Husky Men's Basketball Blog

It's all done here in Sacramento, and I have to admit I'm not feeling real confident about my pick of UCLA to the final game right now. The Bruins just don't seem to be playing real well right now, though Indiana had something to do with it.

But the Bruins have survived, and I remember that they kind of looked like that last year when they beat Alabama in the second round, a game I also got to see some of as it was played at the same site as UW's win over Illinois.

As for the Cougars, that game bore out what has long been a thought of mine about basketball --- the team with the best player will eventually win. Derrick Byars is really, really good and reminded me a lot of Brandon Roy both in game and manner --- he's noted for his unselfishness and seems soft-spoken and good-natured in interviews.

I asked Kyle Weaver after the game about a comparison to Roy, however, ane he said no.

"He shoots the three a little more than anyone in the Pac-10,'' Weaver said of Byars, who attempted 196 before Saturday, almost half of his 419 shots overall.

So the Pac-10 is now 5-3 with USC and Oregon going tomorrow, each in Spokane. The Pac-10 has had at least two teams reach the Sweet 16 each of the last two years --- Washington each time, obviously, along with Arizona two years ago and UCLA last year ---- so at least one needs to win to keep that streak alive.

So last night in Sacramento, as we were having dinner and watching the USC-Arkansas game, a few of us discussed just how much conferences should be judged base on NCAA Tournament results.

The Pac-10 is 4-2 after the first round, for instance. Does that validate the Pac-10 yet? All four that won were higher seeds, so it could be argued that the conference hasn't really done anything yet.

On the other hand, higher seeds are rewards for regular season prowess.

This weekend figures to truly tell the tale of the Pac, led off with the two games here involving WSU and UCLA.

Back to the original question, however, there is little doubt that the years the Pac-10 has done well in the tournament are the years the conference was perceived to be good in the regular season.

Consider these Pac-10 records in the NCAA Tournament of late:

06 --- 8-4.(UCLA to national title game)
05 --- 5-4
04 --- 1-3
03 --- 6-5
02 --- 9-6 (only other time Pac-10 had six teams in tournament)
01 --- 13-5 (Arizona to national title game)
00 --- 4-4
99 --- 1-4
98 --- 11-4 (four teams to Sweet 16)
97 --- 13-4 (Arizona won national title)

The 04 season, the year the Huskies made their run from 0-5 to 12-6 while Stanford went 17-1, is generally regarded as one of the worst years for the conference, and the tournament record shows it. The 97-98 period has always been regarded as one of the best for the conference,. as well as the 01-02 period, and the tournament records indicate that as well.

By the end of this weekend, the tale of the Pac-10 this year should be told.

Had a chance to talk with UW athletic director Todd Turner on Friday on his role in the hiring of Kevin Stallings as the coach at Vanderbilt, the team that will face Washington State today.

As I detail in this story here,Stallings got the job in 1999 after Turner --- then the AD at Vanderbilt --- was unable to lure Bob Bender away from UW.

And not to belabor the point on the NIT, but this was the first chance I'd had to talk to Turner since early last week. He has since talked with C.M. Newton, the head of the NIT selection committee, to get his views on why UW was not invited. Newton told Turner the same thing he'd told reporters --- that UW was close but squeezed out by a number of different factors, including the paring of the field.

But Turner also said that "basically, we just didn't win enough games'' particularly on the road. Turner said that from talking to Newton, he thinks if UW had won just one more road game, it would have been invited.

"I think losing 10 games on the road was a problem for us,'' he said. "If we had won one more it wouldn't have been an issue.''

Turner also said he thinks the fact that there is no one on the NIT selection committee with ties to the Pac-10 hurt UW's cause. The two West Coast representatives are Rudy Davalos, longtime AD at New Mexico, and Carroll Williams, longtime coach at Santa Clara.

"I think our league would benefit from better representation on the selection committee,'' Turner said. "The fact that we don't have a person sitting around the table, I don't think it's an absolute necessity, but I just don't know how much guys from other leagues see the Pac-10 night in and night out and you can't win in that situation.''

"What disappoints me more than anything else, and in some ways this reflects on the perception of our league, is I don't think people regard the schedule in the Pac-10 as being as challenging as the ACC or the SEC or the Big Ten and I think that's totally unfair. We played 20 games against Pac-10 teams and of our (13) losses, only two were against teams that were not in the NCAA tournament (Oregon State and Cal). To think that we weren't a tournament caliber team
is hard to justify. I think that we were a tournament caliber team.''

Turner also said he thinks UW could have won a game or two in the NCAA tournament had it gotten in, basing that in part on how the Pac-10 has performed so far, going 4-2 in the first round.

As for the future, Turner confirmed that UW has been talking to the NIT about hosting pre-season games next season. The NIT recently decided to hold opening round games in that tournament on-campus rather than at neutral sites.

"We are definitely we will be the host of a West region,'' Turner said. "That would be great.''