Pac-12 rejuvenates reputation in 5 days

LOS ANGELES — USC nearly doubled Kansas’ worst NCAA Tournament loss in school history Monday night. The craziest thing? It didn’t even feel that crazy.

By the end of a long weekend that flipped the “best conference” argument on its head, a Pac-12 team administering that kind of noogie to one of the sport’s venerable programs felt like a West Coast hoops birthright.

“A major rout!” CBS play-by-play announcer Ian Eagle called it, well before the Trojans’ 85-51 victory was complete.

The first five days of the NCAA Tournament were a rout for the Pac-12. After a three-year period of basically counting on Oregon Coach Dana Altman to maneuver the Ducks into the later rounds, the Pac-12 went 9-1 and claimed four spots in the Sweet 16.

No other league has more than two teams, and the Pac-12’s tally doubles the Big Ten and the Big 12’s combined two. Remember when those were the obvious choices as the best leagues in college basketball this season?

I’m not big on the notion of conference pride, but if there were ever a time for a league’s fans to band together and puff out their collective chest, it is now. The Pac-12 just hijacked one of the wildest first weekends of March Madness ever.

No matter your loyalty, how could you not be able to find just a small glimpse of a reason to root for UCLA, USC or even Phil Knight “U”? (The assumption here is that everyone will find it easy to jump aboard the Oregon State bandwagon.)

The only thing standing in the way of Pac-12 camaraderie, of course, is that both USC and Oregon were so under-seeded that they were placed in the same region and on the same side of the bracket where they could meet in the Sweet 16. Sadly, we’re going to lose the Trojans or Ducks on Sunday night, which means there’s no chance of an all-Pac-12 Final Four.

This would have never happened to any other “power” league — the top two teams in the regular-season standings — Oregon at 14-4 and USC at 15-5 — being set up by the NCAA selection committee to play before the Elite Eight, much less the Final Four. Could you imagine that happening to Michigan and Illinois? Baylor and Kansas? Virginia and Florida State? Alabama and Arkansas? Villanova and Creighton?

The only reason this scenario befell the Pac-12 is because the national consensus from the beginning of the season was that this league was “power six” in name only.

That’s what is great about this tournament, though. In college football, disrespected conferences can only rack up pristine bowl records. Even when a league pulls that off, the losers say bowls don’t matter.

In this tournament, going 9-1 matters. Four out of 16 matters. Having the whole country actually watch the Pac-12 put on a show matters and has restored credibility to the entire operation, department by department, from Pullman to Tempe. Think the open job of Pac-12 commissioner didn’t become more appealing in the last five days? Think again.

The Pac-12 can achieve greatness in high-stakes sports. We’ve just forgotten that. Yes, the league has a lot of ground to make up at every level, but try to remember there can be no momentum without a moment like this.

For the first time in too long, America got to see Pac-12 excellence on repeat, without any distraction. Knowing there’s a lot more to come this weekend has never felt so sweet.