[1][2][3] The Big Sky Conference had dropped sponsorship of the sport after the 1974 season,[4][5] and its three remaining baseball programs (Gonzaga, Idaho, Boise State) joined Portland State, Portland, Seattle U., and Puget Sound.
[10] Puget Sound dropped its program and the remaining four (GU, EWU, PSU, UP) joined the Northern division of the Pac-10 (as affiliate members, baseball only) for 1982;[13][14][15] Oregon also discontinued baseball after 1981,[16][17] which had left just three teams (Washington, Washington State, and Oregon State).
In the Pac-10, the champion of the seven-team Northern division met the runner-up of the stronger six-team Southern division in a best-of-three series for the conference's second berth in the NCAA tournament.
Eastern Washington dropped baseball in 1990,[18][19] and Portland State eight years later; after 1995, Gonzaga and Portland moved their baseball to the West Coast Conference (WCC), where their other sports were.
[20] Baseball returned at Oregon in 2009,[21] Seattle U. in 2010, and briefly at Boise State for a pandemic-shortened 2020 season before being eliminated a second time due to a budget reduction..