Monson Dislikes Wcc Format
On one front, tonight’s 7:30 West Coast Conference men’s basketball game between Gonzaga University and Portland at Martin Centre means everything.
On another, it means next to nothing.
The incongruity perplexes first-year GU coach Dan Monson, who is trying to keep his league-leading Bulldogs (18-7 overall, 7-3 in the WCC) focused on winning the regular-season WCC championship, while realizing the title means little as far as the conference tournament crown and automatic NCAA berth that accompanies it is concerned.
“It’s an injustice, what our league is doing,” Monson said Tuesday, prior to putting his Bulldogs through their final practice in preparation for tonight’s crucial matchup against third-place Portland (13-9, 6-4). “You should protect your league champions a little bit better than we do.
“That you spend two months determining who gets the right to wear their home uniforms on someone else’s floor just isn’t fair.”
Unlike most conferences that play their league tournaments at either a neutral site or the home of the regular-season champion, the WCC stages its tournament at the home arena of one of its schools. The site is determined before the season, which means the only advantage to winning the regular-season title is the No. 1 seeding into the tournament and the right to wear white home uniforms throughout.
And with the WCC as balanced as it usually is, even seeding seems irrelevant, considering the tournament’s No. 1 seed has been eliminated in the first round the past three years.
Top-seeded Santa Clara lost in the first round of last year’s tournament to eighth-seeded Loyola Marymount, which was wearing dark uniforms but playing at home as host of the event.
GU, which currently shares first place with Santa Clara (16-6, 7-3), would seem to have the inside track to this year’s regular-season title, considering it plays three of its last four games at home, where it is 9-0 this season. But even if the Bulldogs claim the championship, they must travel to Santa Clara’s Toso Pavilion later this month for the tournament.
“It’s just ridiculous that the battle for the (regular-season) championship means very little in our tournament.”
Monson said he would rather see the league play the first round of the tournament at the home arenas of the highest-seeded teams and stage the semifinals and finals at a neutral site in home city of one of the league schools.
, DataTimes