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By Alan Snel, LVSportsBiz.com Publisher-Writer
It’s the Last Dance for the Pac-12 Conference in Las Vegas this week.
And it’s also a homecoming for Arizona’s new athletic director, Desiree Reed-Francois, UNLV’s former AD. Reed-Francois was chatting with Arizona students at T-Mobile Arena before the 12 noon matchup of Arizona and Southern California in the Pac-12 quarterfinals.
It’s history this week for the Pac-12 and Las Vegas. The conference fell apart as ten universities are heading to the Big Ten (USC, UCLA), the Big 12 (Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado, Utah) and the ACC (Cal, Stanford).
So, the Pac-12 staged its final conference football championship game at Allegiant Stadium in December and this week the conference is holding its final hoops tournament at T-Mobile Arena.
Arizona fans are used to traveling to Las Vegas as their team played UNLV in basketball in past years.
Las Vegas Events, the non-profit events arm of the LVCVA tourism agency, paid $500,000 to the Pac-12 in the form of sponsorship money to draw the conference to Las Vegas.
Now, the Pac-12’s two remaining universities, Oregon State and Washington State, will play football games against Mountain West schools and basketball games against teams from the West Coast Conference.
The Mountain West Conference, staging its basketball tourney only two miles to east off Tropicana Avenue at the UNLV campus, is committed to Thomas & Mack Center through 2025. Would the MWC change tourney venues and take over T-Mobile Arena in mid-March after 2025?