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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (March 13, 1998)
Some Pac-10 coaches support postseason tourney proponents say the television exposure would be good publicity for the conference beading into the NCAAs By Jason Sykes The Washington Daily SEATTLE — Women’s basketball coach Harold Rhodes isn’t bitter as he talks about what could have been, just wistful. His Cougars’ season is officially over now, having come to a close half an hour earlier when the final buzzer sounded in Washing ton’s 81-63 victory. In reality, though, Wash ington State’s season ended weeks, even months, ago after a five-game losing streak left the Cougars with a 9-12 overall record, a 3-9 Pac-10 Conference mark and no hope of receiving any postseason invitations on Se lection Sunday. However, the players refused to pack it in and entered last Saturday’s season finale having won three of five and playing tour nament-bound UCLA to a standstill. “Everything has come together for us in the past two or three weeks,” Rhodes said. “I think if we had a Pac-10 tournament we could cause a lot of problems for some peo ple.” But that of course is only wishful think ing, at least for now. The Pac-10 is one of only two conferences — the Ivy League is the other — that does not use a postseason tournament to decide which team is anointed champion and granted the league’s automatic berth in the NCAA Tournament. r Rhodes is not alone in wanting to see the Pac-10 adopt a postseason format. Both of the University of Washington’s head coaches support it. “I’ve always been a proponent of it,” said Bob Bender, Washington’s men’s basketball head coach. "I think the advan tages outweigh the disad vantages.” Women’s head coach June Daugherty agreed. “I think if we had it, we’d have a lot more [television] exposure at this time of year,” Daugherty said. “So it would be good for the Pac-10 publicity wise, and I think it would be good to help get teams tournament-ready going into the NCAAs.” Jim Muldoon, the Pac-lO’s assistant com missioner, said seven of the 10 members en dorsed a postseason format at last summer’s meetings. The problem is, eight years are required to make the change. “Maybe the reason why [coaches don’t want to change] is that the [NCAA Tourna ment] results, especially last year’s, let you say ‘Hey, the postseason tournament does n’t mean anything,”’ Bender said. That’s something Lute Olson has long maintained. The coach of the defending na tional champion Arizona Wildcats touched on the subject in the Pac-lO’s weekly tele conference last week. “I don’t think the postseason tournament has anything to do with [NCAA success] and never will,” Olson said. “To me it’s the most overrated thing in all of college basket ball. “People talk about how if you had a post season tournament maybe another team could get in. [But] how many teams that are on the bubble would be knocked off? “It’s a media thing more than anything else.” Dennis LaBissoniere has heard that line of argument before. As the Big Ten’s assis tant communications director, he was in volved in the conference’s decision to adopt a postseason tournament starting this year. He said the biggest obstacle the confer ence ran into in making the switch was an adamantly opposed and extremely vocal minority. “Some people in the conference felt that a tournament was not a positive step for Big Ten basketball and that it was not needed,” he said. LaBissoniere said the increased late-sea son exposure tournaments bring was a key selling point in winning the needed votes. “I think they were persuaded that a tour nament was a good way to focus attention on Big Ten basketball,” LaBissoniere said. “We noticed as other conferences were hav ing tournaments, a lot of attention was fo cused on them while we ran out our sched ule and lost coverage.” Rhodes made a similar pitch for a Pac-10 tournament. “From a national standpoint it gives resig nation to the conference, and 1 just think we’re missing the boat on it,” he said. “The selection committee is watching 1 V ESPN and they're watching a lot of the [tour nament) games that are going on, and every body's talking about how this conference deserves six teams and that conference de serves six teams but no one’s talking about the Pac-10. “I think that hurts us this time of the year.” The 15-year Pac-10 veteran felt the Big Ten’s switch would help his conference make a similar transition. “I think some people are looking to see, ‘O.K., the Big Ten tried it this year, how did it go?”’he said. “Well, it’s going well.” LaBissoniere agreed. "What happened this weekend was a very positive step toward keeping the tourna ment,” he said, adding that the Big Ten com missioner called the tournament an “un qualified success.” The Big Ten, however, never had a tour nament before this year; the Pac-10 experi mented with one between 1987-90. During those years, an average of three Pac-10 men’s teams went to the Big Dance each year. In comparison, at least four men’s programs have been selected every March since 1994. Five went last season, and four made it to the Sweet Sixteen with Olson’s Wildcats bringing home the Pac-lO’s second national championship in three years. “We’ve been through the Pac-10 tourna ment, and in my opinion, it hurt our league considerably in terms of how the teams went into the NCAA Tournament," Olson said. “The coaches in our league are well aware of how tough our conference is.” for your BOOKS! We'll pay you 60% of the new, student price for books we need for the upcoming SPRING term! 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