The Pac-10 Tournament begins today. But it shouldn’t.
For the first time ever, all 10 Pac-10 men’s basketball
teams will compete in the conference tournament instead of the
usual eight.
And while eight is the perfect number for a conference
tournament, 10 is an awful number.
All 10 Pac-10 teams qualifying for the Pac-10 Tournament means a
boring day like today is necessary. No. 8 Arizona State takes on
No. 9 Oregon State in tonight’s first game, which is to be
followed by No. 7 Oregon facing No. 10 Washington State.
Yawn.
What used to make the Pac-10 Tournament unique from most
conference tournaments was that not all of the teams qualified,
resulting in three quality days of basketball ““ no boring
fourth day.
Conference tournaments are fun because we get to see some of the
lesser teams take on the powerhouses with everything on the
line.
But in the power conferences with a boatload of teams such as
the Big 12, Atlantic Coast, SEC and Big Ten, the first day of
conference tournaments is awful. In those conferences, since every
team makes it into the conference tournament, a round of games
before the quarterfinals must be held, matching up the No. 8 and
No. 9 teams from the conference, No. 7 and No. 10, No. 6 and No.
11, etc.
And those games are the exact opposite of thrilling.
By allowing only the top eight teams into its tournament in
previous years, the Pac-10 had ensured all three days would feature
quality games.
There have been many great games in the last four years on the
first day of the Pac-10 Tournament, which came back in 2002 after
decades of nonexistence.
For the UCLA fans out there, just look at 2003. The Bruins were
mired in Steve Lavin’s final year, finishing eighth in the
conference. Yet UCLA still managed to beat Arizona ““ the No.
1 team in the country ““ on the first day of the Pac-10
Tournament.
Fans didn’t have to sit through a game against the
ninth-place Pac-10 team for that monumental upset. They got to see
it right away.
Also, including only eight teams made for a more meaningful end
to the regular season for the conference doormats.
With UCLA finally returning to glory, it’s easy to forget
that the Bruins were among these doormats only a couple of years
ago. In both 2003 and 2004, UCLA needed to win on the final day of
the regular season just to qualify for the Pac-10 Tournament. And
when the Bruins lost on the final day in 2004, they needed USC to
bail them out by winning later that night.
As bad as those UCLA teams were, trying to get into the Pac-10
Tournament gave fans another reason to watch and follow the
team.
Because in a conference tournament, anything can happen. Bad
teams can save their seasons and qualify for the NCAA Tournament by
winning their conference tournaments.
One prime example almost happened on Monday. Loyola Marymount,
which has a losing record, was only one missed overtime layup away
from upsetting No. 4 Gonzaga and winning the West Coast Conference
Tournament, which would have resulted in an automatic bid into the
NCAA Tournament.
There’s also the whole school thing. Why make
student-athletes miss an additional day of class when they
don’t have to?
I love March. I love conference tournaments. But I can do
without the first day of any conference tournament that has more
than eight teams.
Ңbull;Ӣbull;Ӣbull;
The NCAA’s Academic Progress Rate formula is a joke. The
APR was set up to try to get athletic departments to make sure
their student-athletes are graduating or face possible
penalties.
As was pointed out by the Daily Bruin on Tuesday, the UCLA
gymnastics team has the highest team GPA of all Bruin teams. Yet
gymnastics was still one of three UCLA teams (out of 22) to fall
below the minimum APR threshold.
How a high GPA equals failure is beyond me. But that’s the
NCAA in a nutshell; good intentions, but horrible
problem-solving.
E-mail Quiñonez at gquinonez@media.ucla.edu.