WCC puts faith in Las Vegas

By Ron Kantowski (contact)

Friday, March 6, 2009 | 2 a.m.

You’ve got to admire how Gonzaga and those other schools — which is how a lot of people refer to the West Coast Conference — do business.

For starters, the WCC hasn’t had a member come or go in nearly 30 years. If only the Dow Jones industrial average were that stable. Seattle University was the last to leave, in 1980. By then, Elgin Baylor had exhausted his eligibility, so it didn’t matter that much.

And what about the WCC’s decision to move its postseason basketball tournament ahead a week, so ESPN could show the championship game in prime time? For a mid-major conference seeking exposure and an additional NCAA tournament berth, that was brilliant.

For the WCC, it was bigger than Adam Morrison’s mustache, or whatever you called that wispy thing on his upper lip.

It makes you wonder where the Mountain West was when ESPN was looking for programming on a slow night for college hoops.

This weekend, the priests who run seven of the eight WCC schools have Zagged where others have zigged. They have agreed to play their marquee sporting event in a Las Vegas arena that — Oh, the humanity! — is connected to a Las Vegas casino by a hallway so long it makes the Polish Corridor look like a broom closet.

The tournament begins tonight and runs through Monday. Only a few individual session tickets remain, so if you are a transplanted Saint Mary’s or Santa Clara fan — or just want Neil Sedaka tickets — you had better get down to the Orleans box office pronto.

“They’re all faith-based schools and at first they were very nervous,” said Steve Stallworth, who as general manager of the Orleans Arena was the man most responsible for bringing the tournament to Las Vegas.

Stallworth has since moved on to a similar position at the South Point Equestrian and Events Center. But he is steadfast in believing the WCC won’t regret the decision to move the Gonzaga Invitational to the Orleans’ neutral court.

“I told them don’t worry about it,” he said. “It’s Vegas, people are going to come, and everything’s going to be fine.”

Jamie Zaninovich, the WCC’s first-year commissioner, who inherited what predecessor Michael Gilleran and Stallworth wrought, said the WCC was more excited than nervous about coming to Las Vegas — especially after selling every all-session ticket.

Choosing his words as carefully as Gonzaga coach Mark Few does his starting five, Zaninovich said many of the “elements” you find in Las Vegas you also find in other cities. “Maybe they’re a little more visible” here, he said.

“But it’s not like we don’t have teams that haven’t played in Las Vegas, or coaches who don’t recruit in Las Vegas during the summer.

“Our schools are values-based schools and we are confident those values will travel with us.”

And if they get left behind along with the rosary, there’s always confession on Tuesday morning. At least the WCC is well equipped to deal with widespread acts of contrition.

My guess is that like Kansas and Florida two seasons ago, and the other college teams that have played in the Orleans’ Thanksgiving and Christmas tournaments since, and the Nevada high school kids who played their state tournaments there last week, nobody will wind up going to H-E-double-hockey-sticks for having the audacity to play basketball in an arena that is connected to a casino.

Stallworth said the WCC tournament was intended to be the middle prong of a three-week hoop-a-palooza at the Orleans that would have had the high school boys’ and girls’ basketball tournaments firing jump shots on the first weekend, the WCC on the second and the Western Athletic Conference on the third.

The WAC had expressed interest in playing at the Orleans before the WCC. But Stallworth said a couple of the WAC presidents called the Church Lady — or at least WAC Commissioner Karl Benson — to state their concerns about interacting with the heathens who live here.

My guess is they were the same ones who so look forward to road trips to Reno to play WAC member UNR.

As Stallworth says, where this all should be leading is Las Vegas becoming an NCAA tournament site. But there are a lot of Church Ladies at NCAA headquarters, too.

Plus there’s a policy that says NCAA championships cannot be held in venues where sports wagering occurs.

Isn’t that special?

I might point out that Vegas casinos are places where games are closely monitored, because when a college kid tanks a free throw, it’s not good for local business.

Our sports books have Efrem Zimbalist Jr.’s number on speed dial. But instead of working with us, the NCAA always seems to plot against us.

“We’re not trying to knock down a door,” Zaninovich said, adding that the WCC is more interested in the Orleans’ neutral floor and its 7,845-seating capacity than ruffling feathers at NCAA headquarters.

“This just makes sense for us.”

(The only harm I can see in any of this is that by moving the tournament here, it had no chance of returning to Jenny Craig Pavilion on the University of San Diego campus. Nothing against the Carrier Dome and all those Assembly Halls but when it comes to naming college basketball arenas, it’s hard to beat the “Slim Gym.”)

As a concession to the WCC presidents, the Orleans won’t accept bets on the WCC games. And you won’t be able to buy a beer inside the arena.

“Those two things were very important to us,” Zaninovich said.

But if the priests who run the WCC are anything like the ones in my parish growing up, I don’t suspect they’ll have any trouble locating the casino lounges before tipoff.