UCLA’s Advantage Is Questioned : Pac-10 Coaches Would Prefer a Neutral Tournament Site

The Pacific 10 basketball coaches agreed, in a conference call Monday, that UCLA will have a clear-cut advantage in the league tournament starting Thursday night at Pauley Pavilion.

The edge is obvious. The Bruins will be playing at home, and they have proven that they are the best team by winning the regular-season championship.

Even so, the coaches weren’t particularly upset about the location for the first conference tournament, although most stressed that future tournaments should be held at neutral sites.

There’s one coach, though, who doesn’t care where the tournament is being held. USC’s George Raveling is just happy that his last-place Trojans are in the field.

“I’m probably the only coach in the league who feels that it doesn’t make any difference if the tournament is played at Pauley,” Raveling said.

“All of this stuff about where it’s played is overrated. People say it’s an advantage for UCLA to play at home. I’m not too sure that it isn’t a tremendous disadvantage. I think it puts a lot of pressure on them.

“I don’t know if I’d like to go around all summer and hear people say that you couldn’t win on your home floor.”

Just the same, Arizona Coach Lute Olson, whose team is seeded second in the tournament, said that the home court would give UCLA a 10- to 15-point advantage. Oregon State Coach Ralph Miller lowered that estimate to 8 to 10 points.

UCLA Coach Walt Hazzard isn’t getting into the debate, saying: “I don’t know much about point spreads and how they work out. All I’m concerned about is the proposition that goes on when the ball goes up.”

Hazzard then pointed out that UCLA’s opponent Friday will be the winner of the Washington State-Arizona State game Thursday night.

“Washington State missed a shot at the buzzer at our place that would have beaten us, and Arizona State made one at the buzzer that beat us at home,” he said.

In any event, Olson believes that UCLA deserves a home-court advantage because it won the regular-season title.

“If UCLA hadn’t won it, it would have been an unfair advantage,” Olson said. “But the fact that they did win it makes it (easier to take).”

Olson would like the league to establish a permanent site for the tournament. Next year’s tournament will be held in the Tacoma Dome in Tacoma, Wash.

Raveling agrees with Olson, saying that people would then get a feel for the area, be able to make advance reservations and become more familiar with the hotels and restaurants at the tournament site.

“It’s only my personal opinion, but the one place I think that is least attractive for drawing a crowd is the Bay Area,” Raveling said. “As for me, any place will do. . . . I’m just happy to be invited to the party for the cocktails. I just hope we stay around for the hors d’oeuvres. In some places, the last two teams in the conference aren’t even in the tournament.”

The tournament winner will get the conference’s automatic bid into the NCAA playoffs. Even if UCLA doesn’t win the tournament, however, the Bruins are almost assured of getting a bid, based on winning the regular-season title and their 21-6 overall record.

Raveling also believes that Arizona (18-10) will get an invitation, regardless of how the Wildcats fare in the conference tournament.

So the scenario he favors from a league standpoint would be for UCLA and Arizona to make an early exit from the tourney, with, say, Washington (16-13) and Oregon State (18-9) reaching the final. Then, perhaps, the Pac-10, lightly regarded nationally, might get three teams into the NCAA tournament.

As for UCLA’s being favored, Raveling said: “I think they’ll win it, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t.”

The conference coaches were unanimous that UCLA is the team to beat and were almost unanimous in picking Stanford, the sixth-place team in the regular season, as the tournament sleeper.

“I know this may not come out sounding right, but Stanford is a strange team,” Raveling said. “Still, they win and are playing with confidence.”

As for USC, 9-18 overall and 4-14 in the Pac-10, Raveling said: “We played as hard as we could and as close to our ability as we could.

“I know this is egotistical to say, but I think it was one of my best coaching jobs. We definitely got better as the season went on. But teams such as UCLA and Arizona were vastly superior to us in terms of talent.

“It was like a 9.6 sprinter running against 9.3 sprinters.”

The Trojans will play Oregon, 14-13 and 8-10, in the first round Thursday night.