Tuesday, February 12, 2002
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WAC’s Benson Karl Benson was in the "War Room" for the first time last week at the NCAA headquarters in Indianapolis. The Western Athletic Conference commissioner, in his inaugural year on the NCAA Men's Basketball Selection Committee, got his first look at how the 65-team field will be chosen less than four weeks from now.
crawls into NCAA
selection bunker
The commissioner is learning
the wacky way of choosing
the March tourney fieldBy Cindy Luis
cluis@starbulletin.com"It was more of a training exercise than anything else," Benson said in a telephone call from his Denver office yesterday. "There are two of us who are new members so it was the first opportunity to see how the room is set up, how the boards are used to show the automatic berths and at-large berths.
"We played with some hypotheticals and it helped us to begin to understand the whole process."
Although Benson could not confirm that the hypotheticals included WAC teams, he did say that two teams with the best shots at making the NCAA Tournament are current conference co-leaders Hawaii and Tulsa.
"I think we have two very strong teams in those two," Benson said. "But other teams could win the (WAC) tournament. You can't rule out Fresno State, SMU, Louisiana Tech ... and Nevada beat Fresno twice.
"There is still time for teams to play their way in or play their way out. How many teams the WAC gets in likely will hinge on the outcome of our tournament."
The WAC received just two slots last year, which went to Fresno State and tournament champion Hawaii. The Rainbows' upset of favored Tulsa relegated the Golden Hurricane to the NIT, which Tulsa ended up winning.
Benson said he's been very disappointed by the lack of attention given to WAC teams in the polls. He felt Hawaii was about to break into the Top 25 until Saturday's 61-57 loss at Louisiana Tech.
"I think the validity of the polls are in question right now," he said.
A case in point is Ohio State, which lost both of its games last week. Despite that, the Buckeyes went from No. 22 to No. 20 in the ESPN/USA Today Coaches Poll.
Adding to the credibility problem was the issue with Utah's Rick Majerus two weeks ago. He has lost his vote after it was discovered he had given the voting duties to an assistant, who had been ranking a sub-.500 Temple team as high as No. 10.
In this week's polls, Hawaii received 33 points and remained at No. 30. In the AP poll, the Rainbows picked up four points and were at No. 40.
Fresno State's big win over Oklahoma State got them 16 points in the AP poll with Tulsa receiving 14 points. In the ESPN poll, Tulsa received six points and Fresno State none.
The WAC's representative on the coaches' poll is Rice coach Willis Wilson.
Benson will only get to see the March 5 first-round games of the WAC Tournament in Tulsa. He will spend the rest of the week in Indianapolis with the selection committee.
"That's the downside of being on the committee," he said. "It will be the first time in 12 years that I haven't seen the tournament through. "Being on the committee is a lot of work but it's good experience and it's going to be fun."
Benson has been assigned to the West region during the NCAA Tournament. He'll be at Sacramento for the first-round games March 14-16 at the ARCO Arena, then at the March 21-23 West Regional in San Jose, Calif.
If he had his choice, Hawaii coach Riley Wallace would like to be playing in St. Louis.
"I think we'd have a lot of fans from here go with that direct TWA flight there," Wallace said yesterday. "My hometown is only an hour away so I know there'd be friends and family.
"But probably the best place for Hawaii fans would be for us to go to Sacramento."
Wallace gave his team yesterday and today off to concentrate on school work and recuperate from the week-long road trip. It was a long trip home for the Rainbows on Sunday, getting up at 5 a.m. for a 7 a.m. flight from Shreveport, La., to Denver. From Denver, Hawaii flew into Los Angeles and then to Honolulu, arriving at 8:30 p.m.
"We are tired and it has nothing to do with age," he said. "It was a long trip.
"Being home this week will help. We'll take a few days off and then prepare for San Jose State."
The Rainbows, whose RPI is holding at 50, face the only team to beat them during the first round of conference play Saturday at the Stan Sheriff Center. Hawaii finishes out its home schedule with games against Tulsa on Feb. 21 and Rice on Feb. 23.
On Wallace's agenda yesterday was accompanying senior guard Mike McIntyre to the Honolulu Quarterback Club's weekly meeting. McIntyre was the group's Sportsman of the Month for January.
On the bubble: ESPN.com's Joe Lunardi mentions seven teams from mid-major conferences that have good chances of being selected for at-large berths should they not win their respective conference tourneys. Hawaii is one, as well as Gonzaga, Pepperdine, Western Kentucky, Kent State, Utah State and Ball State.
In his mock bracket, Lunardi has dropped Hawaii from a No. 9 seed in the first round at Dallas against Southern Cal to a No. 10 seed in the first round at Albuquerque against Syracuse. Should his latter prediction come true, it would mean the Rainbows would face the Orangemen for the third time in as many NCAA appearances.