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After a 32-point smacking at Louisville that followed on the heels of a 37-point demolition at Wichita State and 26-point drubbing at North Carolina, Long Beach State coach basketball Dan Monson reflected on the method to his apparent madness.
“We are in a one-bid league and for us to get into the NCAA tournament, these (nonconference) games don’t matter in that sense,” Monson told reporters in November.
What does matter for Long Beach State, Hawaii — and the six other teams in the field — is having their performance peak for the Big West Tournament that opens today in Anaheim, Calif.
As a conference ranked 29th out of 32 Division I leagues in the Ratings Percentage Index, the Big West will not send any at-large teams to the NCAA Tournament, so the conference tournament becomes a win-or-else proposition for NCAA hopefuls. And even the winner may wind up in one of the “first four” play-in games.
But you’d be hard-pressed to find two teams that have taken more disparate scheduling approaches to preparing for their all-or-nothing tournament shot than the defending champion Rainbow Warriors and 49ers.
While the 49ers have played what ranked in December as the fourth-
toughest nonconference schedule in Division I, the Rainbow Warriors’ strength of schedule was ranked 286th at the same point.
While the 49ers played 12 road games and covered 23,000 miles before conference play opened in January, UH had not traveled farther than two trips to Pearl Harbor.
Yet, they tip-off tonight with not much separating them. They split two regular-season games, the 49ers (14-18, 9-7 Big West) are the fourth seed and UH (14-15, 8-8) is fifth. The consensus of Las Vegas oddsmakers Wednesday was that the Beach was a 21⁄2-point favorite.
Long Beach State, the preseason favorite, started a wobbly 3-10, including defeats at UCLA, Washington, Kansas and Texas in addition to the Louisville, Wichita State and North Carolina losses.
“We have to get in our league and be the best team in our league, so that’s why we challenge ourselves as best we can in our preseason,” Monson said among what was a nine-game nonconference losing streak.
The plan has had some payoffs. Four times in the past seven years The Beach got to the Big West Tournament championship game, including last year when the 49ers lost to UH, 64-60.
But while preparing his team for the tournament is part of what motivates Monson and the 49ers to play a brutal nonconference schedule, it is far from the only reason.
There also can be a benefit to recruiting by playing at marquee schools as well as the TV opportunities that come with them. But there are also lucrative financial guarantees, sometimes totaling $400,000 a season.
They are funds that are divided between the athletic program and the coach. Some other mid and low majors have similar arrangements but at Long Beach State much of it goes to help underwrite pay for Monson, who, despite a base salary of upwards of $325,000, has a clause in his contract that stipulates he may earn up to $800,000 a year, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Without the so-called “guarantee” money, administrators have said the 49ers could not afford to keep somebody who has been a head coach at Gonzaga and Minnesota and has an Elite Eight appearance on his resume.
After smacking the 49ers, Louisville coach Rick Pitino said, “I feel bad for Long Beach State. It’s going to help them in the long run, but they’ve had to play Wichita State, North Carolina, and us and that’s a really tough schedule. They’re good kids and hopefully it will make them a better team come league play.”
Whether scheduling that tough is an on-the-money approach for winning the Big West Tournament remains to be seen.
Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.
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