News Scrapbook 1986-1988

San Diego, CA (San Diego Co.) San Diego Union (Cir. D. 217,089) (Cir. S. 341,840) AR 8

San Diego, CA (San Diego C~.) San Diego Union (Cir. D. 217,089) (Cir. S. 341,840) MAR 7

Los Angeles CA (Los Angele; Co.) Los Angeles Times (Cir. D. 1,076,466) (Cl r. S. 1,346,343) MA 7 1987

1987

1987

•

Wayd~ Lockwood Continued from u-J.2~ other than the regular-season champion wins the conference tournament. In the case of the ACC, which originated this practice, that may be true. But in less-esteemed conferences, only one team will be invited and, with the advent of the conference tournament, that team may turn out to be far from the best. While USD waits and wonders, for example, the seventh-place finisher in the WCAC played the fifth-place finisher to decide which will carry the conference banner into the NCAA. Why bother to try during the regular season? In the Big Sky Conference, the top three teams lost in the first round of the tournament. There, too, a second-division club will represent the conference in the NCAAs. TCU, clearly the best team in the Southwest Conference during the season, lost in the conference tournament and, like USD, must await the pleasure of the NCAA. Meanwhile, the Big Ten - which bucks this trend - will send at least four teams and possibly as many as six into the NCAA field. Could there be a lesson here? Never mind. Conferences can generate extra revenue in gate receipts and, in many cases, television fees by having a postseason tournament. Is anything more important? Obviously not. Never mind having the best 64 teams in the NCAA field, as defined by a full season of play. We can put up with less, as long as there's a buck to be made. And that, boys and girls, is the lesson for today.

Jill(',.~

/ ,, 1888

p C B

CAC Ba ketball Tournament

1 . Pressure on San Diego, 64-63

O , Times Staff Wnter

Middlebrooks scored 18 points on 9 .of-13 shooting and hauled down a game-high. 11 . rebounds. Pepperdine's Enc White also had 18 points. Teammate Craig DaVll! had 14, including 3 of 3 from three-point range. San Diego Coach Hank Egan, who saw his team's 14-game win- ning streak snapped, smd he hopes "our record over the course o_f th~ season will have some weight with the NCAA tournament selec- tion committee, which will_ an- nounce on Sunday the teams it has ~elect d. Harrick, asked whether he thought the Toreros should be given a bid to the NCAAs, an- swered: "Without a doubt, unequivocally, no question at all."

seconds left and the Toreros behind by the game's fin~! score, Thomp- son also failed to hit the first shot of a one-and-one. . . Pepperdine Coach Jim Harnck said that Thompson's last shanked free throw was important. But he added that "our defensive pressur,~ was probably the key to the game. Harrick said that his team played better pressure defense on Friday night than they had had all year• Thompson's last miss may have been important, but so was ~he defensive job that 6-7 Levy Mid - dlebrooks did on the 7-footer. Middlebrooks "watched Scott Thompson and o?,IY gav~ him _13 shots all night, Hamck said. Thompson made 8 of 13 shots from the field but hit only 3 of 7 free throws, finishing with 19 pomts to lead all scorers.

In a tight game that was tied seven times, San Diego's players tensed up at the foul line in the last six minutes, missing 5 of 6 free throws mcluding the front ends of two on'e-and-one situations. With seven seconds left and San Diego (24-5 overall) trailing, 64-63, Da~- ny Means still had a chance to wm the game. But on a base-line drive, Means missed an off-balance, over-the-head scoop shot in traffic. And Pepperdine grabbed the re- bound-and the game. Scott Thompson, San Diego's 7-footer and the conference's most valuable player, also might have won it for h!S team. But Thompson began his team' tring of poor foul shooting whe he couldn't connect on two free throws with 5,59 remaining and San Diego leading, 68-56. With 40

S AN FRA: 'CISCO - Three times, the University of S.1r. Diepo's basketball team pun the c moer and pu led the tngger. The third time, the gun went off. A ktd Jay talented but underarh1evmg Pepperdine for the third time tl,:s ea.son, the Toreros finally fell afoul of the Jaw of averages. Barely, but painfully. Against a team that is qui~ke'. of foot, quicker of hand and springier of leg, USD - a winner by three points and five points on the first two occasions - came up one point short when it meant the most. The Waves washed them out f the West Cuast Athletic Conference tournament, 64-63. Oddly enough, against a team with more pure athletic ability, the Toreros did not lose becaure they couldn't run and jump with Pepperdine. They lost because they couldn't shoot free throw8 with the team from Malibu. During the final six minutes, with the lead edging back and forth. USO missed five of six attempts from the line - including the front ends of two one-and-ones. Pepperdine, meanwhile, was knocking down 15 of 17 for the game. was ·ust enough to end a 14-garne Tor.er winning streak and leave the with eason r o 24-5. Sp1ena.id as that performance may seem, and is, it is no assur,ance that u will advance to the NCAA Tournament'~ 64-team field, to be selected tomorrow. Like Blanche DuBo:s, the Toreros must now rely upon the kindness of strangers. · The WCAC is conducting a postseason tournament for the first . regul:ll -~l!asor, champion, receives the league's automatic NCAA berth. The Toreros' 13-1 record and time, and the winner of that compe ition, rather than the conference championship count for nothing. Wea, not much, anyway. "If the whole country wasn't doing it I wouldn't be for it," said P~pperdine coach Jim Barrick, "because you should reward your conference champion. "I just hope they get in." If Harrick has anything to do w1th it, the Toreros will. Fortunately enough, he does. "That's a fine basketball team, gentlemen, and I'm on the recommendation committee," Harrick said. Having buried the Toreros, he took advantage of the moment to praise them. "It's supposed to be a secret, but I rated them third in the West behind Vegas and UCLA. Arizona is right there, too. "USD is no fluke. They are no fly- by-night. I've seen everybody (in the West) play, and there is no qu~stion, no question, that they belong m the tournament. "Twenty-four games they won, all but·one against Division I teams, buddy. Fourteen in a row. Hey, with (Scott) Thompson, hey. Good coach, hey. No question." Barrick was fired up. Unfortunately for the Toreros, so was his team. As a result, USD will spend a nervous afternoon tomorrow waiting to see if NCAA selectors can bring themselves to pick two teams from the WCAC, something they historically have been reluctant to do. Upsets in other conferences, like the Southwest and Big Sky, will not help, because it means there are other deposed regular-season champions to be considered. Still, Barrick remains confidefl• that he has not administered the k, w of death to a team he regards hi hl

S AN FRANCISCO - the young people in their charge, and they do. Unfortunately. When it comes to sports, they educate them to hold dear such virtues as greed, expediency and the quick fix. As to tbe pursuit of excellence on a day-to-day, long-term basis, forget it. That's a sucker's game. We are not talking here about outright athletic cheaters, a~ut the SMUs who go their way merrily flouting rules and regulations they helped formulate as if these were so much graffiti. They belong in another category altogether, an ends-justify-the- means category that holds that . everybody else is doing it, too, and if they aren't, ii' • just because they haven't thought of it yet. These schools are so flagrantly outside the law as to be beneath discussion. But at least they are straightforward in their approach. They set out to cheat, and they did. There may be less excuse f~r the rest of the academic commumty - excepting the Big Ten and Ivy League - that has adopted a cynical device known as the t " "conference tournamen • . . The purpose of this exercise !s to determine a conference champion and representative to the.NCAA Tournament. What's that? You thought that's what we've been doing for the last three months? Silly you. It is the business of those who run our nation's universities to educate

A FRANC! O-The Uni- ty of San Diego m1ssea some r the stretch 10 t p pperdine Friday night. r suit, the Toreros might miss CAA tournament. pperdine, which finished sev- h m the West Coast Athletic n!erence regular season, eezed by the Tor ros, 64 -63. 1th the victory, the Waves kn ck d 'an Diego, the regular- season champion, out of the confer- nce's first tournament ma semlf1- g m at the University of San Fr nc1 co's Memorial Gymnasium. cpperdine (12-17 overan) will pl y in tonight's champ1onsh1p game agam t Santa Clara, which d featcd St ary' , 55-50. The to rnament champion will get the conference's automatic bid to the NCAA tournament.

- f

I , r 1 8XX

~_R-awaits berth after loss SAN FRANCISCO (AP)-The USO basketball team, _despite a 24-5 record, is at the mercy of the NCAA's selection comnuttc. , The Toreros are hoping for an at-large berth mto the NCAA rour- nament today after bowing out of the West C~ast Athletic Conference Tournament with Friday night's 64-63 sem1fmai loss to ~epperdme. Pepperdine lost in the championship game Saturday night agamst Santa Clara, 77,65. . d Levy Middlebrooks and Eric White ~allied 18 pomt~ each to Pepperdine to its win over USD, snapping the Toreros 14-game wm- ning streak and leaving them in doubt about whether they will gam an NCAA berth despite leading their conference dunng the regular season. . th h ine "J just hope that the record we had durmg e _season a~ so. weight," said San Diego coach Hank Egan. He said he ':"asn t wor- ried about the prospects of going to the playoffs and said his team deserved to go. . . . .. · " ·rs Pepperdine coach Jim Harnck smd 1t would be a crime I an Diego didn't make the NCAA tournament.

San Diego, CA (San Diego Co.) San Diego Union (Cir. D. 217,089) (Cir. S. 341 ,840)

All we've been doing is deciding who would play whom in the first round of the conference tournament. After that, it's every team for itself. Ain't democracy grand? There are, of course, still some fuddy-duddies among us - the John Woodens and Bobby Knights - who believe that a conference should .be represented, first and for~most, by the team that has proven itself o~er the Jong haul against all comers_ m a variety of circumstances. Generally speaking, however, these traditionalists have been shouted down. As of this season, every conference but two has adopted the postseason tournament and assigned its conference's automatic NCAA berth to the winner of that competition. The winner of regular-season play if it doesn't happen to win the tour~ament, can take its chances on be awarded an at-large bid. · What does this mean? It means that a team that painstakingly has •established its credentials against all comers in all conditions can catch a bad day, a bad bounce, a bad call and see the whole thing flushed down the drain. The Univ1,:oity of Salll_Diego . basketball team is certainly a prime example, although hardly the only one. The Toreros won 13 of 14 West Coast Athletic Conference games.. They won six of seven on the road m a notoriously tough home-court league. They finished four games ahead of the second-place team. But because they had the bad timing to lose one game by one point in the conference tournament, they may not even get an NCAA bid. "I don't like it, but we knew at ~he start of the season that's the way it was going to be," said USD coach Hank Egan. "It would be a crime and a misjustice if they don't get in the (NCAA) tournamentt said . Pepperdine coach Jim Hamck, coining a word in his urgency.

1987

AR 9

Jl.ll~... ·•

/.,r. 1888

p C. B

USD:lAI;Iays Aubur~ in opene Continued frort&l he knows all he cares to know about Egan.

NCAA berth makes Egan happy for his wife as well By T.J. Simers Slaff Writer as a result, Egan suffered as a head coach.

"If Hank Egan is coaching that team, that's enough to scare me," Smith said . "I played (coached) agamst his team when he was coach- mg at Air Force, and he taught me a valuable lesson: He ran up the score on me and beat me by two (48-46 in ove:rtime .n 1980). He's a real gentle- man, and everyone knows he's a fine coach." Auburn. which opened the season 7- 0, ls led by two four-year starters at guard, Frank Ford (13.2 points a game) and Gerald White (7.4 points). The Tigers feature a 6-7 front line acr0$ the board with forwards Mike Jones (15 points and 7.2 rebounds) and ris Morris (13.4, 7.2) and center Jeff oore (17.2, 9.3). "We've been to the NCAA Tourna- ment the ),1st three years, and 1 think that makes a difference," Smith said. •The first year we went we were beat- en by Richmond because we were a little in awe of being there. That might make a difference with San Diego." Egan smiled after hearing Smith's commenl,. "l haven't been there, so I don't know. It's great for Sonny that he has a 11 that experience, and I ap- preciate him sharing it with me." The Toreros, led by Thompson and his 15.9 points and 7.5 rebounds a game, continue to lead the nation in field-goal percentage defense (.400), holding their oppoi!ents to an average of 60.3 points. "I think we've earned this, and I've told our kids to treat it as a reward," said Egan. "But we want to do this right; we want to get after it. We want to play our best basketball, and then the scoreboard will take care of it- self." The Toreros will leave at 6:57 a.m. Wednesday and practice in the Hoo-

He was excited, he said, but USD coach Hank Egan admitted he was not so much happy for himself as he was for his wife, Judy. "If anybody deserves good things happening to them, it's this lady," said Egan, after learning his team had been chosen for the NCAA Tournament. "It's been a struggle at times, and I'm really happy for her." As Egan said yesterday, there were the struggles that come in the course of being married for 25 years, but then there were ex- traordinary times. "Judy was diagnosed as having Multiple Sclerosis early on. It hit, and then it hit again four years later," said Egan. "I was in the Air Force and that's why I was trans- ferred to Colorado Springs (and the Air Force Academy); it put us by the needed medical facilities." Egan worked five years as an assistant for the Falcons and then took over as head coach. Air Force, restricted by a 6-5 height limitation for its cadets, had diffi. culty competing at Division I, and

Midway through his 13-year ten- ure as the Falcons' head coach, though, he had the opportunity to become an assistant under Denver Nuggets' coach Larry Brown. "I thought about it, out the mili: tary medical benefits were a fac- tor in my staying at Air Force; we just didn't know about Judy," said Egan. "But we're lucky; she's been in remission for a long time now and she's enjoying good health." Egan was fired as head coach of the Falcons three years ago after compiling a 148-185 record. At the time, he considered a job in com- mercial real estate, but on Judy's urging, he accepted the post at USD. And now he's going to make his first visit to the NCAA Tourna- ment. "Judy says all the time there is a reason for everything," said Egan. "I was at rock bottom after we lost to Pepperdine the other night, but she was there and she told me to get on with it. "So today I was excited," said Egan, "but I wus more excited watching how happy she was."

•

But because Harrick's Waves beat the Toreros, 64-63, in the semifinals of WCAC postseason play, USD may not receive a bid to the cotillion. Why would conferences "'.ish to adopt a policy that puts the1r best teams at such risk? Greed and money, of course. At least sex didn't play a part. . By doing it this way, a conference can hope that more teams will make the NCAA Tournament if a am

I_

sier Dome at 7 that evening. They are expected to earn 200,000 for appear- ing in Thursday's first round, with 60 percent of the payoff going to the WCAC.

"W~re in awe at being selected," Egan said, "but we're not in awe of playing Auburn. We're going to give them a good game, and then we'll see what happens."