This League Finally Gets Down to Size

Funny, but just as soon as a perfectly fine little basketball league called the Pacific Coast Athletic Assn. changed its name to “the Big West,” it started getting smaller.

First, Fresno State left.

Soon, UNLV and San Jose State will do the same.

Next year, the conference tries to patch the puncture in the hissing, shrinking balloon by expanding into Idaho and Texas and San Luis Obispo, but, really, how can Boise State and North Texas ever expect to measure up to the specter of the Shark?

Jerry Tarkanian was the godfather of the Big West. Yes, all connotations of that term do apply. If Tarkanian didn’t create the PCAA, he certainly baptized it--his Long Beach State teams of the early 1970s granted the conference its first ounces of national credibility. Then, upon his return with the Runnin’ Rebels in 1983, Tark ruled the conference with the requisite iron fist (10 consecutive championships through 1992), threw fear into the minions, larded the coffers with riches and prestige--even an NCAA title--and, ultimately, brought the whole thing down with him.

Tarkanian gave the Big West its identity, even if that was “Tark and The Nine Dwarfs.” He gave the conference a villain, a dark knight, a Darth Vader--a UNLV red menace that forced the rest of the conference to get better, simply for the sake of survival.

Many of the best moments Cal State Fullerton and UC Irvine ever had on a basketball court happened with Tark in the same building. Most often, those moments were billed as “Tark Comes to Our Town”--a mammoth community-rallying annual event--and usually involved packing the home gym, circling the wagons and playing out of one’s gourd.

In 1983, Fullerton hosted and upset top-ranked UNLV, 86-78. It was difficult to discern the more momentous feat: Stopping the Rebels’ 24-game winning streak? Or squeezing 5,010 still-breathing bodies into Titan Gym?

In 1984, Irvine ambushed UNLV in Crawford Hall--certainly the smallest place Tarkanian’s Rebels ever lost a game--and in 1986, the Anteaters swept Tark. Irvine won only 14 more games that regular season, but a 2-0 mark over UNLV impressed NIT officials enough to throw the Anteaters an invitation. There, in the first round, Irvine managed its most incredible basketball moment: UCI 80, UCLA 74, at Pauley Pavilion.

Without Tark, it never would have been possible.

Coaching careers have been made by beating UNLV, before and after Tarkanian. John Sneed and Bob Hawking were interim coaches at Fullerton when they upset the Rebels--Sneed in ‘89, Hawking in ‘94--and both parlayed those triumphs into multiyear contracts.

And coaching careers have been undone. Bill Mulligan beat Tarkanian in the semifinals of the 1988 PCAA Tournament, pushing Mulligan within a single game of his Moby Dick--a berth in the NCAA playoffs. It was there in his hand; all Irvine had to do was get by Utah State. But, as victories over UNLV tended to do, the Anteaters were emotionally drained when they faced the Aggies the next day. They lost, 86-79. Mulligan never had another winning season at Irvine, reached a 5-23 ebb in 1989-90 and resigned out of exasperation in the spring of 1991.

Tarkanian left UNLV 12 months later, his shield of invulnerability finally pierced by years of relentless pounding by the NCAA’s battering ram. And when he moved on, he left the Big West in better shape, and in worse shape, than when he found it.

Big West gains under Tarkanian: an NCAA championship in 1990, Final Four appearances in ’87 and ‘91, extra NCAA berths for those clinging most tightly to Tark’s coattails (usually New Mexico State) and a “Big Monday” ESPN tie-in through 1996.

Big West losses, of course, involved the gargantuan shadow UNLV cast over the rest of what was, in truth, a pretty decent basketball conference. In many years, the bottom nine of the Big West were a competitive match to the bottom nine in the Pacific 10, but to the rest of the nation, West Coast basketball meant UCLA, UNLV, Arizona and a bunch of Cal State Munchkins.

UNLV was also a meal ticket the Big West could scarcely afford. Always restless, UNLV threatened to bolt to the WAC, or beyond, for years. So the Big West has seen this day coming for a while. UNLV’s perennial jousting with the NCAA, and eventual probation, tainted the Big West. Fullerton’s miracle ride of 1978, when the under-talented Titans came within one shot of the Final Four, will always be this conference’s proudest moment, not UNLV’s NCAA title.

Fullerton reached the quarterfinals with runts, grunts and guys Tarkanian would have run out of the gym on the first day of practice. UNLV won it all . . . but how? Suspicion and innuendo followed the ’90 Rebels each step of the way, and their crown rested uneasily on the consciences of many in the conference.

Some in the Big West were plainly embarrassed. Others, such as New Mexico State, decided the only way to keep pace was to play the same game. So, in 1996, New Mexico State might sit out the NCAA Tournament as penance for a variety of recruiting violations.

Even without Tark, UNLV-as-malevolent-presence lived on within the Big West for many months. Rollie Massimino, pious and condescending, made rooting against the Rebels a viable, and worthwhile, hobby. Now, post-Rollie, post-J.R. Rider, post-apocalypse, the Rebels are almost painful to watch. Last season, they limped along without a head coach. For this season, they found a coach, a courageous soul named Bill Bayno, who has been told to rebuild with ashes.

The Big West will play out the string in ‘96, with UNLV here, at least in name, for one more regular season. Then, UNLV and San Jose leave for the WAC and the Big West will split into two lesser divisions of six, creating a real Pacific Coast athletic association out west--Fullerton and Irvine joined by Long Beach, Pacific, UC Santa Barbara and Cal Poly SLO.

This is kind of what the PCAA had in mind 15 years ago, before it got star-struck and Tark-struck: A good little basketball conference. Nothing wrong with that. Santa Clara belongs to one at the moment. Good little basketball conferences can produce fairly big basketball stories.

So there won’t be anymore trips to the blackjack tables in Las Vegas.

The Big West still has Reno.

Deep in its heart, the Big West has always been a Reno kind of conference.