The Pacific-10 Conference and the Ivy League are the only Division I conferences that don’t have a postseason basketball conference tournament during the weekend between the regular season and the NCAA Tournament.
But if the Pac-10 presidents vote the way the Pac-10 athletic directors did this past week, that could soon very well change.
Last Wednesday, the conference’s athletic directors voted by an 8-2 margin in favor of such a tournament for both the men’s and women’s programs.
The recommendation was given to a panel made up of university presidents, who will vote on the proposal on Oct. 3. If eight of the 10 presidents approve and the measure gets through the Pac-10 council, the tournaments would go into effect in March of 2002.
“There’s still a ways to go, but this was a positive endorsement that could lead to it being a reality,” said Oregon athletic director Bill Moos, who is chair of the athletic director’s committee. “I think the prospects are very good that the plan we have will go into effect.”
There has long been concerns from some particular Pac-10 coaches, such as Arizona head coach Lute Olson, that a conference tournament would cut into class time. Moos, though, said that “when we put the pencil to it” class time wouldn’t be an issue because the Pac-10 schedule would move up one week into December, when students are still on winter vacation.
“The main positive with this is the exposure and the excitement,” Moos said. “The Pac-10 is always on the back-burner during that time of the year and with Fox Sports helping out, it could be great. Also, it would enable the Pac-10 to possibly get more berths in the NCAA Tournament.”
Oregon women’s head coach Jody Runge, however, is less than thrilled with such a proposal. She admits that she’s probably in the minority on the issue, but that she likes it just the way it is.
“I think there are a lot of unanswered questions,” Runge said. “Conceptually, yeah, it’s easy to jump on the bandwagon and say ‘Let’s go for it.’ But the logistics still need to be worked out.”
The main thing Runge wants to keep is the double-round robin schedule with all ten teams playing each other twice.
“I wouldn’t want to give up a non-conference game in December because those games help our RPI (Ratings Percentage Index),” Runge said. “But as long as we keep the round robin, I guess I could live with it.”
The two schools that voted against a Pac-10 tournament were Arizona and Stanford.
“Those schools are always in contention so they don’t want to have to prove themselves over and over,” Moos said. “But it offers excitement to the teams that have been struggling and gives them something to play for toward the end of the season.”