Barnes appointed to NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Committee

Oregon State Director of Athletics Scott Barnes is returning to the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Committee, a group for which he served from 2010-15, including chairing the committee during the 2015 championship. During his tenure as director of athletics at Utah State, Barnes represented the Western Athletic Conference for his first three years, before serving as the Mountain West Conference representative for the final two years of his term after the school switched leagues. Barnes, who will serve as the Pac-12 Conference’s appointee through the end of June, is the first person to ever represent three conferences as a member of the committee.

The Spokane, Washington, native has been at his current post since 2016 after spending one year as the athletics director at Pittsburgh. Before Pittsburgh, he served a seven-year stint at Utah State. He also was the athletics director at Cal Poly Humboldt and Eastern Washington and served on the staffs at Washington, Iowa State, Pacific and San Diego. 

Barnes earned his undergraduate and master’s degrees from Fresno State, where he was a standout on the men’s basketball team, leading the Bulldogs to a pair of NCAA tournaments and two appearances in the National Invitation Tournament while earning second-team all-conference honors. He later played professionally in Germany.

“Serving on the Men’s Basketball Committee is one of the highlights of my professional career, and it’s an honor to have the opportunity to return to this group,” Barnes said. “Without question, the tournament is one of the world’s best sporting events, and the fact that we are just a few weeks from the calendar turning to March is exciting. The privilege to have been a member of the committee that administers this championship is something for which I’ve proudly reflected upon, so it’s a blessing to be able to serve on it again.”

The chair of the Men’s Basketball Committee for the 2023-24 season is Charles McClelland, the commissioner of the Southwestern Athletic Conference. Other committee members include Renee Baumgartner, director of athletics at Santa Clara; Greg Byrne, director of athletics at Alabama; Barry Collier, director of athletics at Butler; Mark Coyle, director of athletics at Minnesota; Bubba Cunningham, director of athletics at North Carolina; Keith Gill, commissioner of the Sun Belt Conference; Arthur Johnson, director of athletics at Temple; Martin Newton, director of athletics at Samford; Jamie Pollard, director of athletics at Iowa State; and Tom Wistrcill, commissioner of the Big Sky Conference.