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Tourney not necessary

Ever since its loss to lowly Santa Clara in 1993, Arizona basketball has been dogged mercilessly for its ineffectiveness come NCAA tournament time.

Why enter into another one?

The UA has been the best basketball school in the Pacific 10 Conference for the better part of a decade and has been rewarded with countless NCAA Tournament berths.

Why put all of that in jeopardy?

Last week, Arizona State head coach Rob Evans claimed that a Pac-10 Tournament should be brought back. He said most schools would approve it while "other people" couldn't stand to see an entire season rest in the balance of one game.

Simply, he meant that UA, Stanford and UCLA - traditionally the good teams in the conference - wouldn't want to jeopardize an entire season of hard work.

Quite frankly, is there something wrong with that?

UA head coach Lute Olson has worked his butt off for more than 15 years to get the Wildcats to the position of Pac-10 prominence that they currently hold.

The UA basketball program spends 12 months a year recruiting, planning and doing everything in their power to keep their spot as the King of the Pac-10 Hill. They lure the Jason Gardners of the world to Tucson with promises of greatness and hopes of an NCAA title.

And a loss to a school like Oregon State in the conference tournament would ruin everything that the program, the school and Coach O have worked towards.

Maybe Evans is just jealous.

They want all the rewards without the hard work.

Tough.

Rob Evans should just leave the Pac-10. The Sun Devil coach needs to go to a conference where the "little guy" has a chance in hell to make the tournament.

The WAC is always looking for coaches.