Justin St.Germain

Pac-10 tourney boon for fans

By Justin St.Germain

Ah, the beginning of spring break. This weekend, UA students everywhere commence a 9-day bacchanalian replete with nudity, lunacy, binge drinking and · basketball?

That's right, sports fans. The Pacific 10 tourney is back from a 12-year absence. But whether it's better for the conference depends on who you ask.

UA head coach Lute Olson doesn't think so. Neither does Stanford head coach Mike Montgomery. They think it undermines the achievements of the regular-season Pac-10 champ, who has to weather the hostile away crowds of Pac-10 venues like Oregon's McArthur Court and Stanford's Maples Pavilion and can't simply rely on peaking at the right time over three days at a neutral court.

In this case, that's Oregon.

I guess it sucks to be a Duck right now. They ran the Pac-10 gauntlet and came out clutching the title and their first Top Ten nod in 26 years but still unsure of their NCAA seeding.

But the tourney's detractors overlook the real benefactors of the tournament's rebirth: the fans.

Last year during the first weekend of spring break, UA fans were watching the Wildcats' final regular-season Pac-10 action - a pair of pivotal road games against Stanford and Cal that turned out to be two of the best Pac-10 games of the year.

The difference this year is that Pac-10 fans still get the great final weekend of games - last weekend's homestand against the Cardinal and Bears - and less than a week later, the Pac-10's best mix it up over seven games in three days.

This year, the UA faithful don't have to look east to Vitale country to see a gaggle of Top 25 teams duke (no pun intended) it out. Let the Blue Devils have their yearly rubber match with Maryland. They're the only two ranked teams in the ACC tourney.

The Big Ten's got three. The SEC's got four in its 12-team field.

Five of the Pac-10's eight tourney teams are ranked, not to mention UCLA, who's been ranked as high as No. 3 this year.

Maybe a couple Pac-10 teams' NCAA seeding will drop after this weekend. Maybe - hopefully not - a key player will be injured.

Or perhaps a couple East Coast analysts will watch some Pac-10 action - most tourney games start earlier than regular-season matchups - and finally give the conference its due come NCAA tourney seeding time by sending six teams.

Maybe - and this is, admittedly, a long shot - Washington or ASU will run the table and earn the automatic berth, opening the door for an unprecedented seven Pac-10 teams to make the NCAAs.

One thing's for sure, though: it'll be a hell of a weekend.

A weekend Pac-10 fans have been awaiting for 12 years.

Bret Fera

Just because I sell out, doesn't mean I buy into it

By Brett Fera

I am just as guilty as the other 18,000 people who shelled out $135 each to see some basketball this weekend. This afternoon, I'll be on an airplane heading for LAX just in time to catch the Wildcats and Sun Devils tip off at 7:42 p.m. MST.

But just because I am selling out and want to follow Lute and the gang's trek to the Stapler, by no means does this mean that I am in favor of the Pac-10 Tournament.

While this should be (if the regular season is any indication) the best conference tournament college basketball has to offer this year, it is still an unnecessary evil for each of the top six teams in the tournament, who already have their NCAA bracket bids solidified.

What good does it do?

All it does is allow for Arizona State and Washington, who share a combined 25-30 record overall (12-24 in Pac-10 play), to get in another game each after not being able to cut it with the big six all season. Yes, I will concede that either or both of these teams could act as spoilers in the first round, but there is no possible way (without some divine intervention) that either will be able to win three straight against six of the best teams in the nation.

After a grueling 18-game regular season, what good does it do for the six tournament-bound teams to fight, push and claw each other to the point that it could wreck any of their chances come next week?

In the 2000 Conference USA tournament, top seed Cincinnati watched its season get derailed after All-American Kenyon Martin broke his leg in their conference tournament. After being ranked at the top of the national polls all season, Cincinnati ended up losing in the second round of the NCAAs without Martin.

All Arizona or Stanford need is for Jason Gardner or Casey Jacobsen to get hacked in Los Angeles this weekend for either's entire season to be nothing but a washout.

It is no wonder that Arizona's Lute Olson and Stanford's Mike Montgomery voted against the idea of bringing the tournament back after its 12-year hiatus. Perennially, both schools have teams that contend - not just in the Pac-10 but also on a national level.

Neither coach wants to see a key player go down when his position in the big dance is already set.

My bags are packed, and I am ready to go and see if the Wildcats can bring another Pac-10 title home (they won three straight conference tourneys from 1988-1990).

But, when UA and ASU butt heads tonight, I will keep my eyes on Kyle Dodd, the Sun Devil point guard who was ejected against Arizona two weeks ago for starting a scuffle with Luke Walton.

ASU is already advertising NIT ticket packages on its athletic website, which means that Dodd and every other Sun Devil knows they have nothing to lose by trying to bruise up their rivals from Tucson.

While I cannot say that I won't be cringing if I see someone in a red-and-white jersey lying on the Staples Center floor in pain tonight, I can say that I will not be surprised one bit if things get a little bit ugly.