Frieder Calls For Pac10 Tourney

The less-thanstoried history of the short-lived Pacific-10 Conference Men’s Basketball Tournament takes up less than two pages in the league’s 204-page media guide.

It lasted only four years - from 1987 through 1990 - and failed to produce a single surprise berth in the NCAA Tournament. UCLA won the inaugural event and Arizona captured the next three before the league’s presidents and chancellors jettisoned the tournament, claiming it put undue academic strain on the athletes involved.

Bill Frieder coached in only one of those tournaments after leaving a highly successful Michigan program to rebuild at Arizona State.

But he saw enough in that one year to decide that the tournament was good for the image of the league. And he has continued to speak out adamantly in favor of its resurrection, even though his Sun Devils’ postseason fortunes have flourished without it.

This year, because of the balance and abundance of top teams in the Pac-10, Frieder is more convinced than ever that the league made a big mistake by scrapping the event.

“If we had a tournament this year, any one of six or seven teams could win the thing,” he said.

Frieder, whose 15th-ranked Sun Devils (10-5 Pac-10, 20-7 overall) are an NCAA lock, contends that the additional games would give teams on the postseason bubble a better chance to impress the NCAA selection committee.