As USC issues its exit from the conference on the West Coast, it also bids farewell to one of the strongest seasons of women’s basketball. In fact, seven Pac-12 teams punched tickets to the 2024 NCAA March Madness tournament, giving the conference more representation than any other. Most teams are in comfortably high seeding positions, too; Stanford and USC both placed first in their regions, UCLA second, Oregon State third, Colorado and Utah fifth, and Arizona eleventh.

While individual players across the nation like Iowa senior guard Caitlin Clark and LSU junior forward Angel Reese attract heaps of media attention, the Pac-12’s competitive equilibrium has made it a powerhouse conference in college women’s basketball. 

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But it hasn’t always been this way.

Since its birth in 2002, the Pac-12 women’s basketball conference has largely been dominated by Stanford. The Cardinal have won about 70% of the conference titles and made appearances in 20 of the 22 championship games.

Of course, this is not mere coincidence. Stanford Head Coach Tara VanDerveer — the winningest coach in the NCAA — has guided the team to routine success since the 1980s. Her longevity marks her as the only coach in the conference that has known numerous decades of a school’s program.

There’s no doubt that Palo Alto fans were excited about those victories, but that type of lopsided conference did not make for compelling, exciting match-ups that were deemed worthy of consistent national recognition.

Indeed, this apathy towards the Pac-12 was echoed in the media. All teams have felt nationally overlooked.

“They’re not talking about us and giving us enough credit,” said Arizona Head Coach Adia Barnes in a statement with Sports Illustrated earlier this March. “That’s the unfortunate thing about the Pac-12. It’s never gotten the love and flowers it deserves.”

However, the past decade has seen growing internal sentiment in support of the conference that has been lovingly referred to as “Back the Pac.” The Pac-12 Network launched in 2012, greatly expanding the number of eyes from fans and potential recruits on their program.

Extraordinary players like former Oregon guard Sabrina Ionescu and former Washington guard Kelsey Plum helped shine the spotlight on the Pac-12 with incredible NCAA runs, both marking their respective program’s first Final Four appearances.

Pac-12 coaches also harbored a communally competitive, not cutthroat, mentality when it came to improving the strength of the conference. While in conferences, it was every team on its own island, the West Coast teams knew they needed to unify in the name of women’s basketball for the greater good.

“There’s a level of respect and understanding that, ‘If she’s good and he’s good and I’m good, it’s going to make us all better,’ versus ‘I want you to fail, and I want to win,’” Utah Head Coach Lynne Roberts told ESPN. 

Overall, this season contained unforgettable moments of peak performance. Its culmination has been the product of diligent coaches, exceptional players and loyal fans pouring effort and love into the Pac-12.

This culmination is no outlier but rather the consequence of time well invested and well spent building the Pac-12 culture that it is today.

The strength setting this 2023-2024 season apart was the equal distribution of talent across teams. This winter has been marked by upsets, underdogs, expectations surpassed and expectations shattered. In preseason polls, Utah was the favorite, followed by UCLA and Stanford, while USC was selected to have a moderate 6th-place finish.

Rather than seeing a classical domination of one or two teams, what ensued was an unanticipated narrative that could not predict the outcomes of previously formulaic games.

USC freshman guard JuJu Watkins had a 51-point historic performance to lead the Trojans with a victory out of Cardinal territory on Feb 2. A truly cinematic three-pointer by Oregon State junior guard Talia von Oelhoffen upset UCLA 79-77 Feb. 16. On the same day, Utah and Colorado battled it out, only for the Utes to get a similar buzzer-beating 77-76 win over the Buffs. Washington clinched an unexpected 62-47 win over No. 21 Utah on March 2.

These are the moments that define great basketball, in which no game is a guarantee. The power of this conference ensured that every team had to show up and show out against each opponent.

While several teams will undoubtedly make great waves in their future conferences — the Big 10, Big 12, ACC, among others — it is heartbreaking to many that we will never see Stanford and USC regularly face off or battles between Utah and Washington again.

While the Pac-12 may soon be over, the immortal legacy of this women’s basketball season will endure.