Stanford lives ud to favorite’s role with first Pac-10 title
Emerald
Alter outplaying Jason Terry, Stanford's Arthur Lee was named player of the week.
The inevitable happened Sat
urday night.
No. 6 Stanford, everybody’s
Pacific-10 Conference favorite,
ended any league-championship
drama by disposing of No. 13
Arizona, 98-83, at Maples Pavil
ion in Palo Alto, Calif.
Cardinal Arthur Lee sealed the
victory and league title by outplay
ing the Wildcats’ Jason Terry, the
likely Pac-10 player of the year.
In a matchup of senior point
guards with national acclaim, Lee
poured in a career-high 29 points,
including 12 free throws in 12 at
tempts, dished eight assists, cor
ralled three rebounds and swiped
two steals against Terry.
Add to that Lee’s efforts
against Arizona State, which
Stanford (24-5 overall, 14-2 Pac
10) beat in overtime, 87-77,
Thursday, and Lee was named
Pac-10 player of the week. The
award marked the Cardinal’s first
such individual honor this sea
son, a testament to the team’s
outstanding balance.
“It’s exciting for two reasons,”
head coach Mike Montgomery
said of Stanford’s first league title.
“One is, it’s not something that
has happened here for a long,
long time. In fact, we’ve never
won the Pac-10, per se. So win
ning that was significant for us. It
was something we really wanted
to do.
“Two, when it happened at
home, you have your seniors [of
which Stanford has five) in their last
home game, and it’s Arizona, which
is the team that had a chance to get
you, it made it that much more fun
for everybody. And I think it was a
release of a lot of emotion. Every
body really enjoyed it.”
Coaches debate Pac-10 tourney
Arizona head coach Lute Olson
has spoken out against the
prospects of a Pac-10 postseason
tournament in the past, so his opin
ion that the conference should stick
with its regular season-only sched
ule is not surprising.
However, California head coach
Ben Braun’s sharing of Olson’s sen
timents is rather unexpected.
With the Golden Bears (16-10,7
9) desperately try
ing to earn a berth in
the NCAA Touma
Opinion
ment and playing
perhaps their best
basketball of the
season right now, it
seems Braun would
be lamenting the
lack of a postseason
'Yjj-j-j tournament.
Tim
Pyle
Especially since
all of the NCAA’s
Division I-A con
ferences have one — and its prize,
an automatic bid to the NCAA
Tournament — except for the Ivy
League and the Pac-10.
But Braun insists the Pac-10 is
better off without a tournament.
“I think a tournament would
hurt the players because it would
take away from their academics at
right around finals time and wear
teams down physically even
more,” Braun said.
Braun also said he thought some
of the Pac-lO’s considerable suc
cess in the NCAA Tournament re
cently —one national champi
onship and one Final Four team
among eight Sweet 16 appear
ances in the past two seasons —
can be loosely attributed to the ab
sence of a Pac-10 tournament.
Olson said a tournament would
only work if the Pac-10 cut back
the regular-season schedule from
18 to 14 games.
“To me, it’s idiotic for anyone
to play 21 games against confer
ence opponents,” Olson said.
When the Pac-10 ran a trial
tournament for four seasons from
1986 to 1990, a substantial profit
was made only once, Olson
pointed out.
“As far as having it this year,
yeah, the competition is great, but
where are you going to have it?”
Olson said. "Our area is spread
out from Seattle to Tucson. ”
From the fans’ standpoint, Ol
son said, he believes the specta
tors enjoy the Pac-10 season the
way it currently is.
“1 don’t think we have a prob
lem with our fans being excited
about [Southern California] and
UCLA coming in,” Olson said. “I
think probably the Oregon fans
aren’t too disappointed about
Stanford and Cal coming up
there.”
Contrary to popular belief, Ol
son said he thinks more “bubble”
teams get knocked out because of
their performance in postseason
tournaments than earn an invita
tion.
Oregon head coach Ernie Kent
disagrees with Braun and Olson.
“I think it’s sad that don’t we
have one,” Kent said. “We’ve al
ways talked about the Pac-10 not
getting enough respect, the East
Coast writers not recognizing us.
“Well, what [is] a better way
than having a Pac-10 tourna
ment to add the publicity that
we could have late in the year?
Particularly with a year like this
year with so many close games,
the games would be just great.”
1/
Ifl
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