Pac-12's dry spell continues as curtain rises in San Antonio

Remember 1997? The Pac-12 hardly can

As four non-Pac-12 teams duke it out for a chance to advance to the NCAA Tournament championship game, it feels appropriate to analyze the conference and its lack of postseason bona fides in recent years.

The last Pac-12 team to win a national championship was the Arizona Wildcats, who took it all back in 1997. A baby born that day — call him Lute — would turn 21 on Saturday. He’d be legally able to drink — and if he were a fan of the UA, or UCLA, or Oregon, he’d probably order a double.

To say the Pac-12 was down this year would be an understatement. Not a single team advanced past the first round of the NCAA Tournament, the first time that has happened for a Power Five conference … ever. Even with a potential No. 1 pick in Arizona’s Deandre Ayton and a half-dozen other potential NBA draftees, things ended in disaster. Yahoo Sports’ Jeff Eisenberg called the season a “flop.” CBS Sports’ Dennis Dodd called it a “horrid year.” ESPN called it “subpar.”

Here’s the cold, hard fact: Since John Wooden won the last of his titles with UCLA in 1975, the Pac-12 has captured precisely two NCAA Tournament championships. Jim Harrick led UCLA to a title in 1995, and Lute Olson and the Wildcats won one two years later.

Since then? Nothing.

The Star talked to nearly a dozen former Pac-12 players and coaches — some on the record, some off, as some coaches did not want to speak ill of their colleagues — and found myriad reasons for the conference’s many disappointments.

Here’s what those who know say about the conference’s national title drought:

Close, but no cigars

Almost to a man, those polled alluded to how close the conference has gotten, many pointing to UCLA’s run of three straight Final Fours in the 2000s and Arizona’s close calls both during Sean Miller’s reign and Lute Olson’s heyday. The Wildcats made Final Four runs in 1988, 1994 and 2001 only to fall short.

In short, there have been more near-misses than a bridal convention.

“There have been some really good teams: UCLA has had its moments, Arizona has had quite a few moments, Washington had good teams with (Lorenzo) Romar, Oregon’s had some shots,” said 1988 Arizona Final Four starter and seven-year NBA-er Tom Tolbert, now a sports radio host in San Francisco. “There have been a lot of great players. Lot of Pac-10/12 guys in the NBA. They haven’t won it, and I would have thought they would’ve won more. But it can’t be a fluke over, like, 40 years."

“Our ’88 team was a great example,” added Arizona legend Sean Elliott. “Oklahoma, I knew we were going to destroy them. And we had a bad game, and that’s all it takes. One off night. All the upsets throughout the years — not always the best team wins. I’m hoping somewhere along the line we can even it out and progress toward the mean. There have been some great teams in the Pac-12. We’ve been close.”

But how close are they, really?

Since 1997, the Pac-10/12 has produced a grand total of six Final Four teams. In the same span, the SEC has had 10, including four champions; the Big East has had 13, including six champions (Villanova could be its seventh this year); the Big Ten has had 17, including one champion (2000, Michigan State) and Michigan could give it another; the Big 12 has had nine Final Fours, and the ACC has 16 Final Fours and seven titles.

But let’s not just talk final forays. Just eight current Pac-12 teams have advanced to the Sweet 16 since 1998, and that’s including Washington State, which last made the Sweet 16 in 2008, and USC, which last advanced to the tourney’s second weekend in 2007. In the last five years, five teams — UCLA, Arizona, Oregon, Utah and Stanford — advanced to the Sweet 16. Just one team, last year’s Ducks, advanced to the Final Four.

(Time) zone defense

The consensus among our experts was simple: East Coast bias is real, if exaggerated.

Simply put, more eyeballs are on teams from those on Eastern or Central time than on Pacific, if only because more of them are open. Are you going to stay up until 2 a.m. on a Thursday to watch Oregon State, even if the Beavers are decent? Of course not.

So when it comes tournament time, even the best Pac-12 team is fighting an uphill battle. When is the last time a Pac-12 team got the benefit of the doubt?

“You don’t get the same opportunity to showcase your teams,” said former Oregon State coach Jim Haney, now the executive director for the National Association of Basketball Coaches. “You start a game at 10 on the East Coast and people are going to bed. … The league has better exposure today, and I think there are some good teams. But I’m wondering why they didn’t have four teams (in the tournament) rather than three?”

It’s not so much a bias as a fact of life: The time-zone changes have a real effect, especially on game day.

“I felt it when I coached,” said Ben Braun, who coached Cal from 1996-2008 and led the Bears to the Sweet 16 in his first season. “I remember one time we had to play Maryland at noon. It was smart of Gary Williams — he had us going on White House tours. Game time came, and we were exhausted. We were swimming on the court. We’d been up since 3 a.m. our time.”

Former Oregon State coach Jay John, a Tucson native with five coaching stints at four Pac-12 schools, points out yet one more geographical disadvantage for the league — and it’s a valid one.

“It’s the proximity of the Pac-12,” he said. “Kids still tend to not want to go too far away from home; there will be some who traverse multiple time zones, but by and large, you don’t go too far away. If the talent level in the West Coast isn’t top-notch, you still have to get people, and you need more than a starting five to win. Teams that do win, they have a better combination of 200 minutes. Players can’t play the whole game.”

John coached in the Midwest for almost a decade, so he knows hoops in other regions, too.

“I used to say when I was coaching at Butler: If a kid is from Cincinnati, he could be recruited by the Big Ten, the Big East, the SEC, the ACC and the Big 12 and he might not be too far from home,” Jay said.

Stargazing

The worst thing a coach can do is try to be what he’s not.

Unfortunately, it seems the glitz and glamour that comes with starring in the West offers a false hope to even the best coaches in the game.

Let’s take Ben Howland, the UCLA head coach who led the team to three straight Final Fours, 2006-08. Among the game’s best defensive teachers and thinkers, Howland had a coaching compass from which he barely deviated . His teams were tough, principled, hardened and consistent. And because of his reputation as a slow-it-down, grind-it-out, ride-’em-hard coach, his first few recruiting classes reflected that: A smattering of top-ranked players mixed with hard-nosed defenders, with a key role-player or three.

That was enough to bring Howland and the Bruins to the cusp of greatness.

Even after advancing to back-to-back Final Fours and securing the commitment of Kevin Love, one of the top players in  the class of 2007 and certainly the best player in the West, Howland still had one scholarship to give. Instead of pairing Love with another top prospect, Howland signed the 69th-rated player in the country in forward Chase Stanback.

With that kind of recruiting momentum, surely Howland could have closed with another five-star.

Well, after one more Final Four run with Love and a sophomore Russell Westbrook, it did happen.

UCLA’s 2008 recruiting class was one of the most-heralded in college hoops history: Jrue Holiday, the No. 1-ranked point guard in California, and third-ranked player in the nation; J’Mison Morgan, the No. 3 center (20th overall); Drew Gordon, Aaron’s older brother, the No. 10 power forward (No. 29 overall); Jerime Anderson, the No. 6 point guard (31 overall); and Malcolm Lee, the No. 6 shooting guard (33 overall). More star power than the Golden Globes runway, sure. And more headaches than Howland could imagine.

Holiday bounced to the pros after a year, Morgan lasted two years before being dismissed and Gordon even less than that, getting the boot six games into his sophomore season. Anderson averaged more than 20 minutes per game in his UCLA career, but never more than nine points, and Lee was solid, if sporadically spectacular, for three seasons.

Howland would never make it out of the second round over the next five seasons. UCLA missed the tournament twice.

“Look, I can go back to Howland and say, well how can you not take Jrue Holiday?” John said. “But the other thing with Howland for me is he had a staff change. Ben took certain guys and turned them into something. Nobody liked playing against him. But then they missed on Kawhi Leonard. They took Tyler Lamb instead of Allen Crabbe. There are some guys right there they missed on. I don’t know if that early staff missed on anybody. And that was with Tim Floyd not missing on people, either.”

One crucial part of the head coaching gig is general management, and for whatever reason, the Pac-12 coaches have struggled in that department. That includes, unfortunately for Arizona fans, Sean Miller.

Of all the facets of the gig, it may be the hardest.

“I spent my whole career trying to find those not-top-level kids,” Braun said. “You better get some role players to have a great team. People have no idea how hard it is to manage five egos. How many touches are you getting? Kids think they have to score when the NBA scouts want to see an ability to win. There is always a potential chemistry issue. Guys who are going to be pros and guys who aren’t. Most kids think they’re going to be pros. To manage all that is really difficult. It’s really, really hard.”