Wcc Sees Nothing But Balance But Coaches Give Slight Advantage To Nash-Led Santa Clara Broncos

Naturally, coaches will trumpet their own league without shame.

Best ever, they’ll say, all the while hoping that alums will remember that if the Ls outnumber the Ws come March.

It happens every season.

Coaches of West Coast Conference men’s basketball teams, however, have some impressive numbers to support their claims this time around.

During the pre-conference schedule, WCC teams put together a 60-32 record, going 50-32 against Division I opponents and, perhaps most impressively, going 5-5 in duels with their big brothers in the Pacific-10 Conference.

Four of the teams stand 9-3. And of those 48 total contests - only one resulted in a loss at home.

Best ever.

And if the coaches of the conference united in a single sentiment during their annual conference call with the media, it was this: players better lace them up tight since it’s going to be 14 tough nights before the conference tournament.

No gimmes.

“I think the league, from top to bottom, is exceptional,” GU coach Dan Fitzgerald said, pointing to last year’s opening round of the league tournament. “Look at last year, (last-place) Loyola Marymount beats (conference champ) Santa Clara at their place. That’s a helluva last-place team.”

Santa Clara coach Dick Davey sees that sort of parity being even more pronounced this year.

“We’re surely in a conference where that cliche that anybody can beat anybody applies,” Davey said. “The conference had a great preseason. We’re not always able to recruit the so-called better athletes in this conference, yet we held up pretty well against outside competition.”

Nobody held up better than Santa Clara, though, whose 9-3 record includes stunning wins over UCLA, Michigan State and Georgia Tech. The Broncos need not be too depressed over their three losses, considering they were to No. 7 Villanova (12-1), No. 20 Penn State (11-0) and Marquette (8-2).

“What it looks like to me is there’s a lot of good teams with one team being better than everybody else - and that’s because they have one guy who is better than everybody else,” Fitzgerald said, referring to the Broncos’ All-America candidate, Steve Nash.

Nash - finally a senior - was the conference’s player of the year last season as he led the league in scoring (20.9) and assists (6.4).

At Gonzaga last year, he pumped in 40 points to almost single-handedly snap the Bulldogs’ 34-game home-court winning streak.

But according to Fitzgerald, the game he put together in the next meeting - 24 points, 10 assists and no turnovers - “was as good a performance as any guard has ever had against us.”

While all coaches seem happy to saddle the Broncos with the tag of favorite, “I don’t think there’s any of us who are afraid to play them,” said Fitzgerald, whose 13 years in the league are equal to the service of all other league coaches combined.

They shouldn’t be afraid.

Consider that two of GU’s losses were narrow decisions against Pac10 foes Washington State and Washington.

Loyola Marymount, meanwhile, has notched wins over UNLV and Southern California. San Francisco defeated Stanford; Portland topped Oregon State. And even Pepperdine, a team generally considered to have fallen to the league’s cellar, beat a solid Weber State club.

“I think Santa Clara and Saint Mary’s are still the teams to beat,” LMU coach John Olive said. “But like I and many of the other coaches have said, the entire league is very strong. Teams that the media feel are at the bottom of the league are actually much stronger than people realize and are capable of doing extremely well in conference.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color photo

MEMO: See related story under the headline: West Coast Conference