berth, is set for May 21–25 at Scottsdale Stadium in Arizona.
