I had this thought that the Pac-12 should organize a challenge against the best non-p5 teams in the central and western U.S. Imagine a challenge that includes the likes of DePaul, Marquette, Gonzaga, the South Dakota schools, Drake, Missouri State, BYU, etc. It'd probably be a logistical nightmare and perhaps impossible to achieve, but a person can dream.
I think this is extremely hard to do especially since you don't know how good these teams are going to be year in and year out. BYU is having a definite down year, as are the Jackrabbits. The Pac-12 does already schedule pretty well against Gonzaga with Stanford and Washington State on their schedule.
Logistically, it does look pretty daunting. At first glance, getting to Cedar Rapids to play Drake requires a layover from SFO, Seattle, , which makes the travel time about 5 hours and 30 minutes just in transit at the airport. The same would go for getting to Vermillion or Frost Arena to play the South Dakota schools.
It's fascinating when you compare how many schools flew east this season. For example, Oregon went all the way to Syracuse for one game before jettisoning off to the Paradise Jam. Oregon State went to Miami, and is going to Hawai'i next week. UCLA seems to be an outlier in that they skipped Thanksgiving in the tropics to play in Virginia, and they have a road trip to Georgia followed by a game at Indiana. Washington has only left the state of Washington for Puerto Rico and will only leave once more to go to balmy San Diego. Even Stanford hasn't really traveled much this year, with only a sojourn to Canada and Texas in the cards.
It might just be an odd year for travel, but given how strong the Pac-12 is, it'll be interesting to see how scheduling trends in the next few years.
