Report: Big 12 Resumes Talks with Gonzaga About Joining Conference

Big 12 has resumed talks with Gonzaga on joining the conference for all sports, a source tells Seth Davis of The Messenger. The decision will be made in the coming weeks as the Bulldogs would target to join in 2024 or 2025.

Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark met with conference presidents and athletic directors last week and pitched the idea. Talks with Gonzaga quieted down over the past few months as the Big 12 expanded westward with Pac-12 schools. Now, Yormark is very interested again. Gonzaga, like SMU to the ACC, might consider taking less revenue to join the Big 12.

Gonzaga has put themselves in a position to be known as one of the modern-day blue bloods for college basketball. Since the hiring of Mark Few in 1999, the Bulldogs have reached the NCAA Tournament Championship twice, 2-Final Fours, 13-Sweet Sixteens and 24-straight NCAA Tournament appearances. If the Zags were to join the Big 12, the conference would be at 17 schools. It would make most sense for Yormark to add an 18th school, which would most likely be non-football. Yormark has emphasized its important to make sure the Big 12 is the best basketball conference in the country by a landslide.

The Big 12 will consist of Arizona, Arizona State, Baylor, BYU, UCF, Cincinnati, Colorado, Houston, Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State, Oklahoma State, TCU, Texas Tech and West Virginia beginning in the 2024-25 academic year. Oklahoma and Texas will depart for the SEC in the summer of 2024.