Gonzaga coach Mark Few went off on the WCC tournament Sunday night, angered that the Bulldogs had to play the host school -- San Diego -- on their homecourt for the second straight season in the semifinals.

Was he right to go off?

Yes, but the problem is there isn't a solution.

	Gonzaga had to beat San Diego in its own gym just to reach the WCC tournament final.

The WCC is like a lot of mid-to low-major conferences that hold conference tournaments. The conference tournament is a necessary evil and holding it on a neutral court is even more of a financial bath.

Here are the problems with these conference tournaments: The best team doesn't always win and a lesser team becomes the only conference representative in the NCAA Tournament. Case in point is Siena. The Saints won the MAAC tournament in Albany, on their homecourt, as the seventh seed. The Saints might be in the "play-in" game, potentially reducing their NCAA share if they can't advance. First-place Marist or Rider wouldn't have needed to play their way into the field of 64. Would either have advanced to the second round? Probably not, but they have a better shot than Siena.

"They still had to win four games to win it," MAAC commissioner Richard J. Ensor said. "We've had the tournament in Albany 10 times and this is the first time they've won it there."

Ensor said there had only been one upset in previous quarterfinals, but this season there were three. But more than sending the best team to the NCAA Tournament, the MAAC is just as concerned with putting more teams in the NIT.

"We get three more games for our teams to get 17 or 18 or 20 wins to get three teams in the NIT, and on two occasions, we've had two advance to the final four in New York City," Ensor said. "We've done well in the NIT and our tournament isn't done for revenue. We do it to help our TV sponsors be in one place to get more media coverage and to get our biggest crowds of the season. We'll move it around from Albany to Buffalo and next year Trenton."

The idea of moving it to a merit-based approach, putting it on the home court of the league champ -- which is what Few wants -- is out of the question in leagues like the Horizon League or the America East. Both leagues saw their champs (Butler of the Horizon and Vermont of the America East) lose before the title game on a neutral court to a lower seed. But both commissioners, the Horizon's John Lecrone and the America East's Chris Monasch, say they can't afford to wait to put their tournament on a home site a week before the event. The America East has the first two rounds at one site -- this season in Boston -- and the final is played a week later at the site of the highest seed, giving them time to promote and set up an electric atmosphere for ESPN.

	“	If we got beat last year, that could have cost our league a million dollars when our tournament netted $20,000. A bottle drive in Spokane could have generated that. We have made between $6-8 million for the league by advancing through the (NCAA) tournament. ... These upsets that everyone thinks is so great in the tournaments actually is a disaster for a league our size. ”
		— Mark Few, Gonzaga head coach

"The conference tournament provides us with a lot of good exposure, one of the few national exposures for us," Lecrone said. "Plus it gives us a chance for more NIT teams. Having Loyola and UIC on national television was a once in a lifetime thing for those kids. Yes, there is some risk, and Butler lost to Green Bay. We lose money on this, but this is a great opportunity for our young people in the league."

Few said the WCC tournament netted only $20,000 last season, which WCC commissioner Mike Gilleran confirmed. The Bulldogs have earned nearly a millon more for each win in the NCAA Tournament, which is dispersed to the eight members over a six-year period.

"If we got beat last year, that could have cost our league a million dollars when our tournament netted $20,000. A bottle drive in Spokane could have generated that," Few said. "We have made between $6-8 million for the league by advancing through the (NCAA) tournament. Our league budgets for one bid, worth about $980,000. These upsets that everyone thinks is so great in the tournaments actually is a disaster for a league our size."

The WCC coaches voted to take the tournament to the highest seed, which would have meant at Pepperdine this season. But that would have been hard to do on short notice.

Gonzaga athletic director Mike Roth said his fans did like going to San Diego, nearly 2,500 of them, but they don't like playing on someone's home court. The league visited the San Diego Sports Arena during their stay, but the coaches were against the aging facility. The WCC can't get any dates at the San Jose Arena.

"We see the reasons why we should go with a merit-based tournament, but the logistics of the event would hurt us in any prep time," Gilleran said. "We have looked at neutral sites in Los Angeles, or Palm Springs, but we would lose that tournament flavor. Marketing people we have talked to are convinced we should stay in San Diego, at the Jenny Craig Pavilion, and get this tournament to grow."

The WCC, assuming the presidents agree, will be back in San Diego for two more seasons.

"We have a very thin margin of profit and we stretch it with good crowds here, around 5,000 people if we put this in a 15,000-seat arena then that might not help us," Gilleran said. "Our history still shows the No. 1 seeds, the better teams, still prevail and that's what happened with Gonzaga and Pepperdine getting to the final."

Capel gets the call
Never underestimate the power of Coach K. All it took was one phone call from Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski to reassure Virginia Commonwealth what it apparently knew -- 27-year old Jeff Capel III was ready to be a head coach.

The shocker isn't his age (Capel is the youngest head coach in Division I) as it is his experience. Just two seasons into his coaching career -- one as an assistant at Old Dominion and one at VCU -- Capel is the head coach of a tradition-rich program.

Here's how it went down: Last week, Capel said he was overseeing a study hall when VCU athletic director Richard Sander asked him what his goals were in coaching. Capel said he wanted to be a head coach. Sander wanted to know if Capel though he was ready. He said yes, and that he were confident in his teaching and leadership. Sander told Capel that head coach Mack McCarthy was resigning and that he had talked to Krzyzewski and the school's president and they -- that includes Krzyzewski -- agreed he was ready to be a head coach.

"I guess they were watching me during the year and this was a sort of on-the-job training for me," said Capel, the 1997 Duke graduate, whose brother Jason is a senior at North Carolina.

Since he got the job Tuesday, Capel has been on the phone with Krzyzewski, his father, former Old Dominion coach Jeff Capel, and Missouri head coach Quin Snyder, who was a Duke assistant when Capel was a player.

"I'm talking to coach (Krzyzewski) every day," Capel said. "Everyone told me to take my time with the staff, don't rush. Everyone said don't just get an older guy, but go with the best guy. I want guys who are hungry and want to teach the game. I want to work on player development, not just basketball but social and academic and character development."

Capel admitted that he doesn't have game experience, saying, "I've never coached a game that matters. I've never called a timeout, never put a guy in the game, never tried to control tempo." But he says neither have 37-year old assistants who get their first job.

"I think everyone thought I was a cool assistant coach, but as a head coach my role will be a little different and everyone understands that but hopefully it won't be too much."

Capel said his father wouldn't be on the bench with him.

"But he's excited for me, real excited for me," Capel said. "It was shock to everybody when I got the job. No one believed me when I told them I got the job, no one in my family."

What Went Wrong at DePaul?
What went wrong at DePaul? DePaul athletic director Bill Bradshaw says it was Pat Kennedy's success too early into his tenure.

Losing to Kansas in the overtime in just Kennedy's third season built up too much expectations. Perhaps, and losing players to the NBA early like Quentin Richardson, Paul McPherson, Steven Hunter and Bobby Simmons didn't help either. But the Blue Demons dealt with academic troubles throughout his tenure and simply missed on what should have been surefire makes, in recruiting like Imari Sawyer and Andre Brown, two players who have essentially been busts for the Blue Demons based on their over-hyped prep careers.

"I think Pat got too into finding all the all-Americans instead of trying to get guys that where under the radar screen, guys who wanted to come here like Cordell Henry (Marquette), Sean Harrington (Illinois) or Dwyane Wade (Marquette)," Bradshaw said.

Bradshaw said the school is reassessing what they want to do with the job and which direction. The scenario the school wants to follow is Marquette. The sister school is being praised for finding a gem of an assistant coach in Tom Crean, formerly a Michigan State assistant, willing to get to work and build a consistent winner. If that's the case then Michigan State's Brian Gregory, who has strong Chicago-ties, or Kansas' Neal Dougherty should be in the mix.

If Bradshaw is looking for a head coach, he could get some feelers from the area with Northern Illinois first-year coach Rob Judson and wouldn't be wrong with Illinois-Chicago's Jimmy Collins. But there could be some sleeper head coaches that DePaul could be interested in like UCLA's Steve Lavin. Head coaches like Houston's Ray McCallum and Manhattan's Bobby Gonzalez could also be on the list.

Regardless, this won't be a quick process and DePaul will take its time in this search. Expect Kennedy to resurface on the lists for potential vacancies in the Northeast at schools in New York State and Connecticut.

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