Pac-10 Takes First Step to Tournament

Ten years after dropping their less-than-successful postseason basketball tournament, Pacific 10 Conference officials have taken the first step toward giving the idea another try--this time at Staples Center.

Meeting at a hotel beside Los Angeles International Airport on Wednesday afternoon, the conference’s athletic directors voted to recommend that the tournament be reinstated at the downtown arena beginning March 2002.

“I just think when the Pac-10 became the only major conference not to have a basketball tournament, we felt that we were really outside the mainstream,” said Tom Hansen, the conference commissioner.

The athletic directors also voted to endorse an earlier proposal for a 10-team women’s tournament that would be played on the campuses of member schools.

Both recommendations will go before the Pac-10 Council on Oct. 3, when they must be approved by a majority of the faculty, athletic representatives and senior women administrators that make up the panel.

Given the necessary support, the proposals would then go to the school presidents and chancellors Oct. 23. Final approval requires eight of 10 votes.

The proposed men’s event would be linked to Staples Center for the foreseeable future. Bobby Goldwater, an arena vice president, attended the meeting and gave what Hansen characterized as “a very effective” presentation.

The commissioner said his conference hopes the new, high-profile arena might boost the popularity of a tournament that, in its previous incarnation, played before half-empty stands.

“Staples was a big selling point,” Hansen said. “We think the building will be helpful to our attendance. We think we can do better this time.”

The proposal also calls for a streamlined format that involves only the top eight finishers each season. That would allow officials to begin the first round on a Thursday and play the championship game on Saturday afternoon, the day before the NCAA announces its tournament pairings.

The first time around, the Pac-10 tournament had a four-year life, from 1987 through 1990. Reasons for dropping it were many.

Conference officials cited academic concerns, saying the early March tournament--with its 10-team format--was too much of a disruption, occurring during exam period for schools on the quarter system.

Coaches seemed more upset by the disruption in their basketball schedules. The conference season had to start in December.

Arizona Coach Lute Olson complained after his team started the 1989-90 season with two losses at the Oregon schools.

“I don’t think any of us coaches like to play league games this early,” said Jim Harrick, the UCLA coach at the time.

There were other problems, most notably with attendance. The 1990 title game between Arizona and UCLA drew only 8,037 in Tempe, Ariz.

It wasn’t much better at Pauley Pavilion in 1987 or the Forum in 1989, where early-round games drew fewer than 5,000 fans.

A proposal to revive the tournament failed by a 7-3 vote a few years ago. If it were up to Olson, the Pac-10 would forever remain one of two conferences in the nation without a postseason competition.

“That shows you how smart we are,” the Arizona coach said earlier this year. “The other one is the Ivy League.”

But support for a tournament has reemerged in recent years.

For one thing, each school earned $90,000 for the 1990 tournament, Hansen said. The commissioner also complained that Pac-10 teams tended to be ignored in the final week of the season, when the ACC and other conferences hold their tournaments.

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Try, Try Again?

Pacific 10 officials are talking about reinstating a conference basketball tournament in March 2002 at Staples Center. In its previous four years of existence from 1987-1990, the Pac-10 tournament drew 61.7% capacity in four different arenas. Each year, the tournament format had five sessions--four with two games each and the championship game. A breakdown of tournament attendance each of the four years:

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1987 1988 1989 1990 Pauley McKale Great University Pavilion Center, Western Activity Center, Tucson Forum Tempe, Ariz. Session 1 (2 games) 4,851 12,635 4,830 4,567 Session 2 (2 games) 8,918 13,436 7,195 4,380 Session 3 (2 games) 5,424 13,061 9,001 8,079 Session 4 (2 games) 9,352 13,549 10,565 10,989 Session 5 (Final) 9,117 13,796 10,403 8,037 Session Total Att. 37,663 66,477 41,994 36,052 Session Avg. Att. 7,533 13,295 8,399 7,210 Arena Capacity 12,819 14,489 17,505 14,198 Pct. of Capacity 58.8% 91.7% 48% 50.8% Tournament Champion UCLA Arizona Arizona Arizona

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