A federal judge has allowed the Pac-12 Conference’s lawsuit against the Mountain West Conference over $55 million in “poaching fees” to go forward.

Northern District of California Senior Judge Claudia Wilken denied the Mountain West’s motion to dismiss the case on Tuesday. She set an initial case management conference for Nov. 18.

“The Pac-12 Conference is pleased that the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California denied the Mountain West Conference’s motion to dismiss,” the Pac-12 said in a statement. “We will move forward with our case. The ruling allows our antitrust and related claims to proceed. We remain confident in our position and focused on advancing academic excellence, athletic achievement, and the tradition that has defined the Pac-12 for more than a century.”

The conferences failed to reach an agreement by a July deadline for mediation, and the Pac-12 requested the hearing on a pending motion to dismiss.

The Pac-12 and some of its new schools filed lawsuits last year, claiming the poaching clause it agreed to when it signed a scheduling agreement for its football teams for last season was invalid.

The clause called for payments to the Mountain West of $10 million for the first team that left, with the amount growing by $500,000 for every additional team. That was on top of the $17 million plus exit fees that schools were responsible for as part of a different agreement.

The Mountain West said in a statement that its lawyers were reviewing the judge’s decision.

Colorado State, Utah State, San Diego State, Fresno State and Boise State are set to leave the Mountain West and join the Pac-12 starting in 2026. The conference added Texas State in June to reach the eight-team minimum to be eligible for an automatic bid for its champion in the College Football Playoff.

Oregon State and Washington State are the only remaining Pac-12 members following an exodus last year that threatened the conference’s future. The two schools reached a scheduling agreement with the Mountain West so they could piece together a football schedule last season.

The Mountain West has added UTEP, Hawaii and Northern Illinois for football starting in 2026.

Boise State, Colorado State and Utah State also filed an updated lawsuit against the Mountain West last month, alleging it improperly withheld millions of dollars and misled them about a plan to accelerate Grand Canyon’s membership.

Lawrence Moten, a basketball star at Syracuse in the early 1990s who still holds the program scoring record, has died. He was 53.

An athletic department spokesperson said Tuesday that multiple staff members learned of Moten’s death from various contacts and that Moten was at home in Washington, D.C., when he died. A cause of death was not immediately clear.

A 6-foot-5 guard known as “Poetry in Moten,” he scored 2,334 points over four seasons with the Orange, from 1991 to 1995. His 1,405 points in Big East play was a conference record that stood until 2020.

Hall of Famer Jim Boeheim, who recruited and coached Moten, called it a tragic day for the Syracuse basketball family.

“Lawrence’s passing is such a sudden thing; it’s very hard to take,” Boeheim said. “He was one of the most underrated college basketball players of all time. I believe some people took his ability for granted because he made it look so easy. Lawrence was one of our greatest players and one of the best in the history of the Big East Conference.”

Syracuse qualified for the NCAA tournament three times with Moten, who had his No. 21 jersey retired in a pregame ceremony March 3, 2018, at the Carrier Dome.

“I can’t think of anybody that was more positive or who loved Syracuse more than he did,” said Adrian Autry, who was a teammate with Moten for three seasons at Syracuse and succeeded Boeheim as coach in 2023. “He was one of the greatest to put on the uniform. It’s a big loss. I was able to play alongside him for three years and watch him do some amazing things. I was fortunate to spend time with him on and off the court.”

Orange athletic director John Wildhack called Moten a Syracuse icon.

“His accolades as Syracuse’s all-time leading scorer and holding the Big East scoring record for 25 years speak for themselves, but his style of play is what energized the Dome,” Wildhack said. “He was a fixture around the program long after his playing career, always with a smile on his face.”

Moten was a second-round pick of the Vancouver Grizzlies in the 1995 NBA draft. He played two seasons with them and an additional eight games with the Washington Wizards in 1998.