Pac-10: No Big Men and Very Little Tournament Success : THE DEMISE OF WEST COAST BASKETBALL

All right, class, cool the slammin’ and jammin’, dishin’ and dunkin’. It’s time for today’s lesson in Hooponomics: What’s Wrong with the Pac-10, or, Do They Still Play Basketball on the West Coast?

Put your hand down, Mr. Vitale, you’ll get your turn. This will be a group discussion. Otherwise, Mr. Hazzard says, he’ll pick up his ball and go home.

Jerry Tarkanian, you’re excused. In case you hadn’t noticed, class, Mr. Tarkanian’s team, Nevada Las Vegas, is the only one in the neighborhood that’s in the top 10. The rest of you, with the exception of Mr. Harrick of Pepperdine, aren’t even in the top 40.

That, of course, is just one reason for the pertinence of our topic. For those of you needing more incentive to pay attention, just remember:

--UCLA’s 37-point flameout to North Carolina in its season opener, not to mention the Bruins’ one-sided losses to Louisville and Notre Dame in other intersectional games.

--A look at the Pac-10 standings, which show no team with fewer than seven losses overall.

--A conference record of 11-17 in NCAA tournament play during the 1980s, including last year’s one-game-and-out performances by four Pac-10 teams--USC, Washington, Oregon State and Arizona.

--An unofficial winning percentage of 58% in nonconference games against Division I schools this season, compared to the 85% turned in by the ACC, according to Mike Douchant of The Sporting News.

Convinced there is a problem? So is our panel, which includes Pete Newell, West Coast basketball guru, long-time Cal coach and scout for the Golden State Warriors; Marty Blake, director of his own National Basketball Assn. scouting combine; Don Mead, director of an Irvine-based high school and junior college talent rating service; NCAA statistician Jim Van Valkenburg, and Pac-10 coaches Dr. Tom Davis of Stanford, Stan Morrison of USC and Ralph Miller of Oregon State.

And yes, Mr. Dick Vitale, one-time X-and-O artist for the University of Detroit, now indefatigable cable TV commentator and an irritant to UCLA Coach Walt Hazzard, who at one time said his goal this season was to silence Vitale, a frequent critic of the Pac-10.

“I have no animosity toward the guy (Hazzard) at all,” Vitale said. “But one thing I pride myself on is honesty. I can’t run, jump or shoot. I’m not the problem.

“Just look at the top 20. That’s not Dick Vitale’s top 20. And I think it’s obvious right now that West Coast basketball can’t compare to Eastern basketball.”

Why not? A poll of this group pinpoints the following as causes for the Pac-10’s current embattled state:

TELEVISION

We’re not talking about Twisted Sister on MTV here--we’re talking about the beast of the east on ESPN. Every major conference in the country can be seen here on prime time, thanks to cable TV, but do you think anybody’s staying up after midnight on the East Coast to watch Oregon battle Arizona?

Chris DePlaca, publicist for ESPN, says the cable network scheduled 25 Big East telecasts this season and 28 in the Atlantic Coast Conference.

That’s not even counting the games shown on the USA network.

The Pac-10? It had 10 games scheduled on ESPN, the same as the Sun Belt and Metro conferences.

DePlaca said that ESPN received a 1.8 rating for the USC-UCLA game a couple of weeks ago. A 2 rating, he said, is considered good on cable. But last week’s St. John’s-Georgetown game copped a 3.8 rating, the highest of the regular season. And most Pac-10 games don’t even start until 11 on the East Coast.

For a 17-year-old high school kid seeking exposure, the numbers don’t lie.

“Syracuse just signed two of the best guards in California,” Blake said, referring to Earl Duncan from St. Monica in Santa Monica and Stephen Thompson from Crenshaw. “Now why do the two best guards in California end up at Syracuse? The proliferation of television, and the guy (Coach Jim Boeheim) is a good recruiter.”

Miller said that most kids figure that the more they’re on TV, the better chance they have of cashing in with the NBA. “I don’t buy that,” he said. “The NBA will find you anywhere.”

On the other hand, he conceded that lack of exposure might have cost Oregon State’s A.C. Green some money in last year’s NBA draft. “He was probably the best bargain around in the first round,” Miller said of Green, who signed with the Lakers.

BIG GYMS, LITTLE GYMS

It’s not true the entire population of Pullman, Wash., can fit inside Syracuse’s Carrier Dome--it just seems that way. St. John’s plays some home games at Madison Square Garden, Georgetown in the Capital Centre. North Carolina gave Dean Smith a gym that makes some Pac-10 arenas look like study halls by comparison.

“My view is that we’re so lacking in big-time facilities in the West, we don’t encourage a lot of television,” Newell said.

“And you can’t believe the sophisticated way some of these schools recruit. They put out brochures with the kid’s name on it, they introduce him to 20,000 people and he gets a standing ovation. The kid walks in there, and they make him feel like they’ve been waiting for him for two years.

“That’s very heady stuff for anybody, especially an 18-year-old kid.”

Meanwhile, UCLA plays in half-empty Pauley Pavilion. That registers as well.

REVERSE MIGRATION

It used to be true that big-city hoopologists--Lew Alcindor, New York, and Walt Hazzard, Philadelphia, to name just two--would go coast to coast to ply their game, while West Coast kids stayed home for their funnin’ and sunnin’. Now it’s the kids back East who aren’t leaving and the California kids who are shucking their surfboards for the subway.

“If the Big East had been in existence, do you think Lew Alcindor would have wound up at UCLA? I think he would have been Lock City for St. John’s,” Vitale said.

“Hazzard? I don’t think Villanova would have let him out of Philly.”

Maybe, maybe not. But at the moment, Pac-10 schools are not only losing out on East Coast kids--with notable exceptions such as Philadelphia’s Pooh Richardson, who came to UCLA--but they’re being out-recruited in their own backyard.

“I don’t think anybody in this conference is lazy, we’re recruiting the best we can,” Morrison said.

One Pac-10 coach, in hot pursuit of one recruit, recently flew 500 miles to see his prospect, even though the prospect had undergone arthroscopic surgery and was in street clothes. The coach arrived in the middle of the third quarter of the high school game, waved at the prospect sitting across the way, then flew home after the game.

“Eastern schools are recruiting guards out here, for crying out loud,” Miller said. “Fifteen or 20 years ago, they took their guards out of the student body--there were that many good guards around, within a 50-mile radius.”

Recently, the Pac-10 has imported new coaches who are acknowledged as excellent recruiters: Lute Olson at Arizona, Davis at Stanford, Lou Campanelli at Cal, Don Monson at Oregon.

“The No. 1 priority has to be a Thompson or a Duncan,” Vitale said. “If I’m coaching, there’s no way I let those kids get on a plane to Syracuse.”

NO BIG MEN ON CAMPUS

There’s a BWOC--Cheryl Miller of USC--but not since Bill Walton, circa 1974, has there been a real giant among men in the Pac-10. Stuart Gray, Mark Eaton, Chris Welp and others just haven’t measured up.

“The one ingredient we’ve been lacking for a long time is the big dominating post player,” Miller said. “The last one on the West Coast probably was (Bill) Cartwright at USF.

“We’ve had big people like Blair Rasmussen (Oregon), but no one close to a (Patrick) Ewing, (Ralph) Sampson, or (Akeem) Olajuwon. And right now, the way basketball is going, it’s virtually impossible to have an outstanding team unless you have an outstanding post man.”

Pac-10 schools have expanded the search for the big guy. Washington center Chris Welp is from West Germany. Oregon State went to Puerto Rico for 6-10 Jose Ortiz, and has a 17-year-old 7-footer from Argentina in prep school.

Morrison said he has been in contact with players in Argentina, Yugoslavia and Italy, while waiting to see how one home-grown kid, 6-10 1/2 Eldon Campbell of Inglewood Morningside High, fares on his college boards.

“He has a chance to be something special,” Morrison said.

RISE AND FALL OF UCLA

The standard-bearer of the conference--10 NCAA titles in 12 years--has fallen on hard times. The Bruins haven’t gotten past the first round of the NCAA since they were runners-up in 1980, and last spring settled for winning a watered-down NIT title.

“I don’t think any school will ever be that dominant,” Newell said. “There was a combination of circumstances. John (Wooden) was a big one. And he didn’t have the competition from TV that you have now. And in those days, Pauley (Pavilion) was a showcase.”

Going through five coaches in the 10 years since John Wooden--Gene Bartow, Gary Cunningham, Larry Brown, Larry Farmer, and Hazzard--has taken the stability, and a lot of the glamour, right out of the program.

“In all fairness to Walt, it’s been like a soap opera out there, like Luke chasing Laura in ‘General Hospital,’ ” Vitale said.

No other school has stepped forward to take up the slack. Oregon State probably came closest, but shocking first-round tournament losses to Lamar and Kansas State in ’80 and ‘81, followed by a 24-point blowout to Georgetown in the ’82 regional final, did nothing for the Beavers’ stature nationally.

A DEARTH OF PAC-10 TALENT

NBA scout Blake says there are only a few senior pro prospects on the West Coast, mentioning players like Keith Smith of Loyola Marymount, Kevin Henderson of Cal State Fullerton, Tod Murphy of UC Irvine, Keith Morrison of Washington State and Anthony Jones of UNLV as possible first-rounders.

“But I see a lot of good young players on the West Coast,” Blake said.

High-school expert Mead said this is one of the best crops of West Coast players in years. Vitale said it’s the best in the country. And although Syracuse grabbed Thompson and Duncan, and North Carolina signed Scott Williams of Hacienda Heights Wilson, the Pac-10 schools are getting their share, especially UCLA, which recruited three big men--Greg Foster of Oakland Skyline, Trevor Wilson of Cleveland High in Reseda and Kevin Walker of Brea-Olinda.

Stanford Coach Davis, who used to coach at Boston College, a Big East member, said that one difference between Pac-10 schools and other national powers is depth.

“We’ve got some very fine players, just not as many,” Davis said. “The ACC is the best league in the country, and their teams go very deep, 9, 10, 11 and 12 players in many cases. We don’t generally do that.”

One other testament to the Pac-10’s strength: There are 33 former Pac-10 players in the NBA.

MAYBE THE PAC-10 NEVER REALLY WAS THAT GOOD

You’ll get an argument from the panel on this one.

“If you look at it from the long-range, all-time view, the Pacific Conference doesn’t have anything to apologize for,” said Van Valkenburg, pointing to the conference’s 13 NCAA titles, 3 second-place finishes, a total of 24 teams in the Final Four and 12 teams that were runners-up in the regional final. That’s a total of 36 teams in the final eight.

And although the Pac-10 record in nonconference games wasn’t impressive this year, the conference was 18 games over .500 in 1980, 23 games over last season.

“It seems that if you don’t make the Final Four you must be slipping, you must be going downhill,” Miller said. “But right now, we’re having the best, most interesting race in the history of the Pac-10.”

But he and the other coaches in the conference realize that’s not enough. The Pac-10 an also-ran?

Morrison said: “Until we regain respect through success in the playoffs, we’ll have to live with that handle.”