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Show Woody's word WAC to get shaft BY BRUCE WOODBURY Asst. Sports Editor The NCAA Far West Regionals will be held on this campus March 18 and 20. Teams playing in this tournament will supposedly be the lop teams from the western part of the country. Two teams have automatic berths in the tournament. They are the ' winner of the Pacific Eight Conference which will be UCLA, or maybe ' Southern California (if they luck out), and the winner of the West Coast i Athletic Conference which at this moment is hard to determine. The University of the Pacific is currently leading the WCAC, but Loyola of Los Angeles still has a chance for the title. In case you haven't noticed after reading this far, the Western Athletic Conference (WAC) is not one of the conferences given a berth ; in the tournament. To get to the Far West Regionals, the WAC winner has to play an at-large team which will be picked by the NCAA czars. This game will be played a week earlier on March 13 at a site still to be determined, Logan and Laramie being two of the possibilities. To round out the foursome for the Regionals, the Pacific Coast Athletic Conference winner, most likely Long Beach St., will also play an at-large . team. The point of this whole expose is why is the WCAC given an automatic berth when the WAC has to have a play-off game. The Pacific Eight Conference has earned their berth many times over. The WCAC was given their Regionals berth on the basis of the showing of conference member San Francisco when they captured two straight NCAA titles back in the middle fifties. Bill Russell ledS.F.to those national championships and I guess the NCAA feels that as an honor to him they should give his conference winner a Regional berth every year. This was fine until a stronger contender for the berth came along, namely the WAC. Since the ACAC's glory years in 1955-56, none of their conference members have won anything in basketball. However, a look at the WAC's B-Ball record will show who is the strongest. Since the WAC was formed 10 years ago they have become one of the strongest basketball leagues in the country. Since 1961, WAC teams have done the following: Utah has been to the NCAA finals twice, they have also been to the NIT. Brigham Young won the NIT in 1966. That ; same year, UTEP, then Texas Western won the NCAA crown, although they weren't in the WAC yet. During this period WAC teams have also walked off with various titles from Christmas tournaments etc. against some of the best teams in the country. . Since Russell, the quality of players in the WCAC is nill except on cat named Tom Meschery from St. Mary's and Dennis Autrey iro Santa Clara. WAC players on the other hand have outdone themsw in both college and the pro's. Billy McGill, Jerry Chambers m Jackson, Jeff Congdon, Carl Ashley, Craig Raymond.DickNemeix , Daniels and Joe Caldwell are a few of the outstanding players to from this conference. thvolaf Of course it is hard to tell which is the strongest unless tney iw each other. When was the last time you can remember that a wa : lost to the likes of Nevada of Las Vegas, Nevada ot Keno, ; Francisco, St. Mary's or Pepperdine. Well, it's been a while. : The point is, the NCAA fathers back east should take the a , Horace Greely and "go west." If they did this they might be ao ; what every basketball fan out here can see, that the WAC is ; toughest basketball conference west of the Rockies and shoui , an automatic berth in the Far West Regionals. j |