The 20th Big West Conference men's basketball tournament began this afternoon in the Las Vegas Thomas & Mack Center with UNLV - not so long ago the most-feared team in the NCAA - playing the opening game on a day reserved for those teams that finished seventh through 10th in regular-season play.
The Rebels, who won the Big West Tournament the first time they played in it (1983) and six times since, fell to their lowest-ever finish in the regular season, seventh. They faced the 10th seed, San Jose State, this afternoon for the right to play again on Friday.The other entry game today had No. 8 UC-Irvine playing No. 9 CS-Fullerton for the chance to meet the tournament's No. 1 seed, the Big West regular-season-champion Utah State Aggies at 7:05 p.m. MST Friday in a quarterfinal.
Utah State, which has won the Big West Tourney only once, in 1988, in one of a number of potential tourney champions in a postseason get-together that most coaches consider the most wide-open in years.
The league's coaches focused on the 14-4, 21-6 Aggies, 13-5, 22-8 New Mexico State Aggies and 13-5, 17-9 Long Beach State 49ers as the most likely to succeed this weekend.
"We really feel we're one of the teams that has a legitimate shot to win the tournament," says Long Beach coach Seth Greenberg, whose team lost at New Mexico State and UNLV on the final weekend of the regular season to allow USU to finish the undisputed champion.
Utah State's Larry Eustachy, just named Big West Coach of the Year, looked toward three others as well as the big three.
Nevada (12-6, 18-10) has a four-game win streak that includes USU and UNLV among its victims. "I wouldn't be surprised if Nevada won," says Eustachy, "and I wouldn't be surprised if Pacific (99-9, 14-12) beat Nevada (in a Friday quarterfinal)."
UNLV (7-11, 11-16) won two straight to end the season once Kebu Stewart was dismissed from the team for accepting NCAA-illegal gifts. "UNLV is playing its best basketball now," says Eustachy. "I'm glad we're on the other side of the bracket.
Even 6-12, 11-15 Irvine has some hope. The Anteaters, after all, knocked off No. 2 seed Utah State last year and went all the way to the championship game - and they were the 10th seed. Can history repeat? "I don't see why not," says coach Rod Baker. "We're coming in with better players.
Only the two entry games were scheduled Thursday. Friday, No. 2 seed New Mexico State meets the winner of UNLV-San Jose State at 1 p.m. MST as the quarterfinals begin. Long Beach plays l8-10, 13-13 Santa Barbara at 3:30 MST, No. 1 USU meets the Irvine-Fullerton winner at 7 MST and Nevada plays Pacific at 10 p.m. MST.
On Saturday, the upper-bracket winners play at 7:30 p.m. MST and the lower-bracket winners (USU's bracket) play at 9 p.m. MST. The championship is at 1:05 p.m. Sunday and will be televised tape-delayed at 2 by ESPN. Several of the quarter- and semifinals will be shown on ESPN2.