A crazy upset for Greenberg

There was a time when Seth Greenberg’s idea of a tough road game was playing in Logan, Utah.

On Saturday, the former Long Beach State coach took his Virginia Tech team into Duke’s Cameron Indoor Stadium and won, on a court where Duke had won 151 of its last 160 games.

Rowdy old Cameron went quiet as the Hokies celebrated their 69-67 overtime upset of fifth-ranked Duke.

“We won once in Logan too, I’ve got to be honest,” Greenberg said with a laugh, remembering a victory over Utah State.

It has been more than a decade since Greenberg left Long Beach State, where he had another signature victory, an upset of No. 1 Kansas in Allen Fieldhouse in 1993.

Long Beach State has had a long struggle in the years since, although the 49ers might finally have turned the corner, with a nine-game winning streak and an 11-4 record in Larry Reynolds’ fifth year as coach.

Greenberg spent seven seasons at South Florida but never had as much success as he did at Long Beach, taking the 49ers to two NCAA tournaments in his six seasons from 1990 to ’96.

He left South Florida for Virginia Tech in 2003, and became an accidental Atlantic Coast Conference coach when the Hokies left the Big East. “When I took this job, I thought I was taking a Big East job, and it turned into an ACC job,” said Greenberg, who called it a better fit geographically.

It’s a tough assignment for building a program. Winning the conference title isn’t realistic for Virginia Tech when it’s going against North Carolina and Duke each season.

“I think coming from the ACC, you want to finish in the top five. If you get in the top five, odds are, you’re in the NCAA tournament,” said Greenberg, whose Virginia Tech team is 11-4, and 2-0 in the ACC but plays No. 1 North Carolina on Saturday.

“Obviously, Carolina is very special, and we have to play them twice.”

Greenberg is happy at Virginia Tech, with his brother, former NBA executive Brad Greenberg, as associate coach, and the oldest of his three daughters, Paige, a freshman on the Hokies volleyball team.

But he said he and his wife, Karen, look back at Long Beach with fondness.

“I could have been very happy at Long Beach State the rest of my life,” he said. “I’ve said a lot of times, those were the happiest days I ever had coaching -- great friends, a close-knit community, obviously great teams, and we recruited regionally, so I was home a lot.

“Everything’s worked out magnificently, obviously, but sometimes I looked back and thought leaving was the biggest mistake I made, professionally.

“I guess my biggest regret is I wonder if we could have been Gonzaga. That’s in the back of my mind. We had that type of energy going.”

And then there was one

With UCLA and Oregon suffering their first losses -- remember, no team has ever gone 18-0 in the Pacific 10 -- Clemson is the last undefeated major college team in the country.

Clemson will lose soon enough in the ACC after winning by two at Florida State and by one against Georgia Tech, both in the final seconds, before beating North Carolina State, 87-76, on Tuesday.

But the Tigers -- whose leading scorer is sixth-man K.C. Rivers -- have qualities coaches around the ACC are praising.

“It’s their hustle and how hard they play,” said N.C. State Coach Sidney Lowe, focusing on the Tigers’ defense. “It’s like they take it personal. They’re up on you and in your face, competing, denying, in the passing lanes, being aggressive.

“They have people who can knock down shots, but what impresses me about their talent is they play hard.”

Coach Oliver Purnell calls his team pretty solid at everything but not great at anything, and although he sees the end of the streak coming, he told his team to embrace it while it lasts.

“Enjoy it. Embrace it,” he said. “Understand there’s a specialness to going through nonconference undefeated and a specialness about being the remaining NCAA institution that’s undefeated. There’s something to being ranked, all those things. Just stay grounded.”

Eye of the beholder

Washington State has drawn a lot of attention with victories over Gonzaga, USC and most impressive, No. 7 Arizona. But first-year Coach Tony Bennett had to laugh when someone told him USC Coach Tim Floyd admiringly called the Cougars “beautiful” to watch.

“Yeah, because most people say we’re plodding, ugly and yuck,” said Bennett, who has made some adjustments to the system installed by his father, Dick Bennett, but credits players’ experience for the improvement.

Floyd says people who think Washington State controls tempo by holding the ball offensively are wrong, and that the Cougars control tempo with defense.

By the way, if the NCAA tournament field were selected today, Washington State would be in, and not with an underdog seeding, either.

The Pac-10 -- at the moment the top-rated conference in the Ratings Percentage Index -- has a reasonable chance of matching the conference record of six teams it sent to the NCAA tournament in 2002. You could at least make an argument for the candidacy of every team but Oregon State and Arizona State, though a team or two is likely to play its way out of contention.

Jerry Palm, the number-cruncher at collegerpi.com, posted his first mock bracket of the year this week, and had UCLA, Arizona, Oregon, Washington State, USC and California in the field.

Washington has lots of young talent and had been in the top 25 but has lost three of four games and its nonconference schedule contributes to a No. 51 RPI rating.

Stanford, after a road victory over Virginia, might be headed up.

“I think realistically eight teams have a chance,” UCLA Coach Ben Howland said. “I’ve been saying six all along.”

robyn.norwood@latimes.com

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The Times rankings

Robyn Norwood’s college basketball top 25:

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Rk. School Comment 1. NORTH CAROLINA (14-1) Tar Heels are AP’s No. 1 for 82nd time. (UCLA holds the record at 134.) 2. FLORIDA (15-2) Athletic Director Jeremy Foley probably deserves a bonus. 3. UCLA (14-1) This week in Bruins practice: Attacking a zone. 4. WISCONSIN (16-1) Every Badgers starter is a junior or senior. 5. OHIO STATE (13-3) Three losses, but they are to North Carolina, Florida and Wisconsin. 6. KANSAS (13-2) Top 10 clash with Oklahoma State in Big 12 tonight. 7. OKLAHOMA STATE (15-1) All Big-12 wide receiver Adarius Bowman joins team. 8. ARIZONA (12-2) What happens in Pullman, stays in Pullman. 9. PITTSBURGH (14-2) Center Aaron Gray held to 26 points in last four games. 10. CLEMSON (17-0) So what if it won’t last: Tigers get credit for being last unbeaten team. 11. TEXAS A&M; (14-2) No opponent has scored more than 65 points. 12. OREGON (14-1) Aaron Brooks is Pac-10’s leading scorer after getting 56 against USC, UCLA. 13. DUKE (13-2) This backcourt is not up to Blue Devils’ standards. 14. ALABAMA (14-2) Nice recovery against LSU after Arkansas disaster. 15. BUTLER (14-1) A.J. Graves is the nation’s leading free-throw shooter. 16. TENNESSEE (13-2) Only losses are to Butler and North Carolina. 17. NEVADA (14-1) Fazekas expected to sit out at least one game with sprained ankle. 18. NOTRE DAME (14-2) Beat West Virginia after ugly loss to Georgetown. 19. AIR FORCE (16-1) Falcons’ only loss is to Duke. 20. WASHINGTON STATE (14-2) Cougars receive first AP ranking since George Raveling was coach. 21. USC (13-4) A little erratic, but maturing talent and good coaching should spell NCAA bid. 22. WASHINGTON (11-4) Huskies are 1-3 in Pac-10, but we still have visions of the victory over LSU last month. 23. LOUISIANA STATE (11-4) Now you can call Big Baby “Crash” Davis. 24. WEST VIRGINIA (13-2) Sharpshooting magic missing against Notre Dame. 25. CONNECTICUT (12-2) Huskies have to beat Marquette tonight to keep their spot.

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