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CORT Warehouse Supervisor Health Care Rio Salado College PA's/Online Instructors Construction Komatsu Equipment Co Mechanic General CORT WAREHOUSE/DRIVER Education Assessment Technology, Inc Social Studies Content Writer UA SportsA real claw-biter for WildcatsArizona sweats out being one of the last teams announced
Arizona Daily Star
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 03.17.2008
Five spots remained open toward the end of Sunday's NCAA tournament selection show, and only two of them could have logically fit the Arizona Wildcats.
UA interim head coach Kevin O'Neill, previously confident of his 19-14 team's chances for a 24th straight NCAA tournament bid, couldn't help his mind from racing.
The last "spots were left and I was like 'C'mon, now. We did play the best schedule. We did do …' " O'Neill said. "This was a little bit hair-raising for myself and my wife sitting at home watching."
So by the time O'Neill and his wife, Roberta, raced down to McKale Center 30 minutes later, the Wildcats' tournament streak alive with a No. 10 seed in the West Region despite a precarious month on the bubble, the sense of relief was palpable.
"It beats the alternative of being the guy who was coaching when they didn't continue the streak," O'Neill said. "I'll be honest with you: Those thoughts always run through your mind."
UA players were unavailable for comment Sunday and there was no formal team gathering for the show, but O'Neill said he was as excited as he's ever been in basketball Sunday in large part because of them. The Wildcats have rocked uneasily all season with key injuries and the puzzling season-long departure of head coach Lute Olson.
Now, the Wildcats have a first-round date with 7th-seeded West Virginia on Thursday in Washington, D.C., for the right to probably face second-seeded Duke in the second round on Saturday. Winner of that game goes to, of all places, Phoenix for the Sweet 16.
The season will get a chance to start over, after all.
"I'm ecstatic that these guys are still getting a chance to keep playing and keep practicing, and getting the chance to show who they are," O'Neill said. "I think we're going to work hard to try to get a win against West Virginia and then see where it goes from there."
West Virginia (24-10) was 11-7 in Big East play and lost 72-55 to Georgetown in the semifinals of the conference tournament on Friday.
Although O'Neill said he wouldn't know much about West Virginia until he started reviewing tapes Sunday night, he does know a lot about Mountaineers coach Bob Huggins. During the early 1990s, the two were friendly rivals in the Great Midwest Conference, with O'Neill at Marquette and Huggins at Cincinnati.
O'Neill's Warriors were 1-7 against Huggins' Bearcats from 1991-92 to 1993-94.
"I have great respect for Bob," O'Neill said. "He's one of the most underrated coaches in this game. Just look at his victory totals. He's a hell of a coach. They played very well in the Big East tournament and got better as the year went on, which I would expect of any Bob Huggins team. I guarantee they'll play their rear ends off. Guaranteed."
While the Mountaineers were one of a record-tying eight teams from the Big East to make the tournament field, the Pac-10 wound up getting six. UCLA was the top seed in the West, while Stanford (No. 3), Washington State (4), USC (6) and Oregon (9) also received bids.
However, ASU did not get in despite finishing ahead of the Wildcats in the Pac-10 at 9-9 and beating the UA twice.
Not surprisingly, ASU coach Herb Sendek said during his news conference Sunday that it was a "very disappointing moment for us" but took a typically analytical view of Arizona's advantage.
"It's merely a function of where you want to put weight in the equation," Sendek said. "If head-to-head competition doesn't weigh as heavily as the composition of your nonconference schedule, then there's a chance that Arizona goes in ahead of us, and that's obviously what happened."
O'Neill said he was disappointed, too.
"I feel for Herb and those guys, because they should be in," O'Neill said. "They're a damn good basketball team. It's hard to sit here and say that Arizona State shouldn't be in. It's also hard to sit here and say that we shouldn't be in."
The decision was made, committee chairman Thomas O'Connor said, not because of head-to-head competition but because of the entire season both teams scheduled and played.
Arizona finished with a No. 39 RPI, which is a power rating formula used by the selection committee, while ASU finished at 83 largely because of a nonconference strength of schedule that rated No. 296. The UA's nonconference schedule was No. 5.
ASU "had such high nonconference RPI as an individual team," O'Connor said on the selection show. "So that played into it."
The Wildcats also had a 15-6 record against Division I teams when guards Jerryd Bayless and Nic Wise were healthy, which helped their case. O'Neill said he figured the Wildcats would have probably won two or three more games had they been healthy all season.
Bayless missed four games around New Year's when he sprained a knee, and UA went 1-3 in his absence, while Wise missed seven from Feb. 10 to March 2 because of a torn meniscus. The Wildcats were 2-5 without Wise.
"It speaks to two things: Really, a lack of depth at the two guard spots, but also to how valuable those two guys are to our basketball team," O'Neill said. "I can't tell you how good it is to have Nic back. We're going to play good basketball. I don't know if we'll win or not, but we're going to play good basketball."
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