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Gonzaga's seed distort Where, oh where, do the Zags belong?Posted: Wednesday February 20, 2002 3:40 PM
ABOARD CONTINENTAL FLIGHT 1280 FROM SEATTLE TO NEWARK (YES, IT'S A RED-EYE. THE THINGS I DO FOR YOU GUYS ...) -- Fun B-sides this week from Gonzaga, which is No. 7 in the AP poll (the highest ranking in school history) and is on track to enter the NCAA tourney with a scary 29-3 mark. While you can check out my Dan Dickau story in this week's Sports Illustrated, it seems like a good time to ask the question, Where the heck do you seed the Zags for the NCAAs? This Gonzaga team reminds me a lot of the Princeton team that cracked the Top 10 before the '98 tourney but got stuck with a No. 5 seed and a tight second-round loss to No. 4 Michigan State. And while any seed the Zags get will be higher than the double-digit placements they've had the past three years (when they reached the Sweet 16 each time), it's safe to say that Gonzaga coach Mark Few doesn't want the same treatment Princeton got from the committee in '98. "If we won out, I'd hope we would be no worse than a four-seed and somewhere between there and a 2 or a 3," Few told me. "Does the RPI reflect that? No, but that's just one measure of college basketball. I'd like to see them go to the way the BCS does it [and combine several sources]. The BCS for the most part has the top 12 teams in there. Sagarin is as good as the RPI, and we're No. 10 in Sagarin but 26 in the RPI." Clearly, Few would like to challenge some long-held assumptions about mid-major conferences, and he realizes his Zags give him the credibility to do so. "I just laugh," he says. "Indiana is a lock, and people say, 'Butler has lost three times in their league.' Well, Butler beat them straight-up on a neutral court. Why do we assume Indiana would roll into that league and win every game? I don't think they would. Why do we not assume Butler would be in first place in the Big Ten? Why is Pepperdine on the bubble? They've beaten USC and UCLA. We've played Texas, Illinois, St. John's, St. Joe's, Fresno State and Marquette, which are some very athletic teams, and Pepperdine is the most athletic team we've faced this year." I say if the Zags wins out, give them the No. 3 seed in the West. And I challenge anyone to give me a reason why not. I've seen all three of their Sweet 16 teams, and this one goes deeper, rebounds better and plays smarter than any of them. When the made-for-TV movie comes out after Gonzaga wins it all, how about casting Kevin Bacon for the role of Few, Mark Ruffalo for Dickau and Eddie Vedder for Zach Gourde. (Eddie might have better shooting form than Zach, actually.) On to some questions ... Are you ready to finally admit how wrong you've been about Maryland all
year?
Yes. Will Conference USA always be hindered by a lack of natural rivalries? I
love Marquette, and I sure hope Tom Crean loves it too, but I worry about a
conference whose flagship team thus far (Cincinnati) is, in the minds of many,
the poster child for what's wrong with college hoops. I know that the arrival of
John Calipari and Rick Pitino will help elevate the profile of the conference,
but with teams spread out from South Florida to southeastern Wisconsin, can
Conference-USA develop a meaningful tradition?
If you think Calipari is going to turn Memphis (with its zero percent graduation rate) into a paragon of rectitude, you're sorely mistaken. But getting to the thrust of your question -- whether C-USA can develop a tradition -- I don't see any reason why not. What you're asking for are rivalries, and the high-profile coaches can only help create more tension. (Have you caught any of the barbs flying between Cincy's Bob Huggins and Calipari lately, or Calipari and Pitino? It's great stuff.) When Bearcats assistant Mick Cronin jumped ship to Louisville, that was a good sign, too. All I'm saying is that you get the sense elite programs are already in existence or being built at Marquette, Louisville, Cincinnati, Memphis and (to some degree) Charlotte. Now they just need to prove it by doing a heck of a lot better than their dismal non-conference record has shown this year. C-USA certainly has its share of problems. First, the name "Conference-USA" is terrible. Lose it. Bring back the old Metro Conference, which had a lot of the same teams and a cooler handle. Second, if you're going to admit new teams, don't bring in East Carolina. Terrible move. And if you think there's too much distance between Marquette and South Florida, ponder this: When I asked one athletic department source at Gonzaga if the Zags were locked into the West Coast Conference, he said the next best option was ... Conference-USA. Now that would live up to the league's goofy name. A couple of questions. Can you remember another year like this one, where it
seems as if two teams (Duke and Kansas) or maybe three (if you include Maryland)
have distanced themselves so far ahead of the rest of the field? And, why do you
think it has occurred? Other than those three teams, who has the best shot at
the title?
This season is bringing back memories of 1996, when Kentucky and UMass were way ahead of everyone else, and your question gives me a chance to lobby for something: The NCAA tournament committee should try a lot harder to avoid the fiasco of the '96 Final Four, when UMass and Kentucky, clearly the top two teams, had to face each other in the semis. This left a lame UK-Syracuse match for the final that nobody wanted to see (except for, perhaps, my good friends in Syracuse). I'm already scared to death that we're going to see this year's two best teams, Duke and Kansas, have to square off in the semis in Atlanta just because the East region winner is slated to meet the Midwest winner. Why on earth do we have to know this in advance? Why can't the committee simply seed teams 1-64 before the tournament (it wouldn't be hard) and use those seeds to determine the pairings for the Final Four once the participants are known? Right now, Kansas would have a clear disadvantage because if the Jayhawks, Duke and Maryland all reach Atlanta, Kansas would have to play both of the Blue Devils and Terrapins to win it all (even if the Jayhawks are judged to be the nation's No. 1 team entering the tournament). Never, EVER, should the semifinal game be described as "the real national championship," particularly when it's so avoidable. (Station break: Totally weird feeling. The dude sitting next to me is reading my LeBron James story from last week's SI. So I'm observing him like a sociology experiment. Does he seem to like it? How can I tell if he does? Or if he doesn't? I want him to be intrigued by this story. Is that interest on his face -- or is it a frown? Am I being neurotic? On second thought, don't answer that.) I am a huge college basketball fan and I've seen a lot of games this year,
but I haven't come across a more solid and consistent performer than Alabama's
Erwin Dudley. He leads the league in double-doubles and has taken over Rod
Grizzard's spot as the Tide's go-to man. In my mind he should get some respect
nationally and should win the SEC player of the year. What are your thoughts?
Good question, Pete. Obviously you watch a lot of hoops and even get out of your region to do so. Remember the question I asked recently about whether Kansas' Kirk Hinrich has become what everyone thought Florida's Brett Nelson would be? Well, now I'm wondering if Dudley has become what everyone thought Iowa's Reggie Evans would be. Dudley is a double-double machine who has improved as much as anyone in the country this season. In my mind, the SEC player of the year honors should depend on which school wins the league, but right now Dudley would be my guy. Why aren't the Western Kentucky Hilltoppers getting any respect? They now
have the nation's longest winning streak, one of the best overall records
(23-3), have beaten Kentucky at Rupp and have a likely lottery pick in 7-foot-1
center Chris Marcus. Yet most experts are projecting them as a No. 9 or 10 seed
in the NCAA tournament. Many people consider this team a No. 6 or 7 seed in the
NCAA's, and a team that no two- or three-seed would want to face in a potential
second-round matchup. What are your thoughts on the Hilltoppers and what kind of
seed do you think they deserve?
Unfortunately, Jason, the polls are a lot like the Academy Award nominations: the voters somehow forget anything good that came out at the beginning of the year (such as Western's season-opening win at Rupp). Part of what happened is that the media had started to seize upon Marcus's story, but when Marcus went down they conveniently forgot that the Hilltoppers still had a good cast around him. There's also the Gonzaga problem: Since WKU is in the Sun Belt Conference, everyone thinks the Hilltoppers need to go undefeated in-conference for it to mean anything, which is a fallacy if there ever was one. Let's just say this: If WKU gets a No. 10 seed, I'd look awfully hard at putting them through to the Sweet 16. (!@#$% The guy next to me, presumably lulled into a stupor by my LeBron James story, has thrown it down halfway through to go to sleep. This is not a positive development. We will pay him back by leaving on the bright laptop screen for the rest of the flight. Hah!) HOW DOES THIS HAPPEN? Before I forget, I witnessed one of the more bizarre episodes of my journalistic career last Saturday during Gonzaga's "91-78" win over archrival Pepperdine. I put the score in quotes because the actual final was 93-76, and Dan Dickau really scored 28 points, not the 26 he was credited for in the official boxscore. Here's what happened: With 10:45 left in the game, Dickau (No. 21 for Gonzaga) scored on a layup, but the official scorer gave the basket to the No. 21 from Pepperdine instead (who wasn't even on the court). And so, even though the computer scoring screen (used by the radio guy next to me) had the correct score, and even though I had the correct score on my scoresheet, and even though I was frantically telling the PA guy (and anybody else who would listen) that THE SCOREBOARD IS WRONG! THE SCOREBOARD IS WRONG! they never corrected their mistake. So when Pepperdine pulled to within seven late in the game (according to the scoreboard and official scorer), it was actually an 11-point game. Thank goodness it didn't get any closer or there would have been egg on a lot of people's faces, but the amazing thing is that even after the dopey official scorer realized his error HE REFUSED TO CHANGE IT BACK. (Guy must be a figure skating judge in his spare time.) So if you see this week's SI, you'll notice that my editors decided to print the incorrect score in my Dickau story because it's the "official" score. Somehow this makes me feel like a writer for Pravda serving as a mouthpiece for the "official" version of dubious events. Gotta get at least an hour's sleep on this flight, folks. See you next week. Sports Illustrated senior writer Grant Wahl covers the college basketball
beat and is a regular contributor to CNNSI.com. Click here to send him a question.
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