How Sweet It Is : Maybe the Pac-10 Hadn’t Gone Away, but Having One-Fourth of the Remaining Tournament Field Reminds It’s Still Around

If the Pacific 10 was not reborn last weekend as a basketball conference, moving four teams into the NCAA tournament’s round of 16, it was in the least reintroduced to Americans with East Coast accents and short-term memories.

“Some of those East Coast [writers] are having to swallow their tongues,” Arizona Coach Lute Olson gloated on Monday.

The ol’ Pac-10 surely had taken its lumps this decade--Princeton beating UCLA, Santa Clara whacking Arizona. Never mind the conference’s record 14 NCAA basketball titles or the eight consecutive years it had advanced a team to the Sweet 16.

To the remote-control kids east of Peoria, Ill., who never get West Coast scores in their morning papers, the Pac-10 had become an antique linked to the olden days of John Wooden.

Rival coaches seized the Pac-10-as-a-time-capsule

propaganda and ransacked the coast of talent, leaving their calling cards and snide remarks.

Dismissed was that Bob Knight and Dean Smith were contemporaries of Wooden for more than a decade. Wooden’s 10 NCAA titles in 12 years at UCLA had remarkably become diminished.

“It’s like the tournament didn’t exist back then,” Pac-10 Commissioner Tom Hansen fumed Monday. “Personally, I think UCLA made the NCAA tournament. UCLA took it out of the dark.”

The Pac-10’s reward for all that UCLA barnstorming was its image as a one-trick pony.

Now the conference has embarked on a stunning “comeback,” with UCLA, Stanford, California and Arizona all having advanced to the Sweet 16, whereas Duke, Indiana, Cincinnati and South Carolina have packed their bags.

While UCLA has won a national title more recently than Indiana, Duke, North Carolina or Kansas, there is no denying it was a solid gold weekend for Pac-10 credibility.

“It did more than all the public relations or promotions you can do,” Hansen said. “In the end, you have to go out and win the games. It was a great statement about the conference. It showed we belonged and deserved the seedings we got.”

George Raveling, who began coaching at Washington State when the conference was still the Pac-8, remarked of the showing: “It will help restore some lost prestige.”

Had the Pac-10 fallen that badly? Compared to the salad days when one member’s teams won 10 national titles in 12 years, yes.

This marks only the second time since Wooden retired in 1975 that the Pac-10 has advanced more than two teams to the Sweet 16 in the same season. In 1995, Arizona State and UCLA made it this far. In the 1980s, only four Pac-10 teams reached the Sweet 16.

It was a definite slump.

Recruiting took a hit in the 1980s, when ESPN essentially created the Big East Conference with massive cable exposure and packaging. The time difference made it tough for the Pac-10 to get in on the action during an explosive growth period in which exposure meant recruits.

The college basketball axis shifted dramatically to the East in the mid-’80s.

Having one conference place four teams in the Sweet 16 is not unusual.

Since the NCAA bracket was expanded to 64 teams in 1985, the Atlantic Coast Conference has done it seven times; the Southeastern Conference twice.

In the meantime, the Pac-10 was taking NCAA hits. Fifth-seeded UCLA lost to No. 12 Tulsa in 1994. No. 15 Santa Clara ousted No. 2 Arizona in 1993. UCLA’s opening-round loss to Princeton last year only promoted Pac-10 bashing.

“Bad luck, bad games,” Hansen said. “We looked silly losing some of those games.”

But league coaches contend that the conference was never as far down as portrayed. Bob Bender, an assistant under Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski in the 1980s, says he saw a league on the rebound when he became Washington’s coach four years ago.

“There is history, there is tradition in the Pac-10,” Bender said. “It had to be rekindled. In the ACC, it’s perpetuated.”

Bender credits Olson, the league’s dean of coaches--he took over at Arizona in 1983-84--for defending the Pac-10’s honor as it fought for respectability.

Why is the Pac-10 back?

Here are few of the theories:

THE DRAW

For all the bashing the Pac-10 took during the season, warranting only a sixth-place Ratings Percentage Index ranking among major college conferences, the NCAA selection committee did respect the league.

“The tournament committee didn’t devalue the Pac-10,” Raveling, working the NCAA tournament as a CBS analyst, said.

Raveling claims only the ACC and SEC got better draws.

Although UCLA was shipped out of the West, it received favorable treatment when it was seeded second in the Southeast. The Bruins, it turned out, matched up well against Charleston Southern and Xavier.

Once Stanford got past Oklahoma in the West, it matched up surprisingly well against Wake Forest in the second round. Much to the Demon Deacons’ surprise, the Cardinal was able to hold its own against All-American center Tim Duncan.

“People say the Pac-10 plays soft basketball,” Hansen said. “Ask Tim Duncan if the Pac-10 is soft.”

Stanford now gets the home-regional advantage this weekend when it plays second-seeded Utah in San Jose.

Arizona has a history of first-round NCAA missteps, but it was in decent shape in the Southeast once it survived South Alabama in the opening round. Arizona defeated red-hot College of Charleston in the second round and draws No. 1 Kansas this Friday in Birmingham, Ala.

It’s a daunting assignment, but remember, the Wildcats gave essentially the same Jayhawk team all it wanted before losing by three points in last year’s West Regional semifinals.

California, the fifth-seeded team in the East, had the patience to survive Princeton in the opening round and was a perfect fit for Villanova in Round 2. The Big East has a reputation as a physical league, but Cal proved it had more than enough muscle to compete.

“This is a more physical league than it used to be,” Bender said. “We all know in the league that when you play Cal, it’s going to be physical.”

THE GUARDS

Note the trend. All the surviving Pac-10 teams have great point guards, a key to controlling tempo in tense tournament games. Stanford has one of the nation’s best in Brevin Knight. UCLA’s Cameron Dollar is playing the most inspired ball of his career. Arizona’s Mike Bibby, although only a freshman, was one of the most highly touted high school guards in the country. Cal’s Prentice McGruder is vastly underrated. He’s still not much of a shooter, but he was probably the most improved player on the team this season.

“I think we have the best point guards of the bunch,” Hansen said. “We’ve sort of developed a tradition there.”

THE COACHES

The Pac-10 has significantly improved in this area. Take Cal’s first-year coach, Ben Braun. He had far less talent to work with than predecessor Todd Bozeman, who lost in the first round last year, even though he had Shareef Abdur-Rahim at center.

First-year UCLA Coach Steve Lavin is looking more impressive every day. Henry Bibby for Charlie Parker turned out to be a great swap for USC. Mike Montgomery is a rock at Stanford. Oregon’s Jerry Green, a Roy Williams disciple, is so good he has been wooed to replace Dale Brown at Louisiana State.

There has never been more quality or stability in the league.

“We have really picked up some outstanding young coaches,” Olson said, adding that when he joined the conference, schools were apt to fill vacancies with untried assistants.

“Now, the jobs are being filled by top-notch head coaches from other programs,” he said. “Up and down the league, I don’t see a soft spot anywhere in terms of people doing the job.”

EXPOSURE

Olson said he thinks the Pac-10 has made great strides in promoting its product. The conference’s television deal with Fox has been controversial, but Olson says it has helped in recruiting.

“We were never going to be anything but an afterthought for ESPN,” Olson said. “What good is it to play that late at night? I think the Fox network has done a fabulous job selling the Pac-10 teams.”

Hansen says the conference has done a better job of keeping West Coast players in the Pac-10, particularly Charles O’Bannon at UCLA and Ed Gray at Cal.

Gray is the Pac-10 player of the year.

The Pac-10 has also been able to snag key recruits from elsewhere. Stanford’s Knight hails from New Jersey, and two of Cal’s mainstays, guard Randy Duck and forward Alfred Grigsby, are from Texas.

Raveling, the former USC coach, said he still thinks the Pac-10 schools need to become more flexible with their schedules to get more East Coast exposure.

“There’s no question there is a media bias against Pac-10 teams,” Raveling said. “What if everyone in the conference moved one game to 5:30 p.m.?” he asked. “That would mean 10 more national games a year.”

Raveling says the Pac-10 cannot let this golden NCAA promotional window pass.

“You’ve got to strike while the iron’s hot,” he said.

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Strength in Numbers

Following are conferences that have had four teams in the Sweet 16 round of the NCAA men’s tournament, and the number of times it has happened:

Conference: No.

* ACC: 7

* SEC: 2

* Big Ten: 2

* Big East: 1

* Pac-10: 1