Seton Hall Looking for Replay in Seattle

How do you tell the NCAA West Regional from the others?

It’s the place where Utah Coach Rick Majerus delivers, free of charge, his daily restaurant reviews. Where Nevada Las Vegas players giggle about the prank they pulled in the Arizona locker room last weekend. Where Seton Hall Coach P.J. Carlesimo happily reminisces about his last tournament visit to Seattle.

Everyone seems to be having a wonderful time, except Arizona’s Lute Olson, who is busy conducting his lecture series on the virtues of the Wildcat guards. In case you missed it, Olson thinks Arizona’s backcourt has been unfairly criticized. One more hotel bellman and he’ll have made his case to the entire Emerald City.

Olson ought to be more concerned with semifinal opponent Seton Hall (24-8), which won the Big East tournament and hasn’t glanced back. The run is somewhat similar to the one made by the 1989 Pirates, who stunned everyone, with the possible exception of Carlesimo, and advanced to the national championship game, where they lost to another unlikely finalist, Michigan.

Consider: Same city, same preseason predictions. Back then, Big East coaches confidently picked Seton Hall to finish seventh in the conference. Instead, the Pirates ended the season two points shy of the NCAA title.

So, not surprisingly, Carlesimo wasn’t exactly insulted when Big East coaches decided that Seton Hall would do no better than seventh place this season. In a way, he welcomed the news of the poll. After all, the Pirate roster included only two seniors, plus five freshmen and four sophomores.

“I think this team is a very much different team,” he said. “The similarity is that it plays good defense and (has) Anthony Avent.”

Avent, a 6-foot-9 center, is the remaining player from Seton Hall’s Final Four team. Otherwise, Carlesimo is hard pressed to do much comparison shopping.

“We thought (the ’89 Pirates) could be a good team, but we didn’t expect them to be that good,” he said. “That team . . . people did not know how good they were. That team was a great team. People just didn’t understand how good a basketball team it was.

“Now this is a very good basketball team that has improved as the year has gone on.”

For this, Carlesimo can thank Avent, a bruiser who is averaging 18 points and 10 rebounds, and guard Terry Dehere, who leads the team with a 19.7 scoring average. In Seton Hall’s tournament victories over Pepperdine and Creighton, Dehere scored 26 and 28 points.

Dehere probably will find himself matched against Arizona’s Matt Muehlebach, considered the Wildcats’ best backcourt defender. If Dehere was impressed by Muehlebach’s credentials, he didn’t show it.

“I don’t think it will be anything different than I’ve been seeing all year,” Dehere said.

Nor, said senior guard Oliver Taylor, who shined in the Big East tournament, will the Pirates be traumatized by the sight of Arizona’s towering front line--6-11 forward Brian Williams, 7-foot center Ed Stokes and 6-10 reserve center Sean Rooks.

“A lot of Big East teams are big,” said Taylor, referring to Georgetown’s Alonzo Mourning and Dikembe Mutombo.

Of course, nothing quite compares to the matchup problems that Utah (30-3) faces against No. 1-ranked and undefeated UNLV (32-0) in tonight’s second game. No wonder the Utes have been made a 5,000-1 longshot.

“We believe we can win,” Majerus said. “I’m sure Duke felt it could win last year, too.”

Duke lost by 30 points in the championship game.

Majerus, no dummy, began trolling for sympathy. He jokingly said that if Utah beats the Rebels, an investigation will be launched to determine if the fix was on.

“If (UNLV Coach Jerry) Tarkanian loses this game, they’ll probably take away his gaming license,” Majerus said.

Majerus then proceeded to compare UNLV to a 500-pound gorilla. Viewed on television, he said, the gorilla doesn’t appear to be too dangerous. Viewed at the zoo, the gorilla is more impressive. Viewed in the wild, the gorilla, Majerus said, “goes wherever it wants and when it wants.”

The moral to the story? Majerus isn’t quite sure.

Utah’s 6-6 center, Walter Watts, who weighs in at 260, has been assigned to cover All-American Larry Johnson. Leading scorer Josh Grant will find UNLV’s Stacey Augmon at his side. Guards Tyrone Tate and Byron Wilson will draw the attention of UNLV’s Anderson Hunt and Greg Anthony. That leaves 6-5 forward M’Kay McGrath or reserve center Paul Afeaki to handle Rebel center George Ackles, who has recovered from a foot sprain.

“It’s not going to be that big of a task to (worry) about Larry, because I think I can do my job on him,” Watts said.

The comment was met with a bit of skepticism. The same goes for Utah’s chances against UNLV.

“Everybody says we’re going to lose,” Watts said. “About 20 games everybody said we were going to lose, but we came out and played hard and won.”

NCAA West Notes

Before leaving Tucson last Sunday, UNLV players autographed a mounted basketball kept inside the Arizona locker room at McKale Center. They also wrote: “UNLV No. 1” on the ball. The gesture drew mixed reviews. “Most of the guys, their first reaction was laughter,” the Wildcats’ Brian Williams said. “On the same hand, (it’s) disrespectful. We wouldn’t do that at their (locker room). It took a lot of gall to do it to ours.” Arizona Coach Lute Olson was in no mood to describe the incident. “That’s not an issue,” he snapped. “I don’t think that comes up in the Seton Hall game.” UNLV’s Stacey Augmon said: “I thought it was great. But it’s really been blown out of proportion.” Maybe so, but Arizona did include the incident on a report it filed to the NCAA. And the autographed ball accompanied the Arizona team to Seattle. Inspiration.