Teams Set For Race To Madness

The college basketball season officially hits the postseason this week as conference tournaments get under way.

For many schools, this is the only chance to gain a berth in the NCAA tournament. And for those having successful seasons, this is a chance to improve their seeding.

The first of the 28 league tournament to get under way will be the Ohio Valley Conference on Tuesday. The first to finish and decide which team will earn an automatic bid will be the Trans America Athletic Conference, whose title game starts at 9 A.M. PST on Feb. 28. The Big South championship game begins the same day at 11 a.m.

Five tournaments - Atlantic Coast Conference, Big Ten, Big 12, Big West and Southeastern Conference - won’t end until March 8, which is Selection Sunday.

The ACC will have a new format this season with a doubleheader replacing the stand alone 8-9 game on Thursday, March 5. The two games that night will have No. 7 vs. No. 8 and No. 1 vs. No. 9.

If the top-seeded team wins, it receives a bye into the semifinals. If the ninth-seeded team pulls off the upset, it would play in the quarterfinals, while the second-seeded team gets the bye into the semis.

The tournament that could have the most interesting discussions about who’s seeded where is Conference USA. The top two teams in each division receive byes into the quarterfinals, with the other eight teams playing in the first round to get there.

Trouble is the American Division is loaded with the top four teams - Cincinnati, North Carolina Charlotte, Saint Louis and Marquette - having better league records than the second-place team in the National Division. Southern Mississippi and Alabama Birmingham are tied for second behind Memphis, which had a worse overall record than the top four in the other division.

The tournament that should draw a lot of attention is the Big Ten’s inaugural effort. It gets under way at Chicago’s United Center on March 5 with three games.

The only leagues that don’t have conference tournaments are the Ivy League and the Pac-10.

Duke brand

It’s usually tough to upstage a game between two highly ranked intersectional opponents, but that might change today when No. 12 UCLA visits No. 2 Duke.

Freshman Elton Brand, who led Duke in scoring and rebounding when he was injured in late December, may suit up and play against UCLA.

The 6-foot-8, 260-pound center broke the fifth metatarsal bone in his left foot during practice Dec. 27 after starting Duke’s first 11 games and averaging 16 points and seven rebounds.

Doctors have been very pleased with his recovery, although even two weeks ago it was thought he wouldn’t be back this season.

Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said if Brand is healthy, he will be put back into the rotation as early as possible to get the team used to having him back well before the NCAA tournament.

Stat’s something

One of the best one-season turnarounds as far as statistics go has to be that of Arizona State point guard Ahlon Lewis.

Last season, Lewis averaged 16 minutes per game and had 77 assists for the year.

Lewis, who is averaging more than 36 minutes a game under interim head coach Don Newman, set the school season record for assists when he had seven Thursday night for a total of 238. He set the school record for one game when he had 16 against Northern Arizona on Dec. 3, one of 12 times this season he had 10 or more assists.

One of the most amazing numbers is that Lewis has played but 7 minutes in the Sun Devils’ 13 conference games.