East Coast bias not a factor in March Madness

Anyone watching ESPN’s “Baseball Tonight” gets only brief updates of the first half of games taking place in California; the games on the West Coast are only covered on the following morning’s telecast. But in high school, I would be on the way to school at 6 a.m. and could never watch a “SportsCenter” airing with West Coast coverage.

During baseball season, San Francisco Giants games also took place at the same time as “SportsCenter” and “Baseball Tonight,” so I had to switch back and forth. I brought this stubborn attitude to East Coast sports when I came to Princeton three years ago.

Now whenever I look at the NCAA rankings for basketball or football, I notice the lack of West Coast teams and believe that it is simply because of this anti-Left Coast bias that seems to pervade the sports world.

As a fan of Pac-10 schools, I always believed they were unfairly represented in the rankings against the Big 12 and SEC schools for football and the ACC and Big East schools for basketball. Weeks eight, nine and 10 of the last football season featured four Big 12 schools in the BCS and AP polls’ top 10. They were joined by three SEC schools in weeks eight and nine and by two SEC schools in week 10.

During week eight, USC was the only Pac-10 team in the top 25, despite California and Oregon having records deserving of top-25 consideration. The Pac-10 finished the 2008-09 NCAA bowl month with a 5-0 record, with USC winning the Rose Bowl and Oregon, Oregon State, Arizona and California all upsetting teams in bowl games. I was convinced the Pac-10 football teams proved that I was right — that they were unfairly portrayed all season.

I was correct about this year’s NCAA football season, and I was convinced I would be right about NCAA basketball as well. Wrong.

Once again, the Pac-10 is missing from the recognized programs this season, and it is predicted to only have four teams in the NCAA Tournament.

To put that in perspective, the mid-major Mountain West Conference is predicted to have five teams in the tournament: BYU, Utah, New Mexico, UNLV and San Diego State.

Pac-10 basketball is historically one of the strongest conferences in the country. The Big East and ACC, however, have emerged as the dominant conferences, especially in terms of coverage, over the last two decades.

Currently the AP Top 25 features five ACC schools and six Big East schools, with only three non-ACC or non-Big East schools in the Top 10. Is this outrageously biased, or are these conferences just better?

Unfortunately for my case, these conferences are simply better this year. The top teams in conferences like the Pac-10 and SEC have not only struggled against teams inside their conferences, but they have also failed to beat mediocre teams in other conferences.

While No. 9 Duke’s loss to Michigan has turned out to be a fluke, No. 15 UCLA’s loss to Michigan actually provided a glimpse into the rest of the season.

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UCLA has done a decent job at beating teams at the bottom of the Pac-10, but it lost both games to No. 23 Arizona State and lost to Texas, a team that has now fallen out of the AP Top 25.

Arizona has struggled to remain consistent despite having two potential top-10 picks in the NBA draft, and Stanford is situated at the bottom of the Pac-10.

The No.13 Washington Huskies are currently the Pac-10 regular season champions, but they lost to No. 11 Kansas by 20 points and also fell to Portland.

Though the Pac-10 is typically one of the nation’s most competitive conferences, this year it is regrettably bad.

Do not expect the Pac-10 to stand out in the NCAA Tournament this month, as Washington’s speedy undersized guards are not quicker than guards in the ACC, and the lack of a dominant big man will cause UCLA major problems.

The East Coast teams are just better this year, a fact I have begrudgingly accepted. I don’t know if No. 1 North Carolina will complete a title run this season, but if you are looking for teams that will get upset early in the tournament, look no further than UCLA, Washington and Arizona State.

I still believe that there exists an East Coast bias in the sports world, but this year there is no such prejudice: The Pac-10 simply sucks, and the ACC and Big East rule the land.