SAN JOSE, Calif. — Those chips should be gone by now.
Those oversized, spine-numbing chips that the men’s basketball teams at the University of Washington and New Mexico have carried for most of this season should have been lifted off their shoulders, now that they’ve won a combined 55 games and advanced to tonight’s second-round game of the NCAA tournament.
And yet they’re still there.
The Huskies and Lobos can’t help but to think that they’re underappreciated on the college basketball scene, despite what they’ve already accomplished.
“It’s that East Coast bias,” UW sophomore Isaiah Thomas said on Friday afternoon. “Everything you do out on the East Coast is better than what you do out here. That ticks you off a little bit.
“We just use it as motivation. It makes you want to show people: ‘We’re here, and we’re having success.’”
When the second round of the NCAA tournament begins today, the national spotlight might shine brighter on games like Kentucky-Wake Forest, Kansas-Northern Iowa and Butler-Murray State. But the New Mexico-UW matchup, which will tip off 30 minutes after the completion of today’s 12:20 p.m. Butler game, includes teams with two of the biggest inferiority complexes in the country.
“Every time we step on the floor,” said New Mexico star Darington Hobson, “we have something to prove. … (Today) is another day we get to prove ourselves nationally — and just to ourselves as a team — that we’re a very good team and we belong in this tournament.”
During what was widely recognized as a weak year for the Pac-10 Conference, New Mexico (30-4) emerged as the best team in the West. The eighth-ranked Lobos, No. 17 BYU and No. 22 Gonzaga were the only teams west of Kansas to be included in the final Associated Press Top 25 rankings.
And yet New Mexico players still felt like an underdog heading into this week’s tournament play.
“We’ve been proving it all year that we can beat good teams (and) that we are a good team,” Lobos junior Dairese Gary said earlier this week, after a regular season that saw the Lobos go 6-0 against Top 25 teams.
If the perceived belittling of West Coast teams wasn’t enough, the Lobos have an extended inferiority complex in terms of conference superiority. The Pac-10 got just two teams in the NCAA tournament, two fewer than the Mountain West, and yet it’s still seen as a so-called power conference while the MWC has been suited with the dreaded mid-major label.
UW’s Quincy Pondexter didn’t do much to squelch that perceived slight when he was asked Friday by a New Mexico reporter about the budding rivalry between the two conferences.
“That’s the first I’ve ever heard of that,” he said. “… I wouldn’t say it’s much of a rivalry.”
While Pondexter added that he was “glad to see other teams on the West Coast playing so well” and that he was “proud of” the Lobos this season, his comments spoke volumes about what Pac-10 teams think about the MWC.
New Mexico coach Steve Alford, who played at Indiana and coached at Iowa of the Big Ten, refused to get into any arguments about which West Coast conference has had a better season. All he would say was that the Mountain West was supposed to be in a rebuilding year but that teams like New Mexico, BYU, UNLV and San Diego State got unexpected contributions from underclassmen on the way to NCAA berths.
“What that means in reference to other leagues, that’s hard,” he said. “I don’t know how to rank that. I just think our league is getting better, year in and year out.”
When New Mexico’s players were asked about the Pac-10’s supposed superiority during a Friday press conference, Hobson and Gary pursed their lips and smirked before allowing politically-correct senior Roman Martinez to answer the question. Predictably, Martinez said that both conferences are good.
One thing upon which the Lobos and Huskies could agree is that the West Coast still has something to prove. Teams like Gonzaga, St. Mary’s, Cal and BYU have to play the role of giant-killers to get into the Sweet 16, while this afternoon’s UW-New Mexico game will at least guarantee that one team from out West gets there.
“There have always been doubters,” UW junior Venoy Overton said Friday. “The only way you can quiet that is by handling business on the court. We’ve been thinking about that all season.
“(But) we’re not worried about the West Coast. We’re worried about the University of Washington, and we’re playing for our city.”
Whichever team moves on to the Sweet 16, it will finally give the national media a reason to respect the West Coast.
Just don’t tell that to UW’s Thomas — he of the “East Coast bias” perspective and the Pacific Ocean-sized chip on his shoulder.
As Thomas said Friday: “They probably still won’t show us any love.”
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