■ SPORTS EXTRA BASKETBALL
UCLA leads tourney field of 64
KANSAS CITY Mo. (AIM —
UCt.A. which Inst won the
national championship 20 years
ago in coat h John Wooden's last
game. was made a No t seed
Sunday in the NCAA college
basketball tournament along
w ith Kentui ks, Wake Forest and
Kansas
The M teams include the one
with the worst record in 44
years. Florida International, as
well as the most dominant pro
gram in college basketball his
ton , the top-ranked Bruins.
UCLA goes into the tourna
ment as the No i team in The
Asso< oiled Press poll for the
first time sine e 1975, when
Wooden took the last of his in
championships in 12 years
In ail it) of those title runs
UCLA entered the tournament
ranked No t
The Bruins (25-2). the Par-to
i hampion and the No i si-e.i in
the West regional, play their hrst
game Friday against Florida
International, winners of the
Trans America Athletic Confer
enr e whose it JH record is the
worst by a tournament team
since mil
Kentucky (25-4) was made the
No 1 -eed iii the Southeast after
defeating defending national
champion Arkansas 95-95 in
overtime to win the SEC cham
pionship. Kansas (23-5) was the
lop seed in the Midwest despite
losing in the Hig Fight confer
ence tournament And Wake
Forest (24- i), which heat North
Carolina 82-HO in overtime to
win its first ACC title since
l‘H»2. headed the Fats! region.
The 1995 bracket is an
encouraging one for mid-level
conferences which for years
have complained that onlv their
automate entry gets a bid while
glamour leagues like the Hig Ten
and Hig Fast flood the bracket.
Hut extra bids this year went
to the West Const, the Metro
Atlantic and the Mid-America
conferences
"Some of these schools made
an attempt to improve their
schedule," selection chairman
Hob Frederick, athletic director
ol Kansas, said "We vu tried to
encourage them to do this
Them are some larger schools in
some of the lugger conferences
that don't r<n vDiurily do that,
and have been hurt by that But
I think some of thorn got th<‘
message "
Kentucky plays Mount St
Mary's of Maryland {17-12).
yvhite Kansas takes on Colgate
IK 12) and Wake Forest plays
North Carolina A AT (15 14). all
on Thursday
The No, 2 sited in tint Hast
went to Atlantic ltl champion
Massachusetts (20 4) 1 he sis
ond seed in the Southeast was
North Carolina (24 5). while
Arkansas (27 <>) got the No 2
seed m the Midwest Connecti
i ut (2i»-*t). which lost the Big
hast title garni* to Villanovn. wilt
travel to the West regional as the
No 2 seed
tl
field worn Georgia Tech (18-12)
of the ACC, low.i (1<1-11) of tlie
(tig Ten and Georgia (18-0) of
the SEC.
George Washington, which
beat Massachusetts twice in
Atlantic 10 games and won at
Syracuse while finishing 18 13,
also was left out of the tourna
ment,
\\i* took t*4 secret ballots
among the committee," Freder
ick said. 'We had ftO teams with
20 or more wins and 20 teams
with Hi.
"All of us feel bad about the
teams that wore left out," he said
"We know how important the
tournament has become, not only
to the fans and the coaches hut
also to tin* kids themselves
A deluge of television money
has also made it a wildly luc ra
live venture for schools and con
fereticcs
1 hu e of the four No. 1 seeds
went to si hoots with long histo
ries of sin i ess in the NGAA tour
nament UCLA lias a rec ord 10
national titles, while Kentucky's
five titles is tied for second-best
with Indiana Kansas has won th<>
NCAA championship twit «•
Wake Forest is the only one of
the four No t st*.'..Is without a
national championship
Ffinleni k cited North C mill
na and Wake Forest as prime
examples of what made seeding
the teams ’ so tough, so very
tough "
You have teams like Wake
Forest and North Carolina w ho
art' so close lo imm h other all year,
and then they are semifinalists
anti finalists in the ACC tourna
ment." he said "And ft's an over*
time gome bv two points
The Big Ten ted the way
among cunferetlt es with six
teams making the tournament
I'he sFc. Big Fight and P«< jo
em h hati five tournament teams
w hile the A(( and Big Fast got
four bids
Perhaps most xhix king among
the teams making the tourna
ment was Manhattan, which
had -i 25-4 record but played
none of the top SO teams The
Jaspers lost the Metro Atlmitii
Athletic Conference title game
to St Peters but got tin* MAAt 's
first at-large bid ever
"The committee looked very
closely at Manhattan College
because, obv muslv, there are a lot
of teams in that i ategorvFred
eru k said. We looked at their
suet ess against teams from ‘it to
CXI ' f rod.'tk vtai Tliey were
•I t against those teams Teams
in confereni es like their s plav a
lot of schools ranked between 51
and 1:>o Their record was lietter
thiin the olfiers
"Another thing that kept stick
ing out to us was the fact that
tfiev vii on 2:> games, but the •>
:i was the deciding factor.** he
said.
Play begins I'hunaiay at region
al sites and concludes it the Final
Four in Seattle with the semifi
nals on April 1 and the champi
onship game on April :i
Tin* final AP poll will be
released Monday afternoon
Oregon, an at-large so lot lion from
the Pat:-10, is making its first
tournament appearance since
1961, Tournament first timers
include Mount St Mary's >d
Maryland, Colgate, Nit boils
State, Con/aga and Florida
international.
Committee makes things interesting
(AF)— Once uxptn ted furor died down <iIk>uI
who was hi and who was out of the N( AA’s 64
team fluid Sunday, a look at the lirtu kets showed
thi* selection committee sot up some interesting
matchups and made some interesting statements
The lust of the conference championship games
made selecting the top four seeds pretty easy and
there wasn't any real surprise among where the top
teams wore placed until you got to Utah as the 4th
seed in the West.
The Utes (27-5), the Western Athletic Conference
regular-season and tournament champions, didn't
crack the Top 25 until last week and were 26th in
the KIM. the computer rankings similar to the ones
used by the selection committee.
Utah's seeding and that of North Carolina Char
lotte. 7th in the Hast, were surprising but not shock
ing That description was saved for the inclusion
of at-large teams from the following conferences:
Mid-American. Metro Atlantic. Midwestern Colle
giate and West Coast The Mid-American was the
highest-rated of those league's on the conferorit ti
RIM at 12th. with the others sitting 13th (WOCJ, 19th
(MCC) and 20th (MAAC)
The power leagues were still well represented
with half the field coining from the Big Right,
Atlantic Const, Metro. Big East. Southeastern. Fat -
10 and Big Ten. the top seven leagues in the con
ferenots power rankings. The last of those leagues,
the Big Ten. had the most teams, six
Ones the brackets are studied it's fair to say the
Midwest with Kansas. Arkansas. Purdue Vir
ginia, Arizona and Memphis as (lie top six seeds
is the strongest Many feel that may tie so tun a use
the committee wanted to even things up as Kansas
could play the regional* in Kansas City’s Kemper
Arena, less than an hour from its Lawreme i am
pus.
The first round has become almost n guarantee
for an upset by one of the lower-seeded teams and
a prime candidate seems to tie No. 14 Wisconsin
Green Hay. which faces third-seeded Purdue in the
Midwest and there isn't a ( oach alive who wants
to see Dick Bennett's Phoenix on the horizon, even
the Big Ten co-champion
The most intriguing first-round matt hup is the
6- 11 game in the Midwest with Memphis meeting
Louisville The two used to tie the marquee teams
for the Metro Conferent o before Memphis left for
the Creat Midwest hi 1991 and they haven't met
since
UCLA, the top of the West brat kot, would get the
winner of the 8-4 game between Missouri and Imti
ana. while Kansas would get the winner of the same
matchup between Western Kentucky and Mu hi
gan
five schools are making tlnur first NCAA appear
ance — Colgate. Florida International. Conzaga.
Mount St Mary s and Nii holls State. white four
others — Drexel. Nortli Carolina A&T. St Peter's
and Texas Southern — are looking for their first
tournament victory.
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