Barber: Pac-12 suffers NCAA embarrassment

Guys, I just googled “Conference of Champions,” and you’re not gonna believe this. It’s the Pac-12!

In fact, if you go to ?Pac-12.com, you can find a collection of four-minute videos in a series called “Conference of Champions.” There’s one for each school in the conference, and they make a compelling case for the nickname, because they highlight academics and campus scenery.

If you’re a Pa’c-12 sports fan, though, it’s hard to turn on the television these days and feel like a champion. And yes, that apostrophe was intentional. Because when it comes to men’s basketball, the “Pac” in Pac-12 is clearly a contraction for “Pathetic.”

We are deep into the second round of the NCAA 2018 Division I Men’s Basketball Championship tournament, and the Conference of Champions is nowhere to be seen. It’s an absentee. A mere specter on one of the most exciting weekends in sports.

The Southeastern Conference, that Ivy League of athletics, was represented by six teams in the Round of 32. The ACC had five. The Big Ten, Big 12 and Big East (maybe we should just put “Big” in the name!) each had four. The American Athletic Conference, which emerged from the flaming wreckage of the original Big East a few years ago, had two, and Conference USA had one.

Oh, but you can dig much deeper into the strata of college athletics. While Pac-12 officials were checking their brackets and shaking their heads, teams from the West Coast Conference (Gonzaga), the Mountain West (Nevada), the Atlantic 10 (Rhode Island), the Missouri Valley Conference (Loyola-Chicago), the Mid-American Conference (Buffalo) and the America East (University of Maryland-Baltimore County) all managed to win first-round games.

As it turns out, the highlight of the tournament for the Pac-12 was the First Four, the so-called play-in games. It became the first conference ever to have two of its squads suffer the embarrassment of having to audition for the 64-team March Madness field. Both of those teams lost, with UCLA falling to St. Bonaventure and Arizona State dropping a game to Syracuse.

Then Arizona, far and away the best team in the Pac-12, got dumped in the first round by little Buffalo.

It wasn’t bad enough that the Pac-12 went 0-3 in the 2018 tournament. It had to lose all three games to colleges from that hotbed of the hardwood, upstate New York. After viewing the results, all I can say is thank goodness the selection committee didn’t give USC a bid and pit the Trojans against Binghamton or Stony Brook.

This was the worst showing ever for the Pac-12. Amazingly, it was not the worst ever for its previous configurations. The Pac-10 went 0-4 in 1985, when the NCAA tournament had recently been expanded to 64 teams. But this was bad. Really bad. Especially when you consider that Arizona’s 89-68 throttling at the hands of Buffalo tied for third-worst margin of defeat ever for a No. 4 seed against a No. 13.

Remember when UCLA redefined college basketball excellence? Remember when Arizona was considered the perennial equal of Duke and Kansas? Remember when Oregon made the Final Four? Hell, that last one was just a year ago. You should probably remember it.

Most of it is ancient history, though. The Pac-12’s last national championship in men’s basketball came in 1997. My wife was eight months pregnant with our second daughter when the Arizona Wildcats cut down the nets in Indianapolis. The Pac-10/12 is still looking for its next trophy. The daughter is currently eating tapas and drinking wine in Barcelona. My, how time flies when you’re having fundamentally poor basketball.

I should probably call a full timeout here to acknowledge that, yes, other sports exist beyond men’s basketball. The Pac-12 calls itself the Conference of Champions because it wins many national titles in many sports. Stanford and UCLA are currently locked in a seasonal death match to see which can claim to have produced the most NCAA Division I championships; Stanford currently leads 115-114. USC is third in the nation with 104. The NCAA women’s basketball tournament is underway, too, and the Pac-12 ladies are doing just fine.

But let’s be honest. More people watch NCAA football and men’s basketball than all of the other collegiate sports combined. Far more. In the popular imagination, a school’s sports prowess is based on football and men’s hoops. It’s unfair. It creates all sort of moral and financial irregularities. But it’s true.

If you disagree, I challenge you to name the NCAA champions in men’s cross country, women’s volleyball and men’s water polo last fall. Some of you will get one of them right. Most will go 0 for 3, just like the Pac-12 men’s basketball teams in this tournament.

At least we can fall back on football, right? Well… about that. The Pac-12 went 1-8 in bowl games last season. The postseason has become a nightmare for the Conference of Champions.

The Pac-12’s performance in March Madness 2018 isn’t much of a fluke, either. In the final Associated Press poll of the regular season, released last Tuesday, the only Pac-12 team in the top 25 was Arizona, at ?No. 12. Appearing as afterthoughts in “Others receiving votes” were USC, which would have ranked 34th if the poll were extended, and UCLA, which would have tied for 36th. The RPI rankings for those three teams were almost exactly the same. In essence, the conference wound up with one fewer first-round victory than the experts predicted.

How have the mighty fallen this far? For one massive clue, look at the current crop of ?Pac-12 men’s coaches. Here’s the list, in alphabetical order: Steve Alford, Dana Altman, Tad Boyle, Andy Enfield, Jerod Haase, Mike Hopkins, Bobby Hurley, Ernie Kent, Larry Krystkowiak, Wyking Jones, Sean Miller, Wayne Tinkle.

No offense, boys, but there don’t appear to be a lot of John Woodens, Mike Montgomerys or Lute Olsons in that lineup. Most of the current Pac-12 coaches fall into three categories: Past Their Prime, Not Yet in the Prime and Possibly Won’t Ever Have a Prime.

You might respond by arguing that Pac-12 schools have higher ethical standards. I would remind you that Arizona is one of the schools caught up in the dragnet the FBI recently cast into the waters of college basketball.

You might respond by claiming that Pac-12 schools aren’t willing to pay exorbitant salaries to their basketball coaches. But according to USA Today, Miller ranks sixth among NCAA basketball coaches in annual salary/bonuses at a little more than $4 million. Utah’s Krystkowiak is eighth at about $3.4 million. Oregon’s Altman and UCLA’s Alford are both in the top 25; each of them makes slightly more than Villanova’s Jay Wright, whose team will be one of the favorites when we head into the Round of 16. The dollars are exceeding the wins in the Pac-12.

I have no clear idea why the Conference of Champions has become such a basketball backwater, but it’s galling. This is the playground of Lew Alcindor and Sean Elliott, of Jason Kidd and James Harden. It should be competing for March Madness crowns. Instead, the Pathetic-12 is just trying to make it to the first weekend.

You can reach columnist Phil Barber at 707-521-5263 or phil.barber@pressdemocrat.com. Follow him on Twitter: @Skinny_Post.