Pacific 10 Conference 1996-1997
Collegiate sports fans saw the Pacific-10 Conference keep itself on top of the heap during the 1996-97 academic year, continuing its position as the nation's most successful intercollegiate athletic conference. The league saw its teams win a record 14 NCAA titles during the year, the most ever won by any conference in a single year. Seven different Pac-10 institutions won at least one NCAA title during the year. Individually, the Pac-10 was just as impressive, securing 24 individual NCAA champions in 1996-97.
NCAA team champions from the Pac-10 in 1996-97 came from Arizona (softball, men's basketball), Arizona State (women's golf), California (men's gymnastics), Stanford (men's cross country, women's cross country, men's tennis, women's tennis, men's volleyball, women's volleyball), UCLA (men's water polo, women's gymnastics), USC (women's swimming and diving), and Washington (women's rowing). With the Huskies' title, all 10 member institutions have now claimed at least one title. The Southeastern Conference finished the academic year with seven titles followed by the Atlantic Coast Conference with three. The Pac-10's 24 NCAA individual champions were claimed by five members.
The Pac-10 had runner-up in five NCAA championship events -- Arizona State in women's gymnastics, Stanford in men's and women's swimming and diving, and UCLA in softball and men's volleyball. It was the third straight year that the Pac-10 had at least two NCAA finals involving Conference squads and the sixth time in seven years the softball championship featured two Pac-10 teams.
In football, Arizona State posted the first undefeated regular season for the Pac-10 in five years en route to the school's second Rose Bowl appearance. The Arizona men's basketball program brought home the Conference's second NCAA Championship in three years. In addition, the Pac-10 sent a league-record four teams to the "Sweet Sixteen," more than any other conference. In women's basketball, Stanford made its fifth trip to the Final Four in the 90s. Arizona, one of three Pac-10 teams competing in the Women's College World Series, captured its fifth NCAA softball title in seven seasons and Stanford and UCLA both reached NCAA baseball's College World Series. Stanford women's volleyball joined UCLA and Hawaii as the only institutions to win three NCAA women's volleyball titles.
Pac-10 members have now won 225 NCAA men's team championships (far ahead of the 148 claimed by the Big Ten) and 57 women's crowns (far ahead of the Southeastern Conference, which has 38) to lead all conferences in both categories.
Since the NCAA began conducting women's championships 16 years ago, Pac-10 members have claimed at least four titles in a single season on 10 occasions, including 11 of 16 tennis crowns, 13 of the 16 softball championships, five of the last seven volleyball titles and seven of the last nine trophies in both golf and swimming & diving. In addition, the 276 NCAA individual titles lead all leagues.
The Pacific-10 Conference offices are located 25 miles east of San Francisco in Walnut Creek, Calif.