The Pac-12 is officially returning this year with Oregon State and Washington State bringing in seven new members. Fans who are nostalgic for the old Pac-12 may be more interested in Arizona women’s basketball’s nonconference sche4dule, though. The Wildcats announced the addition of Oregon State to its out-of-conference slate on Thursday.
The Beavers join Stanford and reigning champions UCLA on Arizona’s 2026-27 schedule. The game is the first in a home-and-home agreement.
The matchup against OSU is
the first of the Pac-12 nostalgia games that will be held in Tucson. Arizona starts the series with a neutral site game against the Cardinal on Nov. 2 and follows it with a road game against the Bruins on Nov. 12. The date and time for the OSU game has not been announced.
The three games feature four teams that had been in the top half of the old Pac-12 for the last several years of its existence. Their fortunes have varied since the breakup of the league.
UCLA has continued on to even greater heights, capturing the national title last season. Cori Close continues to have the resources to pull top players from the portal and will likely be fighting for championships for years to come.
Stanford is still solid, making appearances in the last two WBIT. It’s not the team it once was, though. The Cardinal have plummeted from the heights of their glory years since Tara VanDerveer retired and the Pac-12 was gutted by the defections of UCLA and USC followed by eight of the remaining 10 members.
Oregon State has competed in the WCC the last two years as the new Pac-12 was being built. Head coach Scott Rueck has done a fine job of stabilizing his program after the financial and competitive blows the Beavers took.
Rueck lost most of his stars when the program dropped into a mid-major league, but he has proven again and again that he’s not just a good recruiter. He’s a great coach.
Despite having his roster gutted by the departures of players like Raegan Beers, Rueck guided the Beavers to the NCAA Tournament in their first year competing in the WCC. They won the WCC Tournament to secure their spot and ended the season at 19-16.
The Beavers went 23-12 last year. They landed in the WBIT after losing the WCC Tournament championship game to Gonzaga.
Arizona took a step back in Becky Burke’s first season and finished 12-18. It was the program’s first losing season and first missed postseason since 2017-18 .
The Wildcats aim to regroup and join the other three as postseason participants in Burke’s second year. A rebuilt roster, including a top 25 freshman class, and a more ambitious schedule suggests that is well within the realm of possibility.
In addition to the three former Pac-12 opponents, Arizona will play SEMO in nonconference competition. The rest of the schedule has yet to be released.
