They Won’t Lack for Motivation

A dirty, dirty trick was played on the UCLA basketball program Sunday, leaving me with only one piece of advice for the Bruin basketball squad:

Don’t get angry. Get even.

In an alarming display of disrespect, UCLA, despite winning its conference and reigning as national champion, is being sent 2,000 miles to Indianapolis--low temperature Sunday: 13 degrees--as the Southeast Regional’s fourth seed, rather than to nearby Tempe, Ariz.--high Sunday: 86 degrees--where the No. 3 seed went to an Arizona team that didn’t win the conference and can commute there by bus.

How the NCAA tournament selection committee can justify this, I’ll never know. I wouldn’t let this committee run a bake sale.

Vague references are being made to the “nonconference schedule” Arizona played.

Oh, yeah?

Arizona played Cincinnati and Syracuse.

It also played Towson State, Montana, Houston, Texas El Paso and Texas A&M.; Ooooh. Scary.

Furthermore, it chickened out on playing St. Joseph’s, refusing to fly to Philadelphia in a snowstorm and refusing to reschedule.

And whom did UCLA play?

Kansas, Duke, Louisville, Maryland . . . in the NCAA tournament all.

UCLA also entered itself in the Maui Invitational, in a field that included North Carolina, Villanova and Santa Clara, NCAA teams all.

Did the Bruins play some ordinary teams? Sure, they did. San Francisco, Nevada Las Vegas, Stephen F. Austin, Notre Dame, Cal State Fullerton . . . no monsters there.

But, I repeat: UCLA won the Pacific 10 Conference, a power conference, a conference without a postseason tournament, a conference with four NCAA tournament teams, a conference whose champion deserves something greater than a No. 4 seed, two-thirds of the way across the country.

UCLA is 23-7, Arizona 24-6.

Is that why?

UCLA got killed by Kansas, drilled by Duke. (On the road.)

Is that why?

Arizona beat Cincy on a fluke, 60-foot shot. (At Phoenix.)

Is that why?

Two of UCLA’s seven defeats came before Thanksgiving. That means the NCAA champions lost only five times over the next three months.

Their reward?

To be put in a bracket opposite Princeton, a school whose distinguished coach is retiring after 29 years, a team that drives opponents crazy with a slow-tempo game.

(In 1989, top-seeded Georgetown held off 16th-seeded Princeton in the regional opener, 50-49, on Alonzo Mourning’s last-second blocked shot.)

And if they beat Princeton?

That means the Bruins probably have to play Mississippi State, a team that crushed No. 1-ranked Kentucky in Sunday’s last game of the regular season.

And if they beat Mississippi State?

That means the Bruins probably have to play Connecticut, a team with a record of 30-2.

Thanks, NCAA.

The West Coast’s best team (Utah, Schmutah) just loves getting banished to the Southeast Regional.

On television Sunday, analysts Digger Phelps and Dick Vitale agreed that the Southeast Regional was, by far, the tournament’s toughest, while the West looked clearly the weakest.

I suppose our sympathy today should be saved for students and alumni of Fresno State, Minnesota, Providence, Davidson, Tulane and College of Charleston, all of whom feel their school got the shaft.

(Fresno sure did.)

But, hey, the NCAA must have been too busy worrying how to slip six Atlantic Coast Conference teams into the tournament, undoubtedly puzzled by the perception that Clemson should be obligated to win half its conference games.

I don’t, frankly, expect UCLA to repeat as NCAA champion, or even to reach the Final Four.

But I didn’t expect the cards to be stacked against the Bruins before they even got started.

Like I say, they shouldn’t let it get them angry.

They should simply go to Indianapolis, play hard, have fun and, like the rest of us, sit back and enjoy Arizona’s first-round loss.