March Fadness

Like it or loathe it, the Pacific 10 tournament is back.

The next question is simple: How will it affect NCAA tournament performance?

Forget the issue of making the NCAA field: Very, very few deserving teams from major conferences are ever left out.

Focus instead on what the results this week at Staples Center might foretell.

Will Oregon add the tournament title to its regular-season championship by playing three consecutive games of pell-mell basketball only to end up an exhausted No. 2 seed in the West that stumbles in an NCAA first-round game?

Or will USC storm through the weekend on Sam Clancy’s shoulders and ride that wave all the way back to the Elite Eight?

And how about Arizona and Stanford, those reluctant participants? They say they’re here to win, but will their hearts and the soles of their sneakers be in it?

One thing can’t be denied: The Pac-10 has done just fine without a tournament, winning 15 NCAA titles, more than any other conference.

But face it, those 10 the Bruins won under John Wooden weren’t because guys such as Lew Alcindor were fresh.

The conference had a sterling run last season, with four teams in the Sweet 16, three in the Elite Eight and one in the Final Four.

But history shows the previous incarnation of the Pac-10 tournament didn’t hurt: The league was 12-12 in NCAA games during its four-year run from 1987-90, and Arizona made the 1988 Final Four. In the four years surrounding the original Pac-10 tournament, the league’s NCAA record was 7-14.

Consider the example of the Big Ten, the most recent holdout to adopt a tournament: In the four years the Big Ten has held its tournament, Michigan State has won an NCAA title and played in three Final Fours, and Ohio State and Wisconsin also reached the Final Four. (In the previous four years, only Minnesota reached the Final Four.)

“We’ve done exceptionally well since we adopted the tournament,” Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany said. “We’ve won two-thirds of our games. The two or three years previous, we didn’t do so well--but our conference wasn’t as good, either.

“I think you can make a case for not having it too. There were plenty of years we won the NCAA championship without a tournament. Indiana won several, Michigan State won, Michigan won.”

Same thing goes for UCLA in 1995 and Arizona in ‘97, the post-Wooden era Pac-10 national champions.

Part of what Delany likes about the Big Ten tournament--the influx of cash admittedly among the positives--is that it mimics what’s to come.

“What’s good about a conference tournament is it’s played at a neutral site. And the early rounds in a conference tournament are a lot like the NCAA tournament,” he said.

“You can hear the ball bounce. There aren’t a lot of people in the stands.”

Picture Oregon versus Washington at 1 p.m. Thursday: It’s not going to feel like March Madness when two teams from the Northwest play at lunch hour in Staples, and Washington already beat Oregon once.

“If you’re not playing well, you’re going home in a hurry,” said Delany, a former chairman of the NCAA selection committee. “You can get a wake-up call--but it’s a lot better than getting a wake-up call the next week.”

One thing is clear: While conference tournament winners don’t always go on to greatness, teams rarely win the NCAA championship without at least reaching their conference final if the league played a tournament.

Since the field expanded to 48 in 1980--allowing more and more at-large teams--only three teams that lost in a conference semifinal have won the NCAA title: Arkansas in 1994, Kansas in ’88 and Villanova in ’85. (No quarterfinal loser won the NCAA title.)

Eleven teams won their conference tournament and swept on to the NCAA title.

Five played in leagues that didn’t hold tournaments--Indiana in 1981 and ‘87, Michigan in ‘89, UCLA in ’95 and Arizona in ’97.

And three other teams that won the NCAA championship since 1980 reached their conference final before losing.

An improbable run in a conference tournament occasionally signals the beginning of something memorable.

One of the greatest underdogs ever, the 1983 North Carolina State team that beat Houston when Lorenzo Charles dunked Dereck Whittenburg’s airball at the buzzer, started its run by winning the ACC tournament.

The Wolfpack--seeded fourth in the ACC--beat Wake Forest by one point in the quarterfinals, edged North Carolina in overtime in the semifinals and beat Virginia by three in the final. (Of course, maybe they were tired: They had to dodge an NCAA first-round bullet against Pepperdine.)

More often, the team that comes from the middle of the pack to win a conference tournament is indeed exhausted.

It’s as if great teams can sustain their effort, but lesser ones spend every ounce of energy and emotion to grab that tournament title.

Consider Arkansas in 2000.

The Razorbacks went 15-14 in the regular season and were ticketed for the National Invitation Tournament.

Then they pressed and ran their way through the 12-team Southeastern Conference tournament, winning four games in four days. (The top four seeds earn a first-round bye.)

Five days later, Arkansas was a first-round loser against Miami, the first SEC tournament champion to lose in the first round since 1989.

“To play four games back-to-back-to-back-to-back, you’ve got to have players and depth ... and then it’s another season when you get to the NCAA,” said Mike Anderson, the Razorbacks’ interim coach.

The struggles apply to other low-seeded winners as well.

It’s often “one and done.”

Of the four sixth-seeded teams to win the ACC, three lost their NCAA first-round games.

And reaching the final can be as exhausting as winning the title--minus the emotional high.

The 1989 Pac-10 tournament still lingers in Stanford Coach Mike Montgomery’s mind.

The Cardinal, ranked No. 13 in the nation, beat USC and UCLA to reach the final against No. 1 Arizona, and lost.

Seeded third in the East Regional with a team led by Todd Lichti, Stanford was upset in the first round by Siena.

“There’s no question [fatigue was a factor],” Montgomery said. “But keep in mind, it ended on Sunday. We were sent East and had to leave on Tuesday and were headed into exams. And our squad was not very deep.

“Sunday in the Arizona game, Terry Taylor was in the locker room with an IV in both arms, trying to replace fluids....

“We were very tired, no question about it.”

And yet there is another phenomenon seen in conference tournaments--the team that seems rejuvenated by an early loss.

In 1988, Kansas lost to Kansas State in the semifinals of the Big Eight tournament.

That turned out to be the start of the road to the NCAA title for the team led by Danny Manning and Coach Larry Brown.

Kansas regrouped, then conquered the Big Eight in the NCAA tournament when it ran into Kansas State in the Elite Eight and then beat Oklahoma--the Big Eight tournament winner--in the national championship game.

North Carolina went on a similar run two years ago.

The Tar Heels were 18-13 after losing in the ACC quarterfinals--a record that until now amounted to a Tar Heel disaster.

Before even leaving for home, Coach Bill Guthridge put his players through a grueling practice--rededicating a team that would upset No. 1-seeded Stanford on the way to North Carolina’s most unlikely Final Four.

So for the early losers this week--let’s say the loser of that UCLA-California quarterfinal--it could be an opportunity to rest, to practice, to recover from an ugly stretch run.

“If you have hit a valley, you have to get it back together,” Delany said. “The conference tournament gives you a stop sign, or a yellow. It exposes you in a tournament environment. You can go home, practice, regroup.”

For a couple of teams--Arizona State and Washington--the Pac-10 tournament will be a last-ditch chance to somehow win it all and grab the automatic NCAA bid.

The rest are fighting for seeding, for momentum, for pride.

“There are different motivations,” said Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski, whose teams have won the last three ACC tournaments--a title that historically gives teams a 53% chance of reaching the Final Four.

“No one is going into the conference tournament trying to lose,” Krzyzewski said. “I do think some people’s motivation is higher than others. The highest motivation may be someone who doesn’t think they’re getting in. They have to win. Sometimes, there are teams that just want to get the season over and are not motivated at all.

“Conference tournaments are great, because they add to the excitement and anticipation of where we’re going.”

That’s the NCAA tournament--ultimately the only one that matters.

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Conference Tournament Impact

A look at previous Pacific 10 tournament winners and how they fared in the NCAA tournament, and NCAA champions since 1980 and how they fared in conference tournaments--if they played in one:

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NCAA Champions Since 1980*

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NCAA Champions Since 1980 That ...

Won a conference tournament 11

Didn’t play in a conference tournament 5

Lost in a conference tournament final 3

Lost in the conference semifinals 3

(text of infobox not included)

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PAC-10 TOURNAMENT

First Round, Thursday

at Staples Center, Fox Sports Net

1 p.m. Oregon vs. Washington

3:30 p.m. USC vs. Stanford

6:30 p.m. Arizona vs. Arizona St.

9 p.m. California vs. UCLA