West Coast basketball back in championship mix

SAN JOSE — The last time team from the Pacific/Mountain time zone won the national championship, the Bowl Championship Series for football had not yet come into existence, Bob Knight was still regularly making the NCAA tournament at Indiana and Arizona’s current players were either yet to be born or still in diapers.

Since that Arizona upset run in 1997, seven conferences have won titles, including the American Athletic Conference and the new Big East, which is no longer tied to football.

But the Pac-12, and the West Coast generally, has a good chance to end that streak this year as the regional semifinals begin here and in Kansas City, Mo., on Thursday. With Arizona, UCLA and Oregon still alive for the Pac-12 plus Gonzaga, the West boasts a full quarter of the teams remaining in the Sweet 16.

“You’ve got to have really good teams and you have to get lucky. That’s the way the NCAA tournament works,” said Pac-12 deputy commissioner Jamie Zaninovich, who has helped implement new strategies to help the league’s basketball brand since coming from the West Coast Conference in 2014. “I think we’re confident we’re on the right trajectory. We’re going to have teams that are plenty good; now teams just have to fall the right way. Who knows what can happen this year.”

Though there’s a long way to go before a title is in reach for the Pac-12 this season, the renaissance of West Coast basketball also is no coincidence.

Forgive me, but I'm rooting for the story: John Beilein and Michigan

As always, big bonus bucks in store for Sweet 16 coaches

Next up for West Virginia's press: Gonzaga

Oregon different, still dangerous, without Chris Boucher

Just five years ago the Pac-12 bottomed out, placing just two teams in the NCAA tournament, with its tournament champion Colorado earning a No. 11 seed and its only at-large, California, getting sent to Dayton for the First Four. At that time, the Mountain West boasted a far more compelling basketball product with San Diego State, New Mexico and UNLV all nationally relevant thanks largely to players Pac-12 programs overlooked or didn’t successfully recruit.

But since then, eight of the 12 schools in the Pac-12 have changed head coaches, the conference has re-established a regular presence on ESPN and scheduling has been more carefully crafted to maximize potential NCAA bids. The Pac-12 wanted to get better in basketball and it has, placing seven teams in the tournament last year and four this year, all of which advanced to the Round of 32.

“The Mountain West for a long time was doing a great job out-evaluating the Pac-12,” said Josh Gershon, a Los Angeles-based recruiting analyst for Scout.com. “If you looked at USC’s roster when Andy Enfield took over they had more kids from Serbia than Los Angeles. You see the Pac-12 operating at much higher level than it was a decade ago.”

BRACKET:  Track the tournament

Part of the Pac-12’s problem is that its schools are largely bereft of national cachet outside of traditional powers UCLA and Arizona. When those schools were down at the beginning of this decade — UCLA because Ben Howland’s style had become ineffective, Arizona because it was still transitioning out of the Lute Olson era — the Pac-12 had little depth to support a big-time basketball product.

Now both programs are back to operating at a high level, with UCLA dominating the Southern California recruiting circuit and Arizona building a roster of elite players that spans from Los Angeles to New York and Finland to Australia, reflecting a coaching staff with East Coast roots that has adapted to the West.

“You have to go national and international because when UCLA is rolling, when USC is rolling, it’s tough to beat them,” said Arizona assistant Emanuel “Book” Richardson, who coached the famed New York Gauchos AAU program before breaking into the Division I college ranks in 2004. “The state of California is key for us, but there’s a lot of competition. If we can cast a net nationally, you start saying, hey, if I can recruit against an SEC school for a kid in SEC country, you’re different. You don’t sound like everyone else.”

Similarly, Gonzaga assistant Tommy Lloyd has become renowned in the coaching industry for his prowess recruiting internationally, landing players such as Kelly Olynyk out of Canada, Elias Harris from Germany, Domantas Sabonis from Lithuania and current center Przemek Karnowski from Poland.

But Gonzaga’s best player this year, guard Nigel Williams-Goss, is representative of the new normal for top players on the West Coast. Growing up in Oregon, Williams-Goss moved to Las Vegas as a high school freshman to attend Findlay Prep, the first West Coast prep school to mimic the Oak Hill Academy model of bringing in elite talent from across the country and playing a national schedule.

“I think it was a big outlet for us kids on the West to go to a top prep school but not have to travel so far,” Williams-Goss said. “I think it was just really good for prep school players to have an opportunity to play at that level out here, and obviously, with the record of producing high-level Div. 1 players, it kind of works out for everyone.”

Eight clutch players who could be game-changers and lead Sweet 16 victories

Baylor basketball looks to inspire school amid continuing scandal

North Carolina players stay patient, stick with program in quest for titles

Arizona has been a beneficiary of Findlay Prep’s proximity, with players such as Nick Johnson, Brandon Ashley and current star Allonzo Trier making the trek from Las Vegas to Tucson.

“It gave the West Coast something they didn’t have,” Richardson said. “It gave them a legitimate prep school situation that modeled what was happening in the East. They’ve been tremendous for us. If you’re fortunate enough to go to Findlay Prep as a student-athlete it prepares you for the next level.”

Some of the Pac-12’s more recent struggles may be rooted in television exposure issues combined with long-held stereotypes of West Coast players as soft. Though the Pac-12 has a strong presence on ESPN now, with 46 games on the network per year as opposed to just a handful before they signed a deal in 2011, it’s simply difficult for much of the country to stay up late enough to watch its product.

Any preconceived notions, however, have been turned upside down in this tournament as the Pac-12 has thrived while both the ACC and Big East have struggled.

What makes Gonzaga different from every other NCAA Sweet 16 team

The beard game is strong for Gonzaga's Przemek Karnowski

“I just think it comes from ESPN, all the writers from the East coast. They’re not staying up at 11 o’clock to watch our 8 o’clock games.” Oregon forward Jordan Bell said. "They’re going to sleep. They have their day job, which I understand. But I feel like our California state alone, our best five could kill any best five from any other state. I don’t know why people think we’re soft.”

Miller, who grew up in Pittsburgh and spent his whole career in the Eastern time zone before taking the Arizona job, also bristles at the “soft” label attached to the West Coast (even though his backup point guard, Los Angeles native Parker Jackson-Cartright, said he likes to use it as a motivator).

“There are some really skilled players in the East or Midwest that are not physical and soft, and there are some incredibly physical, tough-minded, non-skilled players in the West,” Miller said. “We’re in San Jose, and Aaron Gordon (who played at Archbishop Mitty High School here before going on to Arizona and the Orlando Magic) didn’t lack for toughness or physicality. The Pac-12 does not get enough credit for the amazing amount of talent that has gone through. You had (five) players from the Pac-12 in this year’s NBA All-Star game. My first or second year at Arizona, if you went to Washington and Washington State in two games in three days, you would run into Isaiah Thomas and Klay Thompson back-to-back. Not all of them grew up in the West, but this year is another example if you look at the teams that remain in the tournament.”

MEET THE SWEET 16 TEAMS