LAS VEGAS β
This was Selection Sunday at McCarran Airport: A foursome of men wearing red Arizona T-shirts watched the TV screen at Corcoranβs Irish Pub with an almost hypnotic connection.
And then bedlam.
βNooooooo!β
One of the men rushed to Gate C2 where maybe 50 Arizona basketball fans awaited a Southwest Airlines flight to Phoenix.
βWeβre going to Boise!β he yelled to no one and everyone. βWe got (not a nice word).β
Someone asked if βthat other team got in?β
βWho cares! We got (censored)!β
The irony of all this is that Lute Olson was sitting in the group of Phoenix-bound passengers. If there is one man on the basketball planet who has seen it all on Selection Sunday, it is Lute Olson.
He smiled and shrugged.
βYou just make the best of it,β he said.
Had Olson not been exhausted from a long delay and getting rebooked to Phoenix, he mightβve stood and calmed the crowd of agitated Wildcat fans.
Olsonβs 1997 national championship team was a No. 4 seed. It was sent to Memphis and to Birmingham, Alabama, looking every bit a sacrificial victim to No. 1 Kansas or No. 2 Duke. As it turned out, the UAβs most difficult game before the Final Four was probably South Alabama or College of Charleston, not Kansas at all. Duke? The Blue Devils went home in tears, shocked by the Providence Friars.
No wonder Olson didnβt rush to judgment. Itβs March. You never know.
The NCAA Selection Committee and the nationβs many bracketologists warned for months that Sunday might be bloody. The selection formula was tweaked for what seemed like the 25th time in 25 years, but this time there was a dire warning like few before it:
Conference records donβt matter.
If you dine on Akrons and Lehighs in the nonconference schedule, you will pay the price.
The Pac-12βs second-best team, USC, didnβt make it. Why? The Trojans played Akron, Lehigh, Princeton (and lost), North Dakota State, Santa Clara, UC Santa Barbara and some other unidentifiable teams.
This is part of the reason Arizona is a No. 4 seed and not, befitting its talent, a No. 2 or No. 3. The Wildcats have diminished their non-conference schedule the last five years. So they were sentenced to basketballβs geographical hell: Boise, Idaho.
Imagine the hundreds of UA fans who had bought advance tickets to the San Diego regional this week. Those cozy, close-to-home first-weekend stayovers are no longer automatic. The NCAA once spoke loudly of the importance of keeping teams close to home.
Yet on Sunday it filled the San Diego bracket with two teams from South Carolina and others from Alabama, Kansas, West Virginia, and wherever Murray State and Marshall are located.
The βhome teamβ in San Diego will be New Mexico State. Thatβs a 683-mile drive each way.
The Big Red Machine will not march at the Viejas Arena. Instead, the few UA fans who make it to Boise will surely be drowned out by the Zags. Distance from Spokane to Boise: 420 miles.
Gonzaga plays in the most ridiculously easy conference west of the Ivy League, but it was wise enough to play Florida, Ohio State, Villanova, Washington, Creighton and Texas.
Thus, the Zags will have a quasi-home-court advantage in Boise.
Historically, Boise has been good to Arizona. It routed Robert Morris and Clemson there as the No. 1 seed in 1989. In 2005, the third-seeded Wildcats toyed with Utah State and Alabama-Birmingham in Boise, benefiting from UABβs upset over LSU on a night some guy named Marvett McDonald outplayed LSUβs touted Glen βBig Babyβ Davis.
Anyone who has followed Arizona basketball the last 20 years can fill a book with similar unexpected twists.
The last time Olson (and Arizona) reached the Final Four, 2001, the Wildcats lost four starters: Gilbert Arenas, Michael Wright, Luke Walton and Loren Woods. Some feared Olsonβs 2001-02 season would break the schoolβs streak of 17 consecutive NCAA appearances.
The Pac-10 was loaded: Oregon and all four California schools easily made it into the β02 NCAA Tournament.
But rather than dodge what looked to be some early-season growing pains, Olson scheduled No. 2 Maryland, No. 5 Illinois, No. 8 Kansas, No. 23 Michigan State, No. 24 Texas and No. 25 UConn.
Arizona finished 12-6, in a four-way scrum for second place in the Pac-10, but its strength of schedule impressed the NCAA selection committee so much that the 22-9 Wildcats earned a No. 3 seed in Albuquerque.
On Selection Sunday, every basketball fan in Tucson filled out a bracket without giving a second thought to Arizona advancing to the Sweet 16 against second-seeded Oklahoma. All it would take were sure victories against UC Santa Barbara and Wyoming.
Right.
Arizona had to rally in the final 45 seconds to beat UCSB 86-81, when some unknown 3-point marksman, Mark Hull, buried eight 3-pointers. Two nights later, Arizona and Wyoming went to the final minute, neck and neck.
The Wildcats survived and won 68-60, but it was a reminder β then and now β how the Road to the Final Four is unnerving and uncertain.
This week it wonβt be UCSB or Wyoming; itβll be the Buffalo Bulls. They have never won an NCAA Tournament game. It will be the game of their young lives.
Kentucky can wait.
If Olson had given one sentence of advice Sunday it wouldβve been this: Beat Buffalo. All the rest is bull.
