Harrick’s Evaluation Needs to Be Revised

“I honestly think they’re the best team in the country.” These words on behalf of the Arizona Wildcats were barely beyond Jim Harrick’s lips Thursday when the UCLA basketball coach caught himself in mid-compliment and pulled up.

“Unless the Cats get beat by Santa Clara, in which case everybody here will be in mourning and wearin’ black,” he said.

Less than an hour later, the Cats were under six feet of kitty litter.

On this latest visit to a town where people believe that the East Coast is the least coast and that cactus makes perfect, Harrick had just generously assessed Arizona as a better basketball team than any. His own UCLA unit had been given a serious shellacking by this alleged desert dream team only a few days before.

So, when someone wondered what a West Coast coach thought of this supposed East Coast domination, Harrick hastily came back with: “They should come out here to play the Cats on their home court. Then they would see what West Coast ball is all about.

“I’ve looked over the 64 teams in this tournament. If North Carolina ends up without (Derrick) Phelps, if Indiana’s without (Alan) Henderson, then who’s the best team out there? Kentucky better be hitting those threes every time they shoot one, let me tell you. Because I’ve seen this Arizona team play. And I honestly think they’re the best team in the country. Absolutely.”

An hour later, it was a statement as inoperative as one during Watergate from Ron Ziegler.

Anyway, welcome to another episode of the NCAA soap opera, As the Tournament Turns.

At least Arizona can say that it got to the Final Sixty-Four.

The tournament. Mitchell Butler, a UCLA player who has been to four of them now, aptly describes it as “one of the greatest shows on Earth.”

It was 10 years ago this month that an up-and-comer of a coach from an ocean-view university had to prepare his team for the rigorous first round of the NCAA tournament and be prepared himself for anything, including the unexpected. He had drawn one of those East Coast schools for an opponent, but the team already had nine defeats and did not particularly scare him.

And now as he looks back on it, it seems so unreal.

“We’re ahead by six points in overtime with a minute to go--and with the ball,” Harrick recalls. “Up six with the ball!”

The team is Pepperdine.

The place is Corvallis, Ore., site of the West Regional first round.

And the opponent is North Carolina State.

This is how close a team can come to changing the course of history. This is how close a team can come to being a Santa Clara, being a spoiler, being a sleeping beauty, being a team that--who knows--comes out of nowhere to win the national championship and live happily ever after.

“A little while later, we’re still up two points,” Harrick remembers. “And we foul (Derek) Whittenburg with nine seconds to go in the first overtime. Nine seconds.

“And he steps up to the line and he misses, so we’re still up two.

“And Cozell McQueen, a man who has gone 44 minutes and 51 seconds without one damn point, watches the ball bang off the rim real hard, and he steps into the lane and picks it off and banks it in.”

And Pepperdine loses in double overtime.

And N.C. State goes on to win the national championship.

No memory of any NCAA game is more vivid to Harrick than that one. He can still picture the Pepperdine players on the bench, long after the game, heads bent to their knees like school kids during a fire drill. He still says: “That was as hard a loss as I’ve ever had, anywhere, anytime.”

The first NCAA tournament in which Harrick ever coached came one year sooner, and brought him far more pleasure. Pepperdine had gone undefeated in its conference. It traveled to Pullman, Wash., for a first-round tournament game against Pittsburgh, a team very familiar to a coach who had spent most of his own formative years as a West Virginian.

“The first thing I find out is that Dick Groat is working the game as one of Pittsburgh’s announcers,” Harrick remembers. “This man had been one of my absolute idols growing up, playing shortstop for the Pirates. I mean, I adore the guy. But the instant I see him, the first thing I notice is that he’s gone almost totally bald. And I just blurt out: ‘You don’t have any hair!’ ”

Yes, the tournament does have its embarrassing moments. Yet at least Harrick’s team won that particular game. Some teams aren’t so lucky.