Pepperdine Is ‘At Home’ in 1986 NCAAs

Pepperdine Coach Jim Harrick was busy telling everyone Sunday to support his Waves in the opening round of the NCAA basketball tournament.

As one of the few representatives from the West Coast, Pepperdine is at “home” for a first-round game with Maryland next Friday at the Long Beach Arena.

“Tell everyone from the South Bay, Pepperdine, UCLA and Morningside High School to come to Long Beach to welcome the Terrapins,” Harrick said, obviously happy that his Waves will not have to travel at the outset of the NCAA tournament as they have in the past.

Harrick coached at Morningside High and was an assistant coach at UCLA before becoming Pepperdine’s coach in the 1979-80 season.

Pepperdine, champion of the West Coast Athletic Conference with an 25-4 overall record, was automatically accorded a bid in the field of 64 announced on Sunday.

But the selection committee snubbed the Pacific 10. Only Arizona, the conference champion, and runner-up Washington will represent the league in the NCAA tournament.

California, which beat Washington twice during the season, and finished third in the conference with an 19-9 overall record, was ignored by the selection committee.

It wasn’t surprising, though, considering that the quality of Pac-10 basketball has fallen off dramatically since UCLA’s domination in the 1960s and part of the ‘70s.

As an an example, four Pac-10 teams--USC, Washington, Arizona and Oregon State--were included in the field last year and all were eliminated in the first round.

There weren’t any surprises in the seedings. Duke, St. John’s, Kansas and Kentucky were given No. 1 seeds in each of the four regionals--East, West, Midwest and Southeast.

The strong Atlantic Coast Conference placed six teams in the tournament--Duke, Georgia Tech, North Carolina, Virginia, North Carolina State and Maryland.

That figure was was matched by the Big Ten, with champion Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan State and Purdue getting bids.

The six tournament entries from one conference ties an NCAA record established last year by the Big East, which placed three teams in the Final Four.

The Big East got four bids this year--St. John’s, Georgetown, defending NCAA champion Villanova and Syracuse--while the Big Eight surprisingly earned five berths--Kansas, Oklahoma, Iowa State, Missouri and Nebraska.

The NCAA tries to balance the regionals with comparatively strong teams. As a result, the West Regional at Ogden, Utah, and Long Beach, will feature such heavyweights as St. John’s, North Carolina, Louisville, Bradley and Maryland.

St. John’s (30-4), with Walter Berry, recipient of this year’s John Wooden award as college basketball’s best player, will play Montana State (14-16) Friday at the Long Beach Arena.

A Western team hasn’t won its own regional since UCLA got to the NCAA final in the 1979-80 season.

Moreover, this year there aren’t many Western representatives in the tournament. Nevada Las Vegas (31-4), which automatically qualified as the champion of the Pacific Coast Athletic Assn., will be in Long Beach with Pepperdine. The Rebels meet Northeast Louisiana (20-9) in a first-round game Friday.

Arizona (23-8) will also be in Long Beach. The Wildcats, who were picked to finish eighth in the Pac-10 in a pre-season coaches’ poll, will meet Auburn (19-10) Friday.

Washington (19-11) will play Michigan State (21-9) Thursday at Dayton, Ohio, in a first-round Midwest Regional game.

First and second round winners will then move on to Houston (West), Kansas City (Midwest), Atlanta (Southeast) and East Rutherford, N.J., (East) for regional semifinal and final games scheduled March 20 through March 23.

Dallas is the site for the Final Four games March 29 and 31.

This will be Pepperdine’s seventh appearance in the NCAA tournament and fourth since Harrick became coach.

“I find it incredible that we drew another ACC team in the first round,” Harrick said. “What are the odds. It is beyond comprehension.”

Pepperdine played North Carolina State in a first-round game in 1983 and was matched against Duke last year. The Waves lost both games.

The loss to North Carolina State was particularly bitter since Pepperdine had a six-point lead in the first overtime of a double overtime game before losing, 69-67.

Jim Valvano’s Wolfpack went on to win the NCAA championship and Harrick has often said jokingly that Valvano should give him 10% of all the money he earned from post-season appearances.

Harrick was slightly disappointed that his team was seeded 12th in the West Regional but that slight was tempered by the fact that the Waves will only have to travel down Pacific Coast Highway from their campus in Malibu for a first-round game.

Maryland will be a formidable opponent. The Terrapins are led by 6-8 All-American forward Len Bias. Lefty Driesell’s team was eliminated by Georgia Tech, 64-62, Saturday in the semifinals of the ACC tournament.

Harrick noted that two of his team’s four losses this season were to top-seeded teams, Kansas and Kentucky.

Asked to compare this year’s team with others that he has coached into the NCAA playoffs, Harrick said:

“This team would compare favorably with our 1982 team. We had a control man in the middle then in Orlando Phillips. We don’t have that control man now, but we have an unbelievable winner in (guard) Jon Korfas.”

Pepperdine also has other skilled players, including guard Dwayne Polee, the WCAC’s Most Valuable Player this season.

The Waves concluded their regular season Wednesday night with an 87-82 victory over Loyola Marymount to wind up with a 13-1 league record.

“We’re not just glad that we’re in the tournament this year,” Harrick said. “We’ve come to play.”

NCAA Tournament Notes

Among schools failing to get invitations were 20-game winners Boston University, Middle Tennessee, Ohio University, Tennessee Chattanooga, Texas A&M;, Texas Christian and Wyoming. . . . Texas Tech got the automatic bid for the Southwest Conference by defeating Texas A&M;, 67-63, in the league tournament’s final game. . . . The Southwest was the only major conference to place only one team in the tournament. “The strength of schedule hurt them,” said Dick Schultz, selection committee chairman. Schultz said that there were several teams that were on the fence the past week but which made the tournament with some big late-season wins, notably DePaul.