Today finds the last gasps of winter, wheezing away under dying seasonal spasms of wind and clouds but packing no punch, upon the nation. Here in California it was no winter at all, just sunshine and blue skies (well hazy blue skies). It is a couple of days after college basketball fans found out the fate of their teams and into what NCAA tournament brackets they fell, or were left alone on the doorstep without a plate or ticket into the big party.No surprise after a season of insults hurled at virtually all Western college basketball squads to see so few invited. The Pac-12 Conference owns the most NCAA championships for this tournament, and really has UCLA and John Wooden to thank for the honors. But, this year UCLA faltered, just like last year, and after a 3 year run of making it it to the Final Four we now see that the whole conference stinks according to all the experts.
The Washington Huskies, who won the regular season title this year with a 14-4 conference record did not even get invited to the NCAA basketball tournament. No writer in all the national media pages I have been reading these past two days was the least bit surprised. Most called the Pac-12 "terrible year" or " mediocre" or "legendarily bad" this season. Really?
Most of this "legendarily bad" mediocrity for the Pac-12 conference shows up when you look at the wins and losses versus ranked teams in other parts of the country. Washington lost to Marquette on a last second 3-point shot in Madison Square Garden, and then a few days later at the same New York showcase lost to Duke by 6 points. Marquette University is located in Milwaukee, WI a little under 900 miles from New York City, and Duke is located in Durham, NC approximately 480 miles from the Big Apple. The Seattle school traveled 2,900 miles to play in New York City to two of the top teams in the nation and lost by 8 points in two games.
The Arizona Wildcats traveled to Gainesville, FL and lost to the Florida Gators in overtime to the nation's 12th ranked team in the polls. Arizona beat New Mexico State handily when they played at New Mexico State. New Mexico State is in the NCAA tournament as a 13 seed and Arizona is just another "legendarily bad" Pac-12 team who couldn't get a sniff this year. The Wildcats did beat St. Johns in New York by a wide margin, and all St. Johns had to do was walk to Madison Square Garden for the game. It's 2,500 miles from Tucson, AZ to New York City.
Stanford lost by 6 to Syracuse in New York after leading most of the way and were ahead by 6 points with with a little more than 4 minutes to play in the game. Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim said, "They outplayed us the whole game." Stanford had beaten Oklahoma State by 15 a couple of nights earlier in NYC. Distance from SFO to NYC is just under 3,000 miles.The Cardinal also beat North Carolina State in Palo Alto and Colorado State by 12 at home. CSU is in the tourney as an 11 seed as is Noth Carolina State. Stanford is just another "legendarily bad" Pac-12 basketball squad.
Oregon had its season's hopes rubbed out with an opening away loss to Vanderbilt in Nashville and a 14 point defeat to BYU in Salt Lake City a month later. Anyone following college ball knows Vanderbilt just beat the top ranked team in the nation, Kentucky, this last weekend. The loss that hurt the most, though, was the Virgina Cavaliers who traveled to Eugene and beat the Ducks who were playing at home. Finishing at 13-5 in their conference could not overcome those three losses.
As the Pac-12 regular season runner-up, the University of California, Berkeley landed a spot in the tourney as one of the at-large worst teams in the field. This means the Golden Bears must play a game against South Florida to qualify for the second round (really the first but who is quibbling) of games. The Cal-South Florida contest will be held in Nashville, which means the California team must travel 2,400 miles to meet the South Florida squad coming 700 miles from Tampa. The Bears lost to the three Top 25 teams they played this year (Missouri, UNLV and San Diego State). All were away games.
Colorado got in to the NCAA field of 68 by winning the Pac-12 tournament, not by its record. It had 7 conference losses in the regular season and no major out-of-conference victories that mattered to the national pollsters at all. The Buffaloes get to play another Western Region team, UNLV, right off the bat, to make sure at least one western team will both lose and advance. Both teams do catch one break in that where they start play is not that far from their home campuses, 475 miles for Colorado to travel from Boulder, CO to Albuquerque, NM and 575 for UNLV to travel from Las Vegas, NV. Colorado thought for sure they were in last year, and the coach threw a big party on selection night only to see the University snubbed by the selection committee. They already knew Colorado was headed to the Pac-12 and punished them right away.
In the spirit of trying to erase as soon as possible the western squads in this year's tournament who are not part of the "legendarily bad" conference, the masters of the NCAA selection committee and bracketologists handed out the Long Beach State 49ers-New Mexico Lobos opening match-up. Now although there is an opening NCAA round played in Albuquerque, NM, the folks at the NCAA sent both the New Mexico schools to Portland, OR for their games. That is 1,400 miles and a time zone away. The University of North Carolina and Duke University get to play in Greensboro, NC for their opening rounds. Greensboro is about 50 miles from both Chapel Hill and Durham.
Then there is St. Mary's traveling to Omaha to face Purdue. California Bay Area team travels over 1,660 miles to face the Boilermakers who travel 550 miles to play. One squad has a two timezone change and the other has none. The school that travels least was a middle of the road Big-10 squad with 12 losses. St. Mary's went 27-5 in a conference that included Gonzaga and BYU who also got invites to the NCAA basketball tournament.
Gonzaga from Spokane, WA, which finished right behind St. Mary's in the West Coast Conference, gets to travel to Pittsburgh, PA hoist ball against West Virginia, a middle of the road team from the Big East that went 9-9 for their conference record. WVU, from Morgantown, WV, finished their regular season at 19-13 and travel less than 80 miles to essentially host the better seeded team Gonzaga, which must travel nearly 2,300 miles for the privilege to play the game. By the way, Gonzaga blasted Notre Dame by 20 points earlier this year, and Notre Dame finished third in the Big East. Some reward for the West Coast Conference runner up. When Gonzaga beats WVU they get to play Ohio State who had to travel all of 180 miles for their opening round games.
San Diego State, which was ranked in the top 25 most of the season came in second the Mountain West Conference behind the University of New Mexico Lobos and one game above UNLV. The Aztecs beat Cal by a point in San Diego early in the season and are 26-7. This team gets to travel to Columbus, OH to face a North Carolina State squad that lost to Stanford, and has a 21-12 record thus far. The Wolfpack got seeded number 11 and the Aztecs are a 6 seed. So why does the better team get forced to travel 2,300 miles to play while the lower seed only travels 480 miles?
I was surprised Nevada University from Reno, NV did not get invited, but the New Mexico State team they beat on and who finished second in the WAC got in. Maybe Reno is just too close to California and got punished by default.
It reminds me of that recent poll that was out about a month ago on how the nation viewed all the states. http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/2012/02/state-favorability-poll.html
No love for California these days and the NCAA seems to relish putting those on the west coast in their proper place. In a desperate attempt to appease all the California haters, and have the Pac-12 Conference try to regain a measure of respectability, the conference big wigs announced that Las Vegas, NV will host the Pac-12 Conference basketball tournament for the next 3 years.
Just about says it all. No ball here.
Thanks for stopping by.
