Pac-10 braces for close calls today

Consider finding some earplugs, because there are going to be some complaints today.

“Somebody will be disappointed,” Pacific 10 Conference Commissioner Tom Hansen said. “You just hope it’s somebody else.”

It might not be.

The Pac-10 would be giddy if it received a league-record seven berths along with a No. 1 seeding for UCLA when the NCAA tournament field is announced today.

The Bruins are virtually assured of the top seeding in the West and their preferred path through Anaheim and Phoenix -- and the suddenly gimpy Pac-10 champions could use some short trips as they try to reach their third consecutive Final Four on April 5 and 7 in San Antonio.

North Carolina, Memphis and the winner of the Big 12 title game between Kansas and Texas are the other expected No. 1s.

But the Pac-10 faces crushing disappointment if Arizona State, Oregon or even Arizona are left out altogether, victims of such things as their own scheduling, computerized rankings, a questionable officiating call, an early-season funk, injuries -- and perhaps most of all, the battering competition in the Pac-10.

Stanford, Washington State and USC are locks along with the Bruins, but the other three are at risk. They were before Temple stole a berth from the bubble hopefuls by winning the Atlantic 10 tournament Saturday. And it gets more difficult if Illinois claims another by winning the Big Ten title over Wisconsin today. Same goes for the exhausted Georgia Bulldogs, who face Arkansas in the final of the wild, weather-disrupted Southeastern Conference tournament after winning two games in one day Saturday.

Arizona (19-14) seems to have the best prospects of the three Pac-10 hopefuls, with the Wildcats considered likely to extend their 23-season streak of NCAA tournament appearances because of a strong nonconference schedule and consideration of injuries -- despite the fact they were swept by Arizona State and Oregon and went 4-8 down the stretch.

Arizona State (19-12), by contrast, passes the eye test but not the RPI test.

The Sun Devils would prefer more subjective judgment and an appreciation of their victories over Xavier and Stanford -- along with their sweep of Arizona, although the Wildcats were without Jerryd Bayless in the first game and without Nic Wise in the second.

The two rivals could be about to become the center of the debate George Mason Athletic Director Tom O’Connor, the selection committee chairman, likes to call the “quantitative and qualitative.”

The two-leading bracket prognosticators, Jerry Palm of College RPI.com and ESPN’s Joe Lunardi, both had Arizona in and Arizona State out, based on numbers.

The culprit is an Arizona State nonconference schedule that included Florida Gulf Coast and St. Francis of Pennsylvania and ranked 307th, contributing to a No. 83 RPI that is roughly 30 spots below the usual effective cut-off for at-large teams.

“Their nonconference schedule is the worst the committee will look at the whole weekend,” Palm said.

That’s why the Illinois State Redbirds, a 24-9 team that doesn’t have a victory over a team better than Creighton and lost to Drake by 30 in the Missouri Valley Conference title game, might get in first with a No. 35 RPI.

“I’m a little concerned,” Hansen said. “I don’t understand how after playing 18 conference games the RPI for a team in this strong a conference could be in the 80s. I don’t think RPI is the end-all.”

That leaves Arizona State hoping some of the 10 people on the committee prefer the less-talked-about Sagarin ratings published by USA Today. The Sun Devils are No. 41 in that.

“People get hung up on the RPI, but the RPI is really a starting data-control point,” O’Connor said as the committee prepared to begin deliberating this week. “We take a look at the qualitative from the standpoint of ourselves watching teams play on TV and in person. Certainly head-to-head competition is important at this point. The nonconference strength of schedule, quite frankly, is important at this point.”

And at this point, Arizona State is pretty much grasping at straws, hoping a debatable call in the final minute of a Pac-10 quarterfinal loss to USC might earn some consideration.

Gary Walters, the Princeton athletic director who was chairman of the committee last season, said the group would be aware of that.

“If there is a questionable call, inasmuch as it impacted the game, I think the committee would probably take that into consideration,” he said. “But at the same time, all teams receive calls during the course of the season that probably impact games.”

Arizona State is only one team, but it is emblematic of some of the ongoing debates of the NCAA tournament selection process: numbers vs. gut, strong schedule vs. weak schedule, major conference versus mid-major.

One of the so-called mid-majors, the West Coast Conference, is poised to get a record three teams in if Gonzaga -- considered a lock -- and St. Mary’s earn at-large berths alongside tournament champion San Diego.

Strong nonconference scheduling has been the WCC’s strategy, and the top schools have been successful with it.

“It’s still a little irritating to me to see everyone talk about Kentucky’s rising strength and then say St. Mary’s loss to San Diego was a bad loss. Kentucky lost to San Diego too,” Commissioner Mike Gilleran said.

“And when Gonzaga beat Georgia, it was just a ho-hum game. But Kentucky playing Georgia is a big game.”

There will be complaints today, that is certain, with such teams as St. Joseph’s, Virginia Tech, Ohio State and Villanova in the mix for the final spots along with the Pac-10 group.

But this season, more than most, the teams that don’t get in will have clear shortcomings. Palm at one point early in the week estimated eight teams were in his tentative bracket that probably didn’t belong.

As one bubble team after another lost in conference quarterfinals last week -- usually a death knell for a borderline team -- ESPN analyst Fran Fraschilla, a former coach, surveyed the scores and shook his head.

“Teams are out-badding each other,” he said.

Instead of a bigger bracket, maybe this season it should have been smaller.

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robyn.norwood@latimes.com