As it turns out, Pac-12 basketball is quality entertainment even without Bill Walton at the microphone.
That is a recent development.
For years you needed to see Walton borrow the Cal band’s glockenspiel. You needed to hear him speculate on life inside a tornado, fondly recall the golden years (or decades) of the Grateful Dead, pay homage to the entirety of Silicon Valley and repeatedly mention the “Conference of Champions,” just to assure your eyes that you weren’t wasting their time.
The subterranean level of play made a mockery of the “power conference” concept. So did the crowds and the general interest.
The 2010 season finished with absolutely no Pac-10 teams in the final AP Top 25 poll. Same thing in 2012. The next year, there was no Pac-12 teams among the top 10 seeds in the NCAA tournament, which means the selection committee didn’t think anybody deserved to be in the top 40.
In 2011 the highest-seeded Pac-12 team was eighth.
The onset of the Pac-12 Network seemed a godsend. At last, most of the basketball would be shown on a network that hardly anybody could see.
Now there’s been such a turnaround that you don’t mind it when more earthbound commentators show up. Not that we wouldn’t prefer The Redhead, but actual basketball has been spotted, tagged and curated in the Pacific Time Zone.
On Saturday the tournament selection committee announced its current Top 16 seeds, just to stir the pot. Oregon was a 2 seed, Arizona a 3 and UCLA a 4.
Last season Oregon was a 1 seed, Utah a 3 and Cal a 4. The Bears were ambushed by Hawaii in the first round, but Oregon won its way to the West Region final, where it lost to Oklahoma in Anaheim.
Those who vote on the national polls think even more highly of the Conference of Ex-Champions. They have Oregon, Arizona and UCLA all listed among the top 10 nationally. The last season that three conference teams actually finished that way was 1981, when Oregon State was second, Arizona State third and UCLA 10th.
So this has been quite a renaissance. It also doesn’t include Cal, Utah and USC, all of whom have shots at the tournament.
The Pac-12 won’t convince everybody that it isn’t just a water polo and volleyball haven until it actually makes noise in the NCAAs. No league team has made the Final Four since 2008. That was the third of UCLA’s three consecutive visits when Ben Howland was coaching.
Arizona has lost three regional finals with Sean Miller coaching. Two were to Wisconsin in back-to-back seasons.
Arizona is the last Pac-10 or Pac-12 team to actually win an NCAA tournament, when Miles Simon and the Wildcats stunned defending champion Kentucky in overtime. That was only 20 years ago.
In the semifinals, Arizona defeated North Carolina in what turned out to be Dean Smith’s final game.
In any event, the conference should get more fortunate seeding than in any season since 2008, when UCLA was a 1, Stanford a 3 and Washington State a 4.
This particular Pac-12 surge is fueled by highly watchable players.
In the latest NBADraft.net projection, there are five Pac-12 players in the first 13 picks, including the top two: Washington’s Markelle Fultz and UCLA’s Lonzo Ball. They’re followed by Arizona’s Lauri Markkanen, UCLA’s T.J. Leaf (13th) and Cal’s Ivan Rabb.
Fultz, Ball, Markkanen and Leaf are freshmen and, if all four leave, one might expect a Pac-12 recession next season. Not necessarily. UCLA welcomes LiAngelo Ball, the second of the brothers, along with five-star recruits Jaylen Hands and Kris Wilkes. Arizona has 7-foot DeAndre Ayton, maybe the top incoming freshman next season. USC activates Derryck Thornton, a transfer point guard from Duke.
Besides, three of last season’s top 10 picks in the draft were Pac-12ers: Cal’s Jaylen Brown, Washington’s Marquese Chryss and Utah’s Jakob Poeltl, and the league managed to recover.
The Pac-12 schools are keeping most of the good homegrown players home. They’re also raiding the rest of North America. Three of Oregon’s top players are Canadians, Fultz is from the D.C. area, and Arizona State’s Torian Graham is from Durham, N.C.
Stanford has a chance to be relevant again with new coach Jerod Hasse. Oregon will always be trouble, thanks to the inspired decision to shun the famous names and hire the relentlessly solid Dana Altman from Creighton.
So the Pac-12 might ride this cycle for years, might even embody its brand name someday. But it will never be too big for Big Red, or a shovelful of his own Temecula dirt.
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