Tournament Has Pac-10 Thinking

The Pacific 10 Conference regular season has ended, and no one will remember it more fondly than Stanford, which was undefeated in conference play for the fourth time.

But now that the Pac-10 has installed a postseason tournament, some coaches are calling for changes in the regular-season conference schedule.

More than one coach would like to see the season reduced from 18 games to 16. The two most offered reasons: Teams could schedule more nonconference games, and the conference season could go back to starting in January instead of December.

“It would give us so much more flexibility in preseason scheduling,” Arizona State Coach Charli Turner Thorne said. “And we would also get away from so much head-to-head competition that we don’t get credit for.

“When we are ranked and lose in conference, we fall out of the rankings every time. The biggest way we can help ourselves is to get away from the double round-robin and have more preseason nonconference games. It would help our national image.”

Not every coach agrees, however.

“At the beginning I was thinking of not having to play everyone twice,” UCLA Coach Kathy Olivier said. “But how do you do that? To be the Pac-10 champion you need to play everyone twice. There are formulas [to shorten the schedule], but it would be difficult.

“I’m still trying to figure what is the best solution. Hopefully after this season we’ll all sit down and figure out what is best for the conference.”

This Is a Positive Attitude

Lindsay Sotero will wrap up her college career this week when Cal State Fullerton plays UC Santa Barbara and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. At 4-21 overall and 2-12 in conference, the Titans aren’t expected to go beyond the Big West tournament, if they qualify for it.

It has been like that every season for Sotero, the only four-year senior on Fullerton’s team. Including this season, she has been on the winning side 11 times in 95 games. Sotero’s not a major star--the 5-foot-4 guard was always more adept at passing (220 assists) than scoring (a 2.6 career average)--but who wants to keep banging her head against a wall of futility?

Born in Northridge and a graduate of North Hollywood High, Sotero, 22, thought briefly of leaving Fullerton after her freshman year. She wouldn’t have been alone: three players who were not seniors did bail out under then-coach Denise Curry. But Sotero decided to stay, in part because Fullerton offered her a scholarship a month before she was to enroll at Ventura College.

“I knew my education was first,” said Sotero, who is on track to graduate next year with a degree in kinesiology. “But I also stayed because I had signed [the letter of intent] with the idea it was for four years.

“I have no regrets. My career has been the experience of a lifetime. It gave me a chance to play Division I basketball, play some top teams and learn about myself in life and in basketball.”

The best lesson? “The experience of knowing things don’t come easy. Sometimes even if the outcome isn’t what you want, just knowing you had the opportunity to make something out of the opportunity is enough.”

NCAA May Pay Attention

If the Pac-10 is able to get only three teams into the NCAA tournament, and assuming the Southeastern, Big 12 and Big Ten don’t get more than their share, this may be a season in which the West Coast Conference, which begins its postseason tournament Thursday, can get more than one bid.

Pepperdine, which won the regular-season championship, has 20 wins and Santa Clara, which is seeded second, has 19. Both seem like viable entries, especially if they wind up playing each other in the Sunday championship game.

The problem for Pepperdine is it has more significant losses than victories, including close-but-no-cigar efforts against Stanford, Illinois and Arizona.

Santa Clara, with wins over Washington and Utah, is a little better off. But it still doesn’t have the kind of nonconference victory that would get the selection committee’s attention.

Which could doom the WCC to one NCAA bid--again.

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PACIFIC 10 CONFERENCE WOMEN’S TOURNAMENT

At University of Oregon

Friday’s First Round

* No. 7 Oregon (15-12) vs. No. 10 Washington St. (2-26), 6:30 p.m.

* No. 8 UCLA (8-19) vs. No. 9 California (7-20), 8:45 p.m.

Saturday’s Second Round

* No. 2 Washington (17-10) vs. Oregon-Washington St. winner, noon

* No. 3 Arizona St. (21-8) vs. No. 6 Arizona (14-13), 2:15 p.m.

* No. 1 Stanford (28-1) vs. UCLA-California winner, 6 p.m.

* No. 4 USC (15-12) vs. No. 5 Oregon St. (15-13), 8:15 p.m.

Sunday’s Semifinals

* Games at 12:30 p.m. and 3 p.m.

Monday’s Championship Game

* 7 p.m. (FSN).