The Barren, Barren West
By Bruce Marshall
There is a popular perception among college basketball fans that the Pac-10, and west coast basketball, ain’t what it used to be. We concur, to a point. College hoops in the west is pretty barren these days.
We’re just not sure it was ever much better in the first place.
Allow us to clarify. There have often been great teams throughout college hoops history from the west. But even in the glory days of John Wooden’s UCLA’s dynasty in the 1960s and 70s, the region produced little in the form of national contending teams outside of the Bruins and maybe an occasional upstart challenger (such as Santa Clara in the late ‘60s, and Jerry Tarkanian’s Long Beach State in the early ‘70s). Indeed, through the years, we have become convinced that there is no possible way John Wooden’s Bruins could have won seven straight national titles, or nine in ten years, or record an 88-game win streak, had they been playing in the ACC, Big Ten, or a robust Eastern independent schedule of the day (especially if it was forced to play a "Big Five" slate of Philadelphia-based teams).
Of course, this weekend’s annual renewal of the Wooden Classic at the Honda Center in Anaheim has us in a reflective mood, because it will be the first Wooden Classic since the Wizard of Westwood passed on in June. But before analyzing the modern-day Pac-10 and other college hoop leagues in the west, it’s important to put UCLA’s amazing accomplishments from decades ago into some sort of perspective.
Wooden’s Bruins fashioned some other remarkable accomplishments during those years, the most-incredible of which might have been the 88-game win streak, bookended by memorable losses at Notre Dame in 1971 & ‘74. What modern-day fans might not realize is that Wooden’s teams also notched two of the other great win streaks in college hoop history during that championship era, recording 47 and 41-game skeins during Lew Alcindor’s years, not to mention posting a 98-game home win streak at Pauley Pavilion that extended deep into Bartow’s first season (Dick Harter’s "Kamikaze Kid" Oregon Ducks, led by G Ronnie Lee, finally ended the home string in February ’76 with a 65-45 win). And from 1963-79 (covering Wooden, Bartow, and Gary Cunningham-coached UCLA teams), the Bruins won 16 of the 17 available AAWU/Pac-8/Pac-10 championships, the string broken only by Paul Valenti’s Oregon State Beavers in 1966.
It is impossible to ignore the magnitude of the Bruins’ dominance in that era, but we believe a large portion of it was attributable to factors involving the depressed state of western hoops, which beyond UCLA’s dominance wasn’t much better in the 60s than it is today.
Still, we think there are a few explanations that ought to be introduced into the Bruin mythology from that glory era. After all, college basketball was in a different place 40 years ago. And not that it diminishes UCLA’s accomplishments, but the differences between then and now, plus some specific situations that broke extremely well for the Bruins in those days, contributed to their success in ways they likely never could for a team in subsequent generations.
Tourney differences. First of all, the NCAA Tournament of that era bore little resemblance to the wild 68-team event it has become today. Keep in mind that the "Big Dance" was a "Small Dance" by comparison, as UCLA’s titles between 1964-73 were all won in NCAA Tourneys featuring no more than 25 teams. In those days, "at-large" tourney bids were awarded only to a handful of teams independent of any conference affiliation. Until 1975 (when the Big Dance first expanded to 32 teams), league representation in the NCAAs was limited only to conference champions.
And in those years, the "West Regional" really meant the "West Regional," with Sweet Sixteen and Elite Eight opposition limited to nearby (or relatively nearby) foes. The days of shipping teams between regions was unheard of in that era; geography was the most important determiner of regional assignments. Thus, UCLA’s West Regional opposition in those days would almost solely consist of champs from the WCAC (later the WCC), Big Sky, WAC, and beginning in 1970, the PCAA (later the Big West), with occasional appearances by independent teams from the region (of which Bob Boyd’s Seattle University was one in 1964, and, in later years, Lou Henson’s New Mexico State, and Ladell Anderson’s Utah State). All that Wooden’s Bruins basically had to do was win that modest "regional" competition in those years, and it was on to the Final Four.
In almost all of those campaigns, UCLA was rarely challenged in the West Regional, simply because there were few others teams capable of offering a substantial argument, although the period of total domination really began with Alcindor’s varsity debut for the 1966-67 season. Boyd’s aforementioned Seattle, and Pete Peletta’s fine USF squads featuring future NBA performers Erwin Mueller and Joe Eliis, offered some stiff regional competition for Wooden’s first two title teams in 1964 and ‘65. And, for record’s sake, let’s note that Wooden was bounced out of the ‘63 NCAAs at that year’s West Regional by an Arizona State team featuring Jumpin’ Joe Caldwell, who later starred for St. Louis and Atlanta Hawks teams in the NBA. But for the most part, Wooden’s teams usually didn’t draw a deep breath in the Regionals during those glory years, mainly because there really wasn’t any serious challenger in the western mix of the day.
The barren west. There were also only a few other national powerhouse squads out west during that period between the mid ‘60s and mid ‘70s. Dick Garibaldi’s Santa Clara had risen as high as number two in the national polls when it earned a showdown with the Bruins at the West Regional final in 1969. The only problem for the Broncos (led by C Dennis Awtrey and the Odgen twins, Ralph & Bud) was that the regionals took place at Pauley Pavilion that season, and Garibaldi’s squad (which had also lost to Wooden’s UCLA in the ‘68 West final at Albuquerque) ran into a buzzsaw that afternoon in Westwood, falling hopelessly behind 18-2 in the opening minutes and never getting the opportunity to probe and take advantage of what many thought might be a suspect John Vallely-Kenny Heitz Bruin backcourt (thought by some, mistakenly so, to be inferior to stalwart Gs Mike Warren and Lucius Allen from the previous two title teams). UCLA won easily, 90-52, en route to Big Lew’s third straight title and Final Four MVP (or, as they call it these days, "MOP," or "Most Outstanding Player"). Shortly thereafter, Jerry Tarkanian began to assemble a powerhouse at Long Beach State, which would meet up with the Bruins in the next three seasons at the West Regionals. "Tark" gave it a real shot in the second of those meetings at the 1971 West Regional final at Salt Lake City, leading UCLA by 11 midway in the 2nd half, before bowing 57-55. By the way, anyone who wants to get under Tark’s skin today should mention the name of the referee, Art White, who began to whistle the game the Bruins’ way in the 2nd half of that meeting, not coincidentally after influential UCLA AD J.D. Morgan took a seat on the Bruin bench next to Wooden.
Conference weakness. It’s also worth noting that the AAWU/Pac-8 (it didn’t become the Pac-10 until 1978-79, when Arizona and Arizona State joined the league) was a decidedly modest conference for most of the Wooden glory years. In seven of Wooden’s first nine NCAA title seasons, the Bruins were also unbeaten in league play. Aside from occasional upset bids, the only mild sustained conference challenge came from crosstown rival USC, which, under the crafty Bob Boyd (who moved from Seattle for the 1966-67 season), cleverly annoyed UCLA with stall tactics in ‘67, nearly pulling a major upset at the Sports Arena, and again in 1969, forcing a double overtime at the Sports Arena before finally pulling the trick the following night in the regular-season finale, winning 46-44 to become the first-ever opponent to win at Pauley. Boyd’s Trojans became more than a nuisance in 1970-71, when a Paul Westphal-led USC team made a serious challenge for conference and national honors, rising to the top spot in the polls prior to a midseason showdown vs. UCLA (which had lost to Austin Carr and Notre Dame), only to lose a close 64-60 decision at the Sports Arena. The only two games Boyd’s Trojans lost that season came against the Bruins, which in those days kept SC out of the NCAA Tourney (and NIT as well). How good those Trojans really were remains something of a question, however, as SC had the enormous benefit of being UCLA’s conference "travel partner" in those days of back-to-back league games each weekend (almost always Friday and Saturday), with Pac-8 foes routinely emptying their chambers against Wooden’s Bruins (who had many hair-raisers that season) and having little left for the Trojans, who also benefited from a modest non-conference schedule, which was not out of the ordinary, especially for west coast teams, in that era.
Sam Gilbert. Of course, any retrospective on the Wooden glory years wouldn’t be complete without a mention of "Papa" Sam Gilbert, the notorious, well-heeled Bruin booster who "took care" of things behind the scenes. Gilbert’s role was eventually exposed in the early ‘80s, contributing to sanctions for the program (including a ban on the 1982 Big Dance) and an edict from the NCAA for the school to disassociate with him. All of the sanctions, coincidentally, having surfaced after the powerful AD J.D. Morgan passed away in 1980. We don’t have the time or space to get deeply into the Gilbert connection, which we might readdress again in another retrospective piece later this publishing season.
As UCLA’s star faded in the post-Wooden years, other western schools stepped up to fill the power vacuum, though none came close to the Wooden/Bruin domination. Tarkanian moved from Long Beach to UNLV in 1973 and created a memorable dynasty with the Runnin’ Rebels, reaching the Final Four on four different occasions and finally winning the national title in 1990. But that UNLV "Shining Moment" twenty years ago was one of only three western NCAA hoop championship years since the Wooden dynasty concluded (UCLA in ‘95 and Arizona in ‘97 the others). In the late ‘70s, USF recalled some of the glory of Bill Russell’s back-to-back championship squads in 1955 & ‘56, rising to the top spot in the polls for a spell in 1977, before the program unraveled and closed itself down in the early ‘80s, not to be heard from on a national scale since returning to the hardwood in 1985.
In the Pac-10, for a while, Ralph Miller’s Oregon State became the featured conference powerhouse in the ‘80s, but the Beavers never advanced beyond the Elite Eight (1982) in the Big Dance. Lute Olson built a similar powerhouse program at Arizona from the late ‘80s until a few years ago, but the Wildcats were also notorious for NCAA meltdowns and some humbling first-round eliminations in their extended Big Dance run, too. Only once did Olson’s U of A win the national title, and that came in unexpected fashion in 1997. UCLA, under Jim Harrick, re-scaled the heights and won another national title in 1995, but hasn’t won one since. Stanford, under Mike Montgomery in 1998, has been the only other Pac-10 entry to make it to the Final Four since the UCLA glory days. More recently, Gonzaga has emerged as a brand name in the WCC, but the Zags have rarely threatened for national honors, either. Indeed, over the past decade, the Zags have only once advanced as deep as the Elite Eight, and that came in their breakthrough campaign in 1999. The best Gonzaga has been able to do since in the Big Dance is a handful of Sweet Sixteen appearances.Outside of UCLA, Arizona, and Stanford, only Tarkanian’s long-ago UNLV sides, and Rick Majerus’ surprising Utah in 1998, have advanced to the Final Four from the region in the past 43 years.
Fast forward to this season, and we’re afraid the west is looking much like it did a year ago when mostly under-represented in the Big Dance. Blame is mostly laid upon the Pac-10, which once again looks as if it might be hard-pressed to send multiple teams to the newly-expanded field of 68. Last year, the Pac only sent two, Washington and Cal, into the NCAA Tourney, and early this season we are hard-pressed to project the Selection Committee going much deeper on Selection Sunday. While UCLA has shown signs of recovering from last year’s sub-.500 season (watch frosh C Joshua Smith, who reminds some of a young Shaquille O"Neal), the Bruins are still a long way from Ben Howland’s back-to-back-to-back Final Four teams between 2006-08, standing only 5-4 in mid-December, playing highly-ranked Kansas with a point at Phog Allen Fieldhouse, but also losing at Pauley Pavilion vs. Montana. We doubt UCLA is going to be able to make an NCAA at-large case in March; indeed, at this stage, we project only Lorenzo Romar’s Washington, which has three losses already, and perhaps Ken Bone’s improved Washington State to be able to make a Big Dance at-large cases from the Pac-10 in March. Other recent contenders, such as Cal, Stanford, and Arizona, are in various stages of rebuilding, while the likes of Arizona State and Southern Cal have not demonstrated much consistency. The Pac-10, which could be expected to send 5-6 teams to the Dance at times in the past decade, appears to be in an unmistakable period of decline in the wake of the end of the Olson era at Arizona, and UCLA’s recent struggles.
As a year ago, the best league in the west looks to be the Mountain west, which actually exceeded its normal quota of NCAA reps a year ago when sending four schools (San Diego State, BYU, New Mexico, and UNLV) into the Big Dance. This year, our early projection is three bids, with San Diego State and BYU in contention for "protected seed" status (a 1 thru 4 seed, and favorable first-round geographic assignments) in the sub-regionals. New Mexico is hoping that now-eligible UCLA transfer F Drew Gordon will spur an uprising, but the Lobos still look less formidable than a year ago. Meanwhile, UNLV appears as if it might be able to make an at-large case if needed in March, but the Rebels lost their second consecutive game on Wednesday night vs. underdog Big West rep UC Santa Barbara, and have another game upcoming vs. Kansas State in Kansas City. Lon Kruger, still having trouble getting much production from his bigs, might have a borderline NCAA team, but whatever, we doubt the Mountain West sends another four reps to the Dance in March.
Elsewhere in the west, things aren’t much more encouraging. The Big West, like the Big Sky, is now considered a one-bid league, and the soon-to-be-downgraded WAC will be fortunate to get a second Big Dance bid as it did a year ago, when Utah State squeezed into one of the last at-large positions after being upset by New Mexico State in the WAC Tourney. The NMSU Aggies and Nevada, usual WAC contenders, have been struggling early in the season. As has aforementioned WCC power Gonzaga, now sitting under .500 while losing a succession of non-league encounters (three of them in a row in a recent stretch vs. Illinois, Washington State, and Notre Dame). As of mid-December, the Zags appear to be a very iffy NCAA at-large projection, perhaps even behind conference rival Saint Mary’s (which made it to the Sweet 16 last season) in the Big Dance at-large queue. The WCC will also be fortunate to be a multiple-bid league in March.
So, as the season progresses, keep in mind that it’s really nothing new for the west to be in a down cycle in basketball. With a few notable exceptions, it’s been mostly that way for the past 50 or so years.