Guide to men's college basketball 2024-25: Goodbye cozy Pac-12; hello unfriendly Big 12 arenas

Almost everything about Pac-12 men's basketball was warm and cozy for Arizona and its fans.

The Wildcats had career winning records against everyone but UCLA. And most of it wasn't close.

The UA has gone 70-20 against Wazzu, 73-33 against Stanford, 75-32 against Cal, 73-23 against Oregon State. Well, you get the picture.

This entry is part of longtime Star columnist Greg Hansen's weekly notebook. Looking for more? Find updates and Greg's archive at Tucson.com/Hansen.

The Pac-12 arenas were neither "Pits'' nor works of basketball art. OSU's Gill Coliseum is 76 years old. The bones of Washington's Hec Ed Pavilion were laid in 1927. And even though UCLA's Pauley Pavilion (1965), Stanford's Maples Pavilion (1967) and Cal's Haas Arena (1954) were renovated in recent years, they didn't have the look nor the feel of a classic, you-can't-win-here arena.

Most of them were fortunate to play to 60% of capacity, even when a powerhouse like Arizona made its yearly stop.

That'll all about to change in Arizona's debut year in the Big 12.

Houston's rise to prominence coincides with the refurbished Fertilla Center's $50 million makeover. The Cougars have sold out every year since 2017.

Texas Tech's United Supermarket Arena, which seats 15,300, fills all of its 6,000 student seats game-by-game. By comparison, Arizona's Zona Zoo seats about 2,200 students.

Iowa State's Hilton Coliseum, capacity 14,267, is widely considered the No. 2 most hostile environment in Big 12 hoops, behind Kansas' legendary Phog Allen Fieldhouse, capacity 16,700, which has more than 300 consecutive sellouts.

Kansas State refers to its Bramlage Coliseum as "The Octagon of Doom'' and Baylor's brand new, $212 million Foster Pavilion, was built with a relatively small capacity of 7,500, in order to turn up the volume in a wild setting that makes the powerhouse Bears almost unbeatable.

So don't say you haven't been warned.

Those Thursday-Saturday Pac-12 Arizona road sweeps to Cal-Stanford and Washington-Wazzu padded the UA record books for years and years.

Big 12 men's basketball will be inhospitable and inescapably difficult. Sweeps? Don't count on them, home or road.

Some familiar names find new homes

In the Transfer Portal era, 10 former Arizona basketball players have found new homes for the 2024-25 season. You may remember:

• , Louisiana Tech. The 6–11 power forward transferred from Texas Tech after the 2022-23 season, and averaged 15 points and was a first-team Conference USA selection last season.

• , SMU. After averaging 11 points at San Jose State, Gorener moved up a level to SMU, which is now in the ACC.

• , Kentucky. The point guard's one season at West Virginia was a mess, with a new coach and a bad Mountaineer team.

• , Portland State. The ex-Wildcat barely played last year at UNLV, averaging 3.4 points.

• , Santa Clara. Who couldn't use Bal's shooting skills? He averaged 14.4 points at Santa Clara last season and was an All-WCC choice.

• , Indiana. In 71 starts at Arizona, Ballo averaged 12.9 points and 10.1 rebounds. Some have reported the Hoosiers paid him $1 million to leave Tucson. Will the Hoosiers get their money's worth?

• , New Mexico. In a brief role at Arizona, Borovicanin averaged 2.3 points. He is expected to start for the Lobos.

• , Illinois. For whatever reason, Boswell didn't fulfill his promise as Arizona's point guard, averaging 9.6 points last year.

• , Boise State. After redshirting at Arizona, the two-time Arizona prep Gatorade Player of the Year, a 7-footer, figures to start for the Broncos.

• , Saint Mary's. The Gaels look at Murauskas as a potential All-WCC shooter.

Big 12 nonconference home schedules: Z-z-z-z-z-z

Fans who buy season tickets at Big 12 arenas will be delighted (and frightened) by the wickedly difficult conference schedules, but the November/December men's basketball nonconference schedules are about as weak as possible. Check these home slumber sessions:

• Arizona State: Cal Poly, St, Thomas, Idaho State, UC-San Diego. Four clunkers. Not a good way to build a fan base.

• BYU: Central Arkansas, UC Riverside, Queens College, Idaho, Mississippi Valley State, Fresno State, Wyoming, Florida A&M. C'mon, you can't give a home crowd eight straight walkovers.

• Oklahoma State: Wisconsin-Green Bay, St. Thomas, Southern Illinois, Tarleton State, Oral Roberts. At least OSU plays old rival Oklahoma in nearby Oklahoma City.

• Baylor: Sam Houston State, Tarleton State, New Orleans, Abilene Christian, Norfolk State, Arlington Baptist. Only walkover missing is the Colorado School of Mines.

• Utah: Alcorn State, Central Arkansas, Queens College, Utah Tech, Eastern Washington, Radford, Florida A&M. At least the Utes didn't duck everyone; powerful Saint Mary's will visit Salt Lake City.

• UCF: Tarleton State, Jacksonville, Cal Baptist, Milwaukee, Purdue Fort-Wayne, FAU. Tennessee Tech and Texas A&M. Did everyone in the Big 12 line up to play Tarleton State? Seems like it.

How the Big 12 stacks up historically

Kansas is (by far) the Big 12's most successful men's basketball franchise in history. According to the NCAA media guide, here are the eight most successful teams dating back more than 100 years.

• Kansas 2,408 wins (117 in the NCAA Tournament)

• Arizona 1,956 wins (60 in the NCAA Tournament)

• BYU 1,939 wins (15 in the NCAA Tournament)

• Cincinnati 1,910 wins (46 in the NCAA Tournament)

• Utah 1,897 wins (38 in the NCAA Tournament)

• West Virginia 1,855 wins (32 in the NCAA Tournament)

• Oklahoma State 1,746 wins (39 in the NCAA Tournament)

• Texas Tech, 1,527 wins (19 in the NCAA Tournament)

How about Arizona State?

The Sun Devils rank No. 11, with 1,468 career victories, and only 15 in the NCAA Tournament.

Year 4 at Arizona: Lots of success

Arizona's four long-term men's basketball coaches of the modern era all had strong fourth seasons at the UA. Here are their records in Year 4:

• , age 39. His three-year record was 57-24. In his fourth year, 1975-76, Snowden's Wildcats went 24-9 and reached the Elite Eight, losing to UCLA. Standing in final AP poll: 15th.

• , age 52. His three-year record was 55-35. In his fourth year, 1986-87, Olson's Wildcats went 18-12 and lost in the NCAA Tournament first round to UTEP. was out with a knee injury. Not ranked in final AP poll.

• , age 44. His three-year UA record was 69-35. In his fourth year, 2012-13, Miller's Wildcats went 27-8 and lost to Ohio State on a last-second jumper in the Sweet 16. Ranked No. 21 in the final AP poll.

• , turns 50 in December His three-year record at Arizona is 88-20, which is 19 more victories than Miller through three seasons.

McKale an unfamiliar place to Big 12 coaches

Except for old Pac-12 rivals Utah, Colorado and ASU, only three Big 12 men's coaches have guided teams into McKale Center. Two of them — Houston's and UCF's — don't have fond memories of Tucson.

They are a combined 0-15 at McKale.

Sampson, then the Washington State coach, was 0-8 at McKale from 1988-94. Nor did his Cougars beat Arizona at WSU's Friel Court in that period. Sampson, however, pulled off a monumental upset at McKale in the 1988 Pac-10 Tournament. His Cougars stunned UCLA 73-71 in a first-round game. UCLA fired head coach a day later.

Dawkins, then Stanford's head coach, was 0-7 at McKale from 2008-16.

The only current Big 12 coach to win in Tucson is Baylor's , 1-0, who beat the Wildcats at McKale early in the 2018-19 season, 58-49.

Iowa State head coach T.J. Otzelberger, an assistant coach at Washington from 2014-16, was 1-1 as Lorenzo Romar's assistant coach in that period. TCU head coach was 0-1 against Arizona as a 1990s assistant coach at NAU.

Kansas coach has never coached at McKale Center, although he did coach his Illinois teams twice against Arizona in made-for-TV games in Phoenix.

Big 12 boat races Pac-12 rankings

Five Big 12 men's teams open the season in the AP's preseason Top 25: 1. Kansas; 4. Houston; 5. Iowa State; 8. Baylor; 10. Arizona.

There's no guarantee those five teams will follow such a heavenly orbit — once they start beating one another, rankings are sure to drop — but it is rare air at any month on the basketball calendar.

In 46 years of Pac-12 men's basketball, a maximum of three teams were able to finish in the final AP top 10 simultaneously on two occasions, 1981 and 2008. Here's how it finished:

• 1980-81: 2. Oregon State; 7. Arizona State; 8. UCLA.

• 2006-07: 4. UCLA; 6. Washington State; 7. Stanford.

What makes no sense with those two seasons is that Arizona, the league's premier program for 46 years, was unranked. In 1980-81, coach was a year away from being forced to leave his UA coaching job. And in 2006-07, was in his final season.

One man's Big 12 (men's) predictions

. It's too easy to pick Kansas, so I take the Cyclones, whose coach, T.J. Otzelberger, has done the most with the least. The other nine teams in the men's AP preseason top 10 have an average of 6.2 players ranked in the top 100 of the Recruiting Services Consensus Index coming out of high school. Iowa State has one.

. Let's hope Big 12 commissioner next year is wise enough to give Arizona and Kansas a home-and-home schedule partnership instead of rotating home games.

. If toughness counts, the Cougars could be No. 1.

. The difference between first and fourth in the Big 12 should be no more than two games.

. When few outside the Big 12 were paying attention, the Bears became an elite program.

. First-year Cougar coach , a go-getter, was the No. 1 assistant coach on the Phoenix Suns staff last year.

. Winning in Lubbock against 15,000 fans is a heavy task.

. Coach Jamie Dixon's sideline rants are the most annoying in the league.

Tad Boyle's team was always competitive in the Pac-12, especially at home.

. Isn't it time for to win something more than an NCAA play-in game?

. The school of has known better times, but winning in Cincy will be a tough task.

. Two years ago, the Wildcats won 26 games and reached the Elite Eight, but things have since gone south.

. New coach , a former assistant at Purdue, will find that 7-4 Zack Edey isn't coming through his locker room door.

. Coach has gone 50-50 in his three Utah seasons. One more .500 finish will likely cost him his job.

. Coach has gone to one NCAA Tournament in eight Orlando seasons. And that was 2017. Next.

. The new Mountaineer coach is , a long-time assistant coach at Creighton. Does he know what he is stepping into?

How Arizona's men's team should finish

The Wildcats have the talent to go 9-2 in the pre-conference, beating Duke and UCLA and losing at Wisconsin and possibly to Gonzaga in the title game of the Bahamas tournament. Or a mix of the above.

A finish of 13-7 in the Big 12 would be considered a triumph. Five road games — at Texas Tech, Baylor, Kansas, Iowa State, BYU and even ASU — will be extremely difficult, as will McKale games against Houston, Baylor and Iowa State.

Expect Arizona to go 1-1 in the Big 12 Tournament and then, if the basketball gods are favorable, to reach the Elite Eight for the first time since 2015. That would be a 26-11 season.

Who wouldn't take that today?

Part I of Star columnist Greg Hansen's Guide to the 2024-25 college basketball season: The Pac-12 was the toughest women's basketball league in the country. The Big 12 isn't that, though Arizona will have some battles in Year 1.

Contact sports columnist Greg Hansen at . On X(Twitter):

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