Mountain region teams seek respect

Steve Addy

Friday, March 17, 2000 | 10:56 a.m.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Here in the South, as in most parts of the country, UNLV is synonymous with Jerry Tarkanian and Larry Johnson, not Bill Bayno and Mark Dickel.

Nor do the fine folks of Music City know anything in particular about Tulsa, though the Golden Hurricane's 29 victories tied for the most in the NCAA this season and the team has appeared in six of the last seven NCAA Tournaments.

But such ignorance should come as no surprise. Regardless of the outcome of today's UNLV-Tulsa game in the first round of the NCAA South Regional, the winner will be carrying the banner for a region whose basketball prowess has long been marginalized by the college hoops establishment and casual fans.

Especially after the Western Athletic Conference broke in half last year, resulting in the eight-team Mountain West and a less-imposing WAC, both conferences find themselves fighting for the acclaim they feel they deserve.

Each emerged with two NCAA invitees -- UNLV and Utah of the Mountain West, Tulsa and Fresno State of the WAC -- despite neither having an automatic berth. But Tulsa received a disappointing No. 7 seed, and the Rebels had to hear Dick Vitale tell a national TV audience they shouldn't have gotten in ahead of Virginia, Vanderbilt or Bowling Green.

But it must be noted that all three of those teams lost their NIT openers, including BYU's 81-54 hammering of Bowling Green; MWC member New Mexico was a first-round NIT winner over South Florida; and Utah won its NCAA opener Thursday night, counteracting a loss by Tark's Fresno State squad.

All in all, it has been a pretty decent week on the court for the Mountain West and the WAC, in case anybody east of the Mississippi is interested.

"I think both conferences are underexposed," Tulsa coach Bill Self said. "In the WAC, we are even more underexposed because the Mountain West has a Big Monday (contract) with ESPN. The WAC is basically TV-less, and I think TV keys everything from an exposure standpoint. If we weren't ranked in the top 25 for the last 12 or 13 weeks, no one would know anything about us."

But it's about more than getting on TV. Unless you've journeyed to Laramie, Wyo., in a snowstorm to play in the highest altitude in college basketball (7,220 feet), there's no way you can know how hard it is for Mountain West teams to win there.

Unless you've flown to Hawaii, played on Thursday night, then endured a six-hour flight to play at San Jose State on Saturday night, you can't fully appreciate how tough it was for Tulsa to sweep that WAC trip this season.

"I don't think anybody knows, except for the teams that have to do it," UNLV coach Bill Bayno said. "I've said all along that no one realizes how tough these conferences are. You don't get credit for how hard it is to win at New Mexico, Colorado State and Wyoming.

"In the past, you would get credit for winning at New Mexico, but Wyoming and Colorado are two teams that win 20 every year, and now you can add BYU to that mix. Bowling Green is a team that had a lot to play for, to prove they should have made the tournament, and so did South Florida, and they both lost (to Mountain West teams).

"And I guarantee there is not one team in the NIT that could beat Wyoming at Wyoming, and they didn't even make the field."

The Cowboys had a 12-1 record in their own arena, including a 27-point rout of Utah and an easy 109-98 victory over UNLV.

Self said, "Teams that haven't made that trek certainly don't understand playing in Laramie on Thursday, then Fort Collins (Colo.) Saturday. The altitude and the travel make (the MWC) a more difficult road league than a lot of teams have.

"Both leagues are good and solid, and I think it's unfortunate that things could not be worked out so that they could stay together, because together I think it would be a fabulous league."

ESPN and CBS analyst Jimmy Dykes, an Arkansan who worked most of the Mountain West's Big Monday games, has become a proponent of the league's quality.

"People have no idea how tough it is to win at Wyoming or to make that Hawaii trip," he said. "That's why the Mountain West (and WAC) don't get the respect they deserve.

"A lot of it has to do with the time zone. The games come on TV at midnight back East, so fans there might not see a lot of the teams and know how good they are.

"But (the Mountain West) is a good league and it shouldn't take long to get even better. There are too many good coaches, too many good programs, too many good facilities. Even at San Diego State, there's real potential."