In the Faded, Old West, They Are Big Stuff Too

Remember the Big West?

The NCAA tournament selection committee this week said, “Erm, no, can’t say that we do.”

Nevada, Nevada Las Vegas, Fresno State, San Jose State and New Mexico State all said, “Hmm, sounds vaguely familiar.”

Big West Conference officials tugged nervously at their sweat-stained collars and said, “Uh-oh, sounds like an epitaph.”

And on Friday, entering a first-round NCAA pairing with Providence as decided underdogs, the University of Pacific Tigers said, “Sounds like a battle cry.”

Remember the Big West? They do now, after the Tigers’ 66-58 victory over the Friars at Kansas City’s Kemper Arena and this elbow-to-the-ribs scoreboard result:

Big West 1, Big East 0.

It came too late to do Utah State any good, and it won’t do much in the long term to change the Big West’s image as the fifth-best college basketball conference west of the Rockies, but today, the Big West can proudly claim a member team in the second round of the NCAA tournament.

Arizona and Washington of the Pacific 10 Conference didn’t get that far.

Texas El Paso of the Western Athletic Conference didn’t get that far.

Brigham Young and Utah of the Mountain West Conference didn’t get that far.

(In fact, Utah couldn’t get off a shot in the final minute against Boston College, allowing the shot clock to expire while the Utes were still within three points, but that’s another long, sad story.)

Today, Pacific finds itself standing alongside the dwindling heavyweight division of West Coast college basketball, rubbing elbows with Stanford and the Pac-10 and Gonzaga of the West Coast Conference. Due to face Kansas Sunday, Pacific doesn’t figure to last much longer. But give the Tigers and their picked-upon, picked-over conference their moment. This doesn’t happen very often.

Pacific, which last won an NCAA tournament game in 1971, is only the second Big West team in 11 years to reach the second round. The other is Utah State (in 2001), the same school the NCAA selection committee snubbed this year despite a 25-3 record at the time, a top-25 ranking and an RPI rating of 35. Utah State’s biggest crimes, in escalating order of importance:

2. It lost to Cal State Northridge in the Big West tournament.

1. It belongs to the Big West.

In the eyes of the committee, Utah State was a bubble team from a bubble conference. The Big West? The Big Oxymoron is more to the point. The Big West has been shrinking, in stature if not sheer numbers, for more than two decades. Nevada Las Vegas won the conference’s lone NCAA basketball title in 1990, but bolted for the WAC not long after. Before and after the Rebels, the Big West also lost San Diego State, San Jose State, Fresno State, New Mexico State and Nevada.

The Former Big West would be quite a formidable conference.

The ongoing exodus left the Big West looking like a basketball program perpetually trying to rebuild on the fly, cobbling together a lineup of transfers and rejects and non-scholarship types, a hodgepodge of Cal States and Cal Polys and UCs not from L.A.

This season, only Utah State and Pacific (65) had RPI ratings better than 153. Half the conference checked in at 223, 241, 242, 245 and 300.

Confronted by these numbers, the committee decided the Big West would get one tournament invite and nothing more.

Pacific won the conference tournament, Utah State did not.

Pacific got the invite, Utah State did not.

The Tigers were thrown a No. 12 seeding, tossed a first-round pairing with Providence of the Big East and wished good luck.

Pacific arrived in Kansas City toting a 15-game winning streak. Impressive? Yes and no. The Tigers padded that streak against Big West competition. What would that mean against the fourth-best team in the Big East?

Two early-season defeats by Pacific, respectable showings against Duke and Saint Joseph’s, were better indicators. Having tested the waters in the winter, the Tigers weren’t afraid of the rising tides of March. The inside-outside threat posed by Guillaume Yango and Miah Davis kept the Friars off-balance all night.

By night’s end, the Tigers found themselves carrying more than the Big West’s tattered banner. Pacific was the only Western school to win Friday, with Washington losing a 40-minute dash to Alabama Birmingham by an NBA score of 102-100, Eastern Washington doing well to stay within 75-56 of Oklahoma State and Utah brain-cramping in the clutch in a 58-51 loss to Boston College.

Utah does not often lose in the first round -- this was only the third time in 24 appearances. And, it took some creativity. The Utes were down by three points, 54-51, and had the ball in the final minute, but let the shot clock expire before coming anywhere close to setting up a shot.

Just before the clock ran down, Nick Jacobson, who made 190 three-pointers in his Utah career, was briefly open beyond the arc. But teammate Andrew Bogut, a visibly flustered freshman, passed instead to Richard Chaney, who had no time to launch as the buzzer sounded.

Just as well, perhaps. Jacobson closed out his Utah career in wincing style -- making three of 18 shots and two of 13 three-point tries and finishing with eight points.

West Coast interests in this tournament are down to a curious threesome. Stanford and Gonzaga were expected, but the third? Of all the basketball-playing universities near the Pacific, who could have fathomed University of the Pacific?