L.A. Gets a Chance to Star

Staples Center was nearly filled with basketball fans at 3 on a Thursday afternoon.

Oregon was just finishing up a win over Washington, it was the middle of a work day and the sounds in the building were the sounds of March. College bands pounding the drums on opposite sides of an arena. USC fans warming up their vocal chords for Game 2.

Out front the parking lots were full. A man wearing an Arizona sweater and another wearing a USC shirt walked five blocks from the parking garage, best friends they said, graduates of different schools and having a ball. And their teams hadn’t started to play yet.

In the first year of the rehabbed, reinstated Pac-10 tournament, Los Angeles has become the best place for college basketball in the country this weekend.

College basketball has always benefited from showcase events in the big cities--from the Chicago Stadium doubleheaders to the old Madison Square Gardens days. Now it’s time for L.A. to step to the head of the line.

Because the tournament is new and a little shiny, because USC and UCLA bring passion to the place, because Los Angeles is, at heart, a basketball town. Because who couldn’t get into this conference tournament stuff after watching Gonzaga and Pepperdine go at it Monday night, non-stop, full-court pressure, individual brilliance, teams who knew everything about each other playing for everything, for pride, for fun, for the chance to brag, for the sheer heck of it.

Not to get all warm and fuzzy about this. The tickets were sold only in weekend packages, too expensive for the common student and if this is supposed to be about the schools, then the students should be welcomed. But since Staples was pretty jam-packed Thursday, it seems unlikely the Pac-10 is going to be offering student discounts next year.

And the schedule was delayed when there was a shot clock malfunction in the second half of Game 1. Nearly 30 minutes was lost, never to be made up. Game 4, between UCLA and Cal, which was supposed to begin at 9, didn’t tip off until 9:35 p.m. If the conference is hoping to showcase its teams around the country, having games end at 2 a.m. in the East doesn’t help and it’s not great for fans who might not have gotten home until well after midnight.

So here’s a plea to not mess up a good thing. Check the equipment. Maybe offer a little goodwill and good discounts to the students.

Because bringing the Pac-10 tournament to Los Angeles has given the conference and our town some pizazz.

It’s new and it’s cool and that makes it good.

On a local radio station, during the Oregon-Washington game, the host was saying that the tournament was a bad idea, that the tickets were too expensive, that nobody in Los Angeles was going to come out on a Thursday afternoon and that almost certainly Staples Center was going to be two-thirds empty.

The host should have attended the event.

Because what hit a person first, upon arrival, in the second half of the Oregon-Washington game, was the noise. It was fan noise, fervent noise, high-pitched and intense and involving. It was the kind of noise you don’t usually hear at Staples until the NBA Finals.

This festive environment, where there’s a patch of Arizona red, of Arizona State gold, of USC cardinal and gold, of Oregon green, of UCLA blue, where fans are seated by affiliation, where the patrons stand in the lobby dissing each other in the McDonald’s line and can say “We’ll get you next year,” at the street corner afterward, is a great addition to the Los Angeles sporting calendar.

Maybe some of the Pac-10 coaches aren’t crazy about adding a conference tournament, facing extra pressure, finding out the alums might care about who wins the event. But the players love it.

You can tell by how hard the Oregon players went after Washington. The Ducks won the regular-season championship and are going to be in the NCAA tournament and it could have been convenient and easy to let Washington carry on from its big first-half lead to the win. But the Ducks played hard and well in the second half because it mattered.

In some of these tournaments, it doesn’t seem to matter as much anymore. There used to be fistfights outside Madison Square Garden between fans before games during the Big East tournament.

All the fans arriving by train and subway right at the Garden, mingling on 33rd Street, then watching Patrick Ewing or Malik Sealy or Chris Mullin or Derrick Coleman, it was a happening. Now it’s kind of stale. The Garden is a little tattered, a bit old-fashioned. There aren’t any Patrick Ewings anymore.

They’ll tell us the ACC tournament is it, is the thing, is the only place to be. Tobacco Road and all that. But isn’t it just a little quaint, kind of fuddy-duddy, all that history and people wearing Carolina blue suit coats and ties? The ACC has lots of tradition but not enough good teams. Duke and Maryland isn’t enough.

And all that stuff they say about L.A., late to arrive, early to leave? The house was still full for the fourth game of the quadruple-header. Why? Because there’s not a better place to be this weekend.

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Diane Pucin can be reached at diane.pucin@latimes.com.