Columnist Ron Kantowski: Motormouth Vitale way out of line

Tuesday, March 14, 2000 | 10:50 a.m.

Ron Kantowski's column appears Tuesday and Thursday. Reach him at ron@vegas.com or 259-4088.

When it comes to college basketball, Dick Vitale has kissed more hind ends than a Chicago alderman with Mayor Daley (the old man) in the house. Rarely does he have anything negative to say about anything or anybody wearing baggy shorts or owning a shoe contract.

That's why it was so out of character to hear Dickie V. lambaste the NCAA men's basketball selection committee and in particular its chairman, Mountain West Conference commissioner Craig Thompson, for including the Rebels in the vaunted field of 64.

Maybe Vitale couldn't get comped for the Danny Gans show the last time he was in town to pimp his new book.

Not that Vitale doesn't make some solid points. Foremost among them is the Rebels don't have a single "quality" win. During a grilling that transformed the ESPN studios into a Midwestern back yard on Fourth of July weekend, Vitale scoffed when Thompson listed Georgetown and Princeton on UNLV's short list of quality out-of-conference victims.

Had I been Thompson, I would have mentioned the Rebels' win here over Utah, which then was ranked in the top 25, ahead of Georgetown and Princeton. But Thompson couldn't have anticipated Vitale's ambush. The MWC chief looked more startled than the sailors on the U.S.S. Arizona when those Zeros shattered the predawn silence at Pearl Harbor.

Vitale questioned Thompson's integrity or at least accused him of having a conflict of interest where the MWC teams and the tournament are concerned.

Later, in what appeared to be a rhetorical question, Vitale asked "If UNLV had played the schedule of (NCAA non-qualifiers) Virginia, Notre Dame and Vanderbilt, do you think they would've had the kind of quality wins (that those teams have)?"

Well, Dick, yes. I do think the Rebels would have beaten some of those teams at home -- if only they had gotten the chance to play them.

I'm not here to defend Bill Bayno's scheduling philosophy. In fact, I've been the first to criticize it. But it's getting to where MWC teams can't get a home game against a decent foe.

Simply put, it's a lose-lose situation for the powerhouse programs to come to Coors Country. The perception of the Mountain West, WAC, Big West, West Coast Conference, et al, as perpetuated by the East Coast media, is that we play outlet mall basketball.

Maybe that will explain why Utah can't get any of the blue bloods to visit the Huntsman Center. No. 15 Texas, No. 10 LSU and No. 9 St. John's were about the only name programs (unless you count Oklahoma State, which beat the Rebels here) bold enough to venture into the Mountain West this year. Utah beat Texas 79-73 while LSU downed Wyoming 103-86 and St. John's managed to top New Mexico's worst team in years, 70-62. Also worth noting is that UCLA and Colorado State met on a neutral court in Hawaii. CSU won 55-54.

Each of those games was competitive although nobody on the East Coast apparently noticed. The writers back there were either dreaming about the CCNY glory days or sipping their 12th cocktail by the time those games tipped off on ESPN2.

If quality wins count for so much, then Vitale and the others should be outraged that Wright State isn't in the tournament. After all, it beat Michigan State, the No. 1 seed in the Midwest, 54-49 on Dec. 30.