Pacific Doesn’t Want Run to End

It has been a storybook season for the University of the Pacific, yet its veteran coach, Bob Thomason, knows that it comes with a qualification.

The Tigers have set all sorts of school records and earned unprecedented attention. The list is gaudy: a 22-game winning streak, a school-record 26 victories and, perhaps most improbable, their first unbeaten mark in winning the Big West Conference regular-season championship.

But does this mean it is a team for the ages? One of the greatest in the history of the Big West?

Not exactly, Thomason readily admits.

“I don’t know about great yet,” he said. “You can’t compare us to the Vegas teams. Those guys had four [future] pros on that team. Our league used to have a bunch of pros, and the league doesn’t have that now.”

Even as it won the regular-season title going away, Pacific wasn’t being considered a juggernaut in the Nevada Las Vegas mold.

The Runnin’ Rebels won a national championship, after all, while Thomason worried that the best team in his 17 seasons as coach might be beaten in the Big West tournament.

And right the 56-year-old coach was. Utah State, motivated by being left out of the NCAA tournament last season, denied the Tigers a sweep Saturday night with a decisive 65-52 win at the Anaheim Convention Center.

The loss was a setback, but it hasn’t dimmed the season-long party that has gone on in Stockton. As a crowd at the on-campus Spanos Center watched the brackets unveiled Sunday, Pacific received its expected at-large bid and will play Pittsburgh on Thursday at Boise, Idaho.

It is the second consecutive NCAA berth for the Tigers, part of a two-year run that ranks among the school’s greatest basketball accomplishments. They have fed off momentum from last season, when they opened by beating Providence and pushed Kansas before falling in the second round.

In becoming the eighth Big West team to go unbeaten through the league regular season, Pacific won 35 consecutive games against Big West opponents dating to last season -- until the Aggies ended the run Saturday.

“I think it is an impressive feat, especially in conference, where teams know everything about you and know you as well as you know yourself,” said David Doubley, a senior point guard. “You can look all around the country and that doesn’t happen very often, no matter what conference you’re in.”

Of those 35 victories, 19 were by fewer than 10 points. The Tigers’ 46-5 record since Jan. 1, 2004, is the best mark in the nation in that span.

Cal State Northridge Coach Bobby Braswell, whose teams were eliminated from the Big West tournament by two-point losses to Pacific in each of the last two seasons, said there’s a reason the Tigers have won so many close games.

“You’re looking at a team that’s extremely experienced,” Braswell said. “It’s a group of guys who have not only played together but played in some very difficult environments and had very difficult games. You can’t ever take that away.”

Pacific offered its most convincing evidence of that quality on Feb. 12 at Utah State. Facing an eight-point deficit with 37 seconds remaining, the Tigers scored 11 of the game’s final 13 points to pull out a 64-63 victory.

Christian Maraker scored the winning basket with 2.5 seconds remaining, and Thomason was proud that four players touched the ball on the final possession. “And the only one that didn’t touch it was Doubley, our point guard,” he said.

The improbable comeback allowed Thomason to believe that there could be more to this season than he might have imagined.

“When you do something like that there starts to be an eerie feeling like there’s something special in the air,” he said.

The play also defined what the Tigers are built on: chemistry and selflessness. Doubley, a 6-foot-1 senior from Oakland, was honored as the Big West player of the year -- but might not be the best on his team.

The core is the front line of the 6-9 junior Maraker, 6-10 senior forward Tyler Newton and 6-9 senior center Guillaume Yango. Maraker is the smooth scorer, Newton does the dirty work and Yango lives on the backboards.

Doubley is their floor leader, and the fifth starter, Marko Mihailovic, has become one of their top defenders. The Tigers also have role players such as Jasko Korajkic, Mike Webb, Matt Kemper and Johnny Gray who form a deep and effective bench.

None of these players has eye-popping statistics. Maraker is the leading scorer with a 13.3-point average.

“We genuinely care about each other,” Doubley said. “We don’t worry about who gets the credit.”

Thomason has fostered that chemistry from a roster built largely on junior college and international players, continuing a successful trend that began when Nigerian Michael Olowokandi randomly picked the school out of a guide of American colleges and universities.

Yango, a native of Paris, was recruited from a junior college in Idaho. Maraker and Korajkic, best friends, were brought over from Sweden after the Tigers saw them while on a tour of the country.

Maraker learned of Pacific only after being told by his club coach that an American team was in his native Varberg to play exhibition games against local teams.

“Coach [Thomason] came up to me and started talking about the school and we started e-mailing each other after that,” he said. “When I came out, I just liked the coaches and the campus.”

Said Doubley: “That’s how Pacific is. We have a family atmosphere.”

The Tigers are aware that there are more doubters following their loss to Utah State. They also know that another first-round victory will bring more respect to them and the Big West.

Doubley said the pressure is off “a little bit. [Teams] might be thinking that we’re kind of on the ropes. We definitely have to bounce back.”