Slim Losses Don’T Count In Your Rpi

Go fetch me a computer geek to explain how the damnable RPI makes sense of this. In fact, fetch me one from Stanford.

Leland Stanford Junior University No. 7 in the Top 25, but considerably higher in the rankings of starting salaries out of college - has, in the last eight days:

Been humbled by the next-to-worst team in the Pacific-10 Conference, USC;

Savaged the sure-thing-you betcha-NCAA-bound (wink, wink) Washington Huskies by 32 points, and …

Sweated out an unsightly bit of brutality against the worst - it’s the math talking, folks - team in the Pac-10, but only because it spent more time at the foul line than Vin Baker does in his nightmares.

It would be nice to report that the melodramatic “Whew!” Mike Montgomery birthed upon emerging from the Stanford locker room Saturday night will be seen as a symbol of the strength, parity and sovereignty of the Pacific-10 - but, of course, it won’t. Where they’re in the know in college basketball - that is, any time zone east of Truth-or-Consequences - the 64-58 escape the Cardinal made at Friel Court will have them thinking the worst.

If this is the best of the West, they’ll reason, then the Big Ten should not only get eight berths in the NCAA Tournament, but three of the Pac-10’s allotment, as well.

Even worse, this one was on TV, though on a Fox-owned channel, which means unsuspecting viewers may have thought they had stumbled upon “Home Videos of the World’s Most Gruesome Train Wrecks.”

“I had visions of it being like this,” said Montgomery, “because they (the Cougars) just don’t let it get any other way. “It wasn’t pretty - I’m not trying to say that. But it goes in the right column.”

This is not exactly the kind of legacy the 1998-99 Cougars had in mind - disfigurers to the conference stars - but it’s the one they’re stuck with. To the Pac-10’s relief, they may not have caused any permanent scars, though the pinprick in Spokane that stung Washington back in January may turn out to be a dagger yet.

Perception is a funny old dog.

In addition to the past week, Stanford has this month struggled to beat rival Cal - the next-to-next-to-worst team in the league - and been schooled in its own home by Connecticut, which didn’t even have its best player. This is not exactly the finishing rush you want to put on for the seeding committee.

“I don’t know - 22-5 doesn’t seem like struggling to me,” said WSU forward Chris Crosby. “I look at us at 10-16. I don’t know - they’re solid. They find ways to win. It may not be pretty and it may not be huge margins, but they looked pretty good against Washington.”

Montgomery had a similar notion.

“This is a road sweep and we’ll take it at this stage of the game,” he said. “We’re not looking for things to be unhappy about. Nobody in the league got this road sweep and we did, so it’s a pretty big deal for us.”

Meanwhile, the Cougars closed out the home portion of their Pac-10 schedule 4-5 - and 23 points short of being undefeated. The combination of a Saturday night game, a sendoff for WSU’s five seniors and taking a ranked team to the wire put the crowd of 6,432 - and for once the count seemed small - into a rather giddy state, never mind that the Cougars are slipping inexorably toward a last-place finish for the first time since 1990.

“Everybody was here to see Stanford,” said Cougars guard Blake Pengelly. “Then I think people started thinking we had a chance to win when we got off to that good start, so that got them excited for the rest of the game.”

Alas, for as fiercely as the Cougars defended the Cardinal all night, they could not get the stop they needed in the last 2 minutes - big Tim Young finding David Moseley for a 3-pointer for the game’s biggest bucket, and then coaxing in a jump hook of his own before the obligatory mop-up free throws. And when the Cougars were getting stops, they couldn’t jump-start their offense - largely because the Cardinal was defending every bit as fiercely.

“These two teams,” said WSU coach Kevin Eastman, “just attacked each other defensively.”

The result was some rather unlikely heroes. Moseley. Young, the rarely appreciated 7-foot-2 giant. The Cougars’ rarely used center Leif Nelson, whose 10 points made for a career highlight - and made for another reason Young is rarely appreciated.

Stanford has played St. John’s, North Carolina, Maryland, George Washington, Temple and UConn this year, in addition to the Pac-10 toughs - and couldn’t have looked any more worried than it did Saturday night. The Cougars were a stop and a shot from one of college basketball’s more notable upsets this season, even while shooting just 13 free throws to Stanford’s 40 and while getting another invisible-man performance from leading scorer Jan-Michael Thomas.

We admitted it once and we’ll admit it again. The Cougars are better than we give them credit for, but still not good enough to win.

Montgomery, however, was impressed simply with their heads and hearts.

“Kids want to play hard,” he said, “but when there’s any discouragement, it’s easy to pack it in. But they don’t give in. You can get guys to come out and play hard initially when you’re fired up and you’re at home and all that stuff. But to sustain it for 40 minutes and trying to find a way to win, that’s hard to do. That’s where you’ve got to give credit. That’s where you’re talking about program vs. just individuals. They just don’t give in.”

But nothing seems to be giving above them, either.

“Winning at home is huge,” Montgomery pointed out. “You win at home and see what you can get on the road and the next thing you know, you’re up around .500 and you’ve got it cooking. But if you lose at home, it’s tough.”

And it doesn’t take a computer to figure that out.