Coaches split over post season hoops tourney

Steve Carp

Wednesday, Oct. 14, 1998 | 10:13 a.m.

A year from now, the Mountain West Conference -- or whatever they're going to call it -- will be preparing for its first basketball season. And chances are whoever wins that inaugural season likely will get to go to the NCAA Tournament.

But nothing is guaranteed at this point. Especially since the NCAA has not yet waived the rule stating a new league must wait five years until it receives an automatic bid to the Big Dance.

If that's the case, why is the new league making noise about holding a postseason tournament?

Utah's Rick Majerus asks himself that question. And he doesn't like the answers.

Colorado State athletic director Tim Weiser said it's a chance for the new league to make money. UNLV coach Bill Bayno said the exposure and the chance to win another couple of games can be advantageous.

Majerus, in town for today's two-day Western Athletic Conference basketball media preview at the MGM Grand, dismisses such notions.

"First, it hasn't been a great revenue producer," he said of the WAC's postseason tournament, which will be held March 2-6 at the Thomas & Mack Center. "It's detrimental academically. You have to take kids out of school for a week. Then you have the risk of injury by playing more games.

"If you're a team that's already going (to the NCAAs) and you lose a game, it hurts you in the seedings. When we lost to Vegas (last year), it probably cost us a No. 1 seed. To me, it just doesn't make sense. And I think we'd be laughingstocks in front of the entire nation if we had a tournament with no automatic bid."

At some point, the new league will get an automatic into the field of 64. It's just a matter of when.

Conference USA had to wait two years instead of five as the NCAA granted that league an exemption. Given the strength and tradition of the eight schools that are leaving the WAC (UNLV, Utah, Brigham Young, New Mexico, Colorado State, Air Force, San Diego State and Wyoming), odds are the NCAA will grant an exemption.

But don't look for it to be automatic with the start of play in 1999.

Gene Corrigan, the former NCAA president who is serving as an adviser to the new league, said it would probably be a year, maybe two, before the automatic bid is given.

"I don't see it happening right away," Corrigan said of the decision that won't come until sometime next spring.

Bayno said a conference tourney could help get a third or fourth team a bid to the NCAAs.

"Extra games mean more chances to win," he said. "It gives you a chance to claim a championship.

"Let's say three teams are locks to go and a fourth team gets hot and wins the tourney. Maybe they get a shot to go as a bubble team and that helps the entire league.

"The goal should be to get as many teams in as you can and do what's best for the conference. The new league must do what's best for it financially."