Arizona President in Interview with CBS13 in Sacramento: ‘We’re Not Going to the Big 12’
University of Arizona President Robert C. Robbins made some comments earlier that insinuated his institution might seriously be looking to the Pac-12. Now he’s strongly suggested the opposite in an interview with CBS13 in Sacramento.
“We’re all bound together,” Robbins told the station’s Andrew G. Haubner. “The 10 of us that are left in the Pac-12, we’re all locked, locking arms, waiting for the commissioner to do the best he can to get us a great media deal so that we can continue on the Conference of Champions, as Bill Walton says all the time,” Robbins said. “So, we’re all committed to that. We’re very confident that we’re gonna get a good deal and that we can all stay together. So, I think that’s the message that is important to get out because there’s a lot of disinformation that, for instance, Arizona is going to the Big 12.
“We’re not going to the Big 12. We want to see what the deal is here because we are all, including Arizona and Arizona State and all the schools, we want to keep the Conference of Champions together.”
Prodded further about the possibility that the TV contract does not come back favorable, Robbins still expressed his faith in the Pac-12 surviving.
“Yeah, I think, you know, people want to put percentages on it,” Robbins said. “And I always used to say what’s my chance of having a complication or dying from this heart operation? It was zero or 100%. So, our odds are zero or 100%. But I put it at, as I told one reporter yesterday, 98.6. And that happens to be your body normal body temperature in Fahrenheit. And so I put it at a greater than 95% chance we’re gonna get a great deal, we’re all going to be happy and the Conference of Champions will stay together.”
That’s all after he offered the previous.
“If you can get Arizona and Colorado to say yes, then the whole Pac-12 — what’s left of it — blows up,” Robbins said.
This continues to be quite the saga. Stay tuned for the next step of it.
