Arizona Stays West, UCLA Goes East in NCAA Tournament

Arizona, the top team in the national polls, was seeded first Sunday in the West Regional of the National Collegiate Athletic Assn. tournament for the second consecutive season.

UCLA, making only its second tournament appearance in six years, returns in Jim Harrick’s first season as coach, and is seeded seventh in the Southeast. The Bruins (20-9) will play Iowa State in the Omni at Atlanta Friday. A victory in that game could send UCLA into a rematch against North Carolina, a team that embarrassed the Bruins in a 104-78 loss in December and a team that has played its past three games in the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament in the Omni.

“We’re glad to be in,” Harrick said. “I think probably that our bracket is the toughest of all. You’re talking Oklahoma, Florida State, Michigan and North Carolina. You’ve got to be kidding. That’s unbelievable--four top 10 teams. I’m not complaining, though.”

That’s actually three top 10 teams: Florida State is ranked 14th.

Loyola Marymount (20-10), making its second consecutive appearance, was seeded 12th in the Midwest and will play Arkansas at Indianapolis Thursday. Arkansas (24-6) beat Texas, 100-76, in the final of the Southwest Conference tournament Sunday.

“I think (having tournament experience) will make a lot of difference in our team,” said Loyola Coach Paul Westhead, whose team beat Wyoming last year before losing to North Carolina. “We’ve got enough key players who will get out and play.”

Hank Gathers, the nation’s leading scorer and rebounder, said: “Now that we know what this is all about, with the media and the fans and everything, we’re looking forward to the NCAAs again.”

Arizona (27-3) begins its attempt to return to the Final Four with a game Thursday at Boise, Ida., against Robert Morris, the Northeast Conference tournament champion.

Fans of the Robert Morris Colonials recently chanted, “We want Arizona,” in anticipation of the pairing.

Arizona’s Jud Buechler was not familiar with the team.

“I don’t know who that is or what league they play in. All I know is they’re our next victim,” Buechler said.

The Wildcats left little doubt about their seeding by winning 19 of their last 20 games and finishing the season ranked No. 1. But for some other teams, the decision was not so clear.

Indiana, the Big Ten champion, expected to be the top-seeded team in the Midwest but lost to fourth-ranked Illinois after the Hoosiers lost two of their final three regular-season games. Indiana lost Saturday to Iowa in a game in which Coach Bob Knight--with the conference title clinched--rested four starters.

But second-ranked Oklahoma, which was losing to Missouri in the Big Eight Conference tournament final as the pairings were announced, is top-seeded in the Southeast despite losing the game, which ended after the pairings were announced. The Sooners (28-5) will play East Tennessee State at Nashville, Tenn., Thursday.

Georgetown (26-4), ranked third, is seeded first in the East, and will meet Ivy League champion Princeton Friday at Providence, R.I.

Indiana apparently lost the top spot in the Midwest to Illinois because the Illini beat Indiana twice this season, and won nine of their last 10 games.

Further, the seeding--which sends Indiana to Tucson as the No. 2 team in the West--also prevents the Hoosiers from playing the first two rounds in the Hoosier Dome at Indianapolis. Though the arena doesn’t qualify as a home-court advantage as prohibited this season under NCAA men’s tournament guidelines, it certainly qualifies as a home-crowd advantage for Indiana.

Knight could not be reached for comment after the pairings were announced, but said before that “if the Big Ten champion doesn’t get the first seed--the best league in the country according to every power rating I’ve seen--then why the hell play it? What we ought to do is schedule 18 Hoosier Conference teams.”

Indiana started its 1987 NCAA title march at the Hoosier Dome. Last year, the Hoosiers were defeated in the first round of the East regional by Richmond. The 1989 tournament will be the 18th for the Hoosiers, including 13 under Knight, who has led them to three of their five titles, in 1976, 1981 and 1987.

Indiana lost to Illinois on a last-second basket last Sunday, then beat Wisconsin Thursday night before losing at Iowa.

Joe Hillman, a senior from Glendora Hoover High School who was one of the benched regulars, said the Hoosiers would “like to play in Indianapolis, but I don’t know if it makes a difference. We’re the best team in the Big Ten, and we proved it all year. No other team has done what we’ve done.

“If we’re not the No. 1 team out of this conference, then there’s something wrong.”

Cedric Dempsey, athletic director at Arizona and chairman of the NCAA selection committee, said the Hoosiers lost the chance to be No. 1 because the first responsibility was “to nationally seed them on the basis of competition all year.”

Illinois (27-4) will play McNeese State Thursday at Indianapolis.

Not every top-seeded team was happy with its draw.

“Maybe you’re better off not being a No. 1 seed,” said Oklahoma Coach Billy Tubbs, obviously disappointed at being sent to the Southeast. “Everybody in our league gets sent to the Midwest Region but Oklahoma. Kansas and Kansas State went there last year. We would like to go to our natural habitat at some point in time.”

Missing from the field of 64 teams is defending champion Kansas, which won 19 games but became the first champion barred from defending its title under terms of a probation for recruiting violations.

Duke, the other 1988 Final Four team with Arizona and Oklahoma, is seeded second in the East and plays South Carolina State Thursday at Greensboro.

The Atlantic Coast Conference had the most entries with six. The Big East, the Southeastern Conference and the Big Ten had five each, and the Big Eight got four. The Pac-10 also had four for the first time since 1985, with Oregon State and Stanford in addition to Arizona and UCLA.

Stanford (26-6) seeded third in the East, plays Siena at Greensboro, N.C., Thursday. Oregon State (21-7), seeded sixth in the West, plays Evansville at Tucson in a West regional game Friday.

“I think Stanford got a fabulous draw,” Harrick said. “Oregon State got a better draw than we did. . . . I’m happy for (retiring Coach Ralph Miller). I hope (the selection committee) took care of him. . . . I hope he wins it all, first. And I hope they go to the Final Four second.” The West Coast Athletic Conference received two berths--Loyola and St. Mary’s (25-4), which will play Clemson at Boise Thursday.

The Big West Conference, which had a record three teams last season, had only one entry, Nevada Las Vegas (26-7), which is seeded fourth in the West and will play Idaho at Boise Thursday.

New Mexico State (21-10), which finished the regular season second and lost to UNLV in the Big West tournament final was among 18 teams with 20 or more victories that did not make the tournament.

Included in that group is UC Santa Barbara, which went to the tournament last year and began this season with an 11-0 record but finished 21-8.

Temple (18-11), which advanced to the final eight last season, did not make the tournament, being pushed out by Rutgers and West Virginia, two other members of the Atlantic 10.

Other teams that didn’t make the field included Ohio State (17-14), which was among the top 20 before Jay Burson’s career was ended by an injury, 1985 NCAA champion Villanova (16-15), New Mexico (20-10), Georgia Southern (23-5), Akron (21-7) and Boise State (23-6).

Among teams that made the tournament, the best record belongs to Ball State (28-2). The worst belongs to Pittsburgh (17-12).

UCLA’s Harrick is not the only coach in his first year at a school to guide a team to the tournament. Others include Rutgers Coach Bob Wenzel, a former New Jersey Nets assistant, who took over a team that was 23-66 over the last three seasons, and Idaho’s Kermit Davis, who at 29 is the country’s youngest coach.

Second-round games will be played at the same sites, with winners advancing to the regional semifinals the next week. The East and Midwest regionals will be held March 24 and 26 at East Rutherford, N.J., and Minneapolis, the West and Southeast at Denver and Lexington, Ky., on March 23 and 25.

The four regional winners gather in Seattle for the tournament semifinals on April 1, with the championship game April 3.

This is the NCAA’s richest tournament. All 64 teams are guaranteed at least $250,000 and the 32 first-round winners a minimum of $500,000 apiece. Each Final Four team is guaranteed $1,231,000.

“There is no question that at the top of the bracket, we have great parity,” said Dempsey, the chairman of the selection committee. “There are a number of teams capable of being in Seattle for the Final Four.”

Times staff writers Jerry Crowe, Alan Drooz and Curt Holbreich and the Associated Press contributed to this story.