NCAA Tournament: The East Coast Bias is Alive and Well

The Pac-12 Conference has been consistently neglected by the national media. That should change this March, especially with the inclusion of Arizona Basketball.

While the West Coast hasn’t had a Final Four representative since the 2008 UCLA Bruins, the Pac-12 hasn’t had a shortage of talented players and quality teams. You can look at Arizona Basketball alumni or even Washington with Isaiah Thomas is a star on the Celtics.

As the lone Zona Zealots contributor currently living on the East Coast, it hasn’t been easy being a Cats fan. Apart from the fact that they haven’t made the Final Four since 2001 and that I haven’t seen them play live since February 2nd, 2013 in Pullman against the Washington State Cougars, I’ve also had to deal with being two to three hours apart from them for the past three seasons.

With my circadian rhythms thrown off for the past week due to late nights watching the Cats in the Pac-12 Tournament, I was pretty furious to see that Joe Lunardi only had three teams from the conference making the field of 68 in his last Bracketology.

I understand that the games are unreasonably late, but has he been watching this conference at all? If not, it would be somewhat forgivable, but nonetheless, for someone who is considered an authoritative figure of sorts on predicting brackets, it is disappointing to see Lunardi either neglects to watch the Pac-12 or thinks so lowly of the conference. Additionally, the committee didn’t do much more for the conference as only four teams were included in the bracket.

While some fans may like how underrated the conference is in general across major collegiate athletics because it gives us a chip on our shoulders, I would argue that within any sport where a selection committee is necessary for determining postseason matchups, the process is directly detrimental to a Pac-12 team’s chances in the postseason. Not only is there a bias that is developed, there is a reluctance to view West Coast athletics in a positive light.

More from Wildcats Basketball

• Arizona Basketball likely to schedule Florida Atlantic for 2023
• Rondae Hollis-Jefferson’s FIBA World Cup performance is reminiscent of Kobe Bryant’s
• Rawle Alkins a star in the Drew League this summer
• Arizona Basketball to play in ‘Battle 4 Atlantis’ in 2024
• Reflections on the Pac-12, the Arizona Wildcats, and other memories

The bias develops in a cyclical manner: given that most major sports media corporations are established in the East Coast and have deep roots and ties with select colleges, there is the comfort with familiarity and proximity when covering these schools’ collegiate athletics.

For example, I’m sure the reason why ESPN chose to go in depth about why Syracuse deserved to be in the tourney was because many of their employees have ties to the Newhouse School, not because an 18-win team that went 2-11 on the road would actually deserve an invitation to the tournament unless they were based in Syracuse, New York.

Furthermore, these networks schedule west coast prime time games very late on the east coast. It’s understandable to fill out a programming grid with later west coast games and I especially enjoyed this when I was living on Pacific time; however, if the national media chooses to push west coast games to a later time, then they must follow up and watch these games as well.

It is lazy for any committee that claims to be national to neglect a whole coast of basketball just because they don’t want to stay up too late. The fans do it and so should the media professionals, given that it is their job.

As it would turn out, USC (24-9) snuck in as a play-in team to give the conference four representatives in the tourney. However, the fact that a 24 win-team’s candidacy was even up for debate is disappointing because it shows how lowly the nation, specifically the East Coast, thinks of the Pac-12 in general. The conference as a whole should be viewed as a “Conference of Champions” to cite Bill Walton, since they lead the country in total national championships by a wide margin.

UCLA, Stanford and USC lead the nation in championship tallies and each have more than 100 national championships. For reference, the next best school is Oklahoma State and they (only) have 51 championships to date.

The conference has a strong chance to add another championship this season with their current representatives in March Madness. Naturally Arizona, Oregon and UCLA have asserted themselves within this conference with impressive resumes altogether, but even so, their consistent top-10 national rankings in the AP Poll didn’t seem to amount too much as they were seeded with two and three seeds.

Instead, the Gonzaga Bulldogs claimed the top seed in the West region, a formality that seemed to be decided ever since the Zags beat a shorthanded Cats team earlier on in the season.

Ultimately, the Cats selection as a two seed in the West region along with Gonzaga shouldn’t negatively influence a potential Arizona run by much. Furthermore, by underrating the Bruins and Ducks in other regions, I feel as though the committee has inadvertently set up other overrated teams with potentially difficult matchups at some point in the tournament.

I believe that this underestimation will lead to a very strong March from all of the Pac-12 teams. 2017 is the first time since the 1990s that the National Championship will be played out west and if one of the four teams can somehow navigate their way to the Final Four in Glendale, the national media will be forced to reconsider the true pedigree of this conference. Hopefully, this means earlier games next season for all of the Pac-12 fans living on the East Coast.

Next: Five Keys to Cutting Down the Nets in Phoenix

Our conference’s respect must be earned and I strongly believe it will be later this month and in early April. Without further adieu, sit back, relax and enjoy the best time of the year. Not only is it March Madness, it’s time to #BackthePac and Bear Down.