Frank Burlison

LAS VEGAS – If you’re easily seduced by the color red, large and noisy crowds and a couple of entertaining and gifted college basketball teams, that the Thomas & Mack Center, on the UNLV campus, is the place to be mid-Saturday afternoon.

Unless you’re already in possession of a ticket, though, it’s probably wise not to invest the time and effort into showing up for the 3 o’clock tip-off for the Mountain West Conference Tournament championship game that will be played between the host Rebels and the regular-season New Mexico Lobos.

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LAS VEGAS – With as much focus – internal and external – on the Friday matchup between the UCLA and the Arizona teams Friday night in the MGM Garden Arena, the winning coach will have to almost immediately remind his squad of something afterward:

The third meeting of the season between the Bruins and Wildcats will not have been for the conference tournament championship and the Pac 12’s automatic bid to the 68-team NCAA Tournament field.

Although the UCLA-UA matchup has the most sizzle — and if you are even a neophyte in following all things Pac-10 and, now, Pac-12 hoops, you know why – there will still be one more game for the winner to play come Saturday night.

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LAS VEGAS – Three days, and six college tournament games, down and now it’s onto the MGM Grand’s Garden Arena today for the Pac 12 Conference Tournament quarterfinals, beginning with the noon tip-off between top seed and regular-season champion UCLA and Arizona State.

Before I put the Honda Accord on its way west on Harmon and then south on Koval to get to that massive entity which is the self-parking structure at the city within a city that is the MGM, my thoughts on Wednesday’s Mountain West quarterfinal games:

*How many conferences can make the claim that each of its tourney quarterfinalists is a “quality” club?

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LAS VEGAS, Nev. – The regional semifinals in the California State Championships are being played tonight and there should plenty of dandy showdowns.

There are four of them in the new-fangled “Open Division”.

In South it will be Long Beach Poly at Santa Ana Mater Dei and L.A. Westchester at Etiwanda (both with 7 o’clock tip-offs).

Poly and Mater Dei, of course, first met in Southern Section title games in 1983 and ’84, with Gary McKnight – in his first season of what has evolved into a legendary coaching career – picking up his first championship and the Ron Palmer-coached LBP Jackrabbits returning the favor the following season, en route to a state title.

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LAS VEGAS, Nev. – The Gonzaga basketball team has been knocking down obstacles like so many wide-open 15-footers this season:

*An unbeaten regular-season West Coast Conference season: Wop!

*The program’s first-ever No. 1 national rating: Bang!

*Another WCC tournament: Count it!

*A first-ever No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament: As the late and oh-so-great Chick Hearn would have pronounced “This one’s in the refrigerator”.

The Bulldogs – or, as their players, coaches, followers and the world know them as “the Zags” – took care of that WCC tourney title in methodical fashion Monday night in front of 7,896 (6K or so seemingly wearing Gonzaga colors and regalia) in The Orleans Arena, whisking past Saint Mary’s for the third time, 65-51.

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