From: eastout@ugcs.caltech.edu (Eric A Stout)
Newsgroups: rec.sport.basketball.college
Subject: Re: BB vs Geography
Date: 23 Jan 1993 00:17:10 GMT
Organization: Caltech Undergraduate Computer Science
NNTP-Posting-Host: molest.ugcs.caltech.edu

In article <30335@optima.cs.arizona.edu> gln@cs.arizona.edu (Gary L. Newell) writes:
>
> West coast schools do not cheat in recruiting. They do not offer drugs and
>sleazy women to potential high school recruits, they do not threaten the
>lives of the player's family members should they choose not to attend. All
>of these things add up to why the West is out-recruited by the rest of the
>country and often loses its top players to other regions. Of course the fact
>that schools in the west require a player to actually attend class might
>add to the situation...
>
>			gln

Aack!  Cough, cough!  Okay, Gary, take your medicine...  There, is your brain
clearing up a little now?  You know, the NCAA has busted a lot of asses in the
last 20 years, and in a couple of cases (UNLV and Kansas spring to mind most
quickly) the bustees were NCAA champions.  But all in all, the above post by
Mr. Newell strikes me as unadulterated, holier-than-thou TRIPE.  The only three
schools that spring to my less than perfect mind which have won multiple 
championships since the UCLA dynasty era are Indiana, Louisville, and Duke.
Interesting, isn't it, that these three schools, too the best of my knowledge,
have NOTORIOUSLY clean records in terms of a lack of recruiting violations
during that time, and in the case of Indiana and Duke, excellent records in
terms of getting players to classes and getting them graduated.  No, I'm
afraid that the reason West Coast schools don't win many championships ISN'T
that players have to scale a cliff to reach the High Moral Ground upon which
those schools are located.
	I think there may be some merit to the argument that ESPN/television
has had an impact, by exposing prospective recruits to Eastern teams and by
the promise that THEY, the players, will likewise be exposed if they elect to
go east to play.  Though I would assert that huge amounts of college hoop on
TV is a phenomenon of the last decade, not of the entire period following the
decline of UCLA.  The only other blame I can assign falls on the coaches.
There have clearly been extremely talented teams on or near the left coast in
the last several years:  Arizona, with Sean Elliot et al, leaps to mind, as do
last year's UCLA chokers.  Certainly enough talent to win a championship; if
Villanova could do it in '85 with half the team high on cocaine, why not?  But
none of the coaches have been able to take them over the top.  Larry Brown gave
it a shot with UCLA, but didn't quite make it (which maybe explains why Kansas
got put on probation after they won the championship:  Brown HAD to cheat to
get one :-) ).  And besides that, recruiting is the coach's job, too.  For
Heaven's sake, if Bobby Knight can get players to stay in Bloomington, IN, of
all God-forsaken places, where one is in definite danger of encountering things
like WINTER, Lute Olson (Olsen?) should have an absolute field day recruiting
in Tucson, AZ!  But they just can't seem to convince the players that if they
go there, they have a shot at a title.
	Maybe it's the competition on the West Coast, the fact that while there
are usually two or three pretty darned good teams here, none (neither?) of the
conferences is ever stacked out like the Big Ten or the ACC.  The PAC-10 may
be strong at the top, but downright flaccid at the bottom.  And the Big West/
PCAA has traditionally been strong at the apex only.  The fact that the top
teams don't have top-level competition night in and night out in the conference
season leading up to the tournament may to some extent explain their early-ish
exits from the Dance.
	In any event, it turns my stomach to think that someone believes that
it is moral purity which has left West Coast college basketball at the feet of
the East and Midwest; I'm sure some more reasonable explanation will offer,
even if one doesn't care for the possibilities I've suggested.

Eric A. Stout
eastout@molest.ugcs.caltech.edu
(A translocated Hoosier, for anyone who wonders where my biases lie)

Newsgroups: rec.sport.basketball.college