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14 // 2014-15 PAC-12 MEN'S BASKETBALL MEDIA GUIDE // PREVIEW With 16 NCAA Championships (by six different schools) under its belt, it's easy to see why Pac-12 Bas- ketball has as rich and as storied a tradition of hoop excellence as any Conference – if not more so. Some of the best ever to play the game have passed through this league – Jason Kidd, Gary Payton, Ka- reem Abdul-Jabbar (Lew Alcindor), Bill Walton, Hank Luisetti, Sidney Wicks, Bob Houbregs, Jack Gardner. The same is true on the coaching side – John Wooden, Slats Gill, Ralph Miller, Pete Newell, Marv Harshman, Everett Dean, Lute Olson. The "Conference of Champions" has claimed a record 16 NCAA Tournament titles, 38 NCAA Final Four Appearances, 91 consensus All-Americans, 17 National Players of the Year, 25 Naismith Memorial Basket- ball Hall of Fame members . . . well, you get the picture. Pac-12 Basketball began 99 years ago with the formation of the Pacific Coast Conference. California won the first title in 1916 with a 5-3 record, ahead of competitors Oregon State (5-3) and Washington (2-6). That season also produced the league's first All-American, Ade Sieberts of Oregon State. Six teams competed the following year, and Washington State's 8-1 mark stood above the others. With the expansion of the PCC to eight teams in 1922, the league was split into north and south divisions, with the divisional champions meeting in a playoff. Idaho defeated California in the first playoff and pro- duced the Conference's fifth All-American in eight seasons in Al Fox. The NCAA Tournament became a reality with the 1939 season, and a Pac-12 (PCC) team was the first to win it, as Oregon defeated Texas, Oklahoma and Ohio State en route to the title in Evanston, Ill. USC was in the Final Four the next year, while Washington State advanced to the title game in 1941, but fell to Wisconsin by five, 39-34. Stanford claimed the NCAA crown the following year with a 53-38 win over Dartmouth. Utah, which joined the Pac-12 in 2011, captured the 1944 NCAA title with a 42-40 overtime victory over Dartmouth. Pete Newell's California Golden Bears won the 1959 NCAA title with a win over West Virginia, and were runners-up to Ohio State the following season. Then came UCLA and its unlikely-to-ever-be-duplicated-again feat of seven consecutive NCAA Championships (11 over- all), which was engineered by the great John Wooden – "The Wizard of Westwood." The Bruins actually won a pair of titles in 1964 and '65, then began their streak in 1967 (Alcindor's first season). A loss to North Carolina State in the 1974 Finals ended the streak, but UCLA came back the following season to defeat Kentucky for its 10th title in 12 years. After UCLA captured the school's 11th title in 1995 with a victory over Arkansas, the Arizona Wildcats became the sixth Pac-12 team to capture the league's 16th men's basketball championship in 1997. The Wildcats became the first team in the history of the tournament to defeat three number one seeds (Kansas, North Carolina and Kentucky) en route to the title. In recent years, the Pac-12 has enjoyed a large amount of success - as evidenced by NCAA "Sweet 16" appearances in 24 of the past 27 seasons, at least half its teams in postseason play in 24 of the last 26 seasons, 12 national and freshman players of the year in the last 25 seasons and a couple of NIT pre- and postseason titles, just to name a few of the accolades – giving the Pac-12 the right to proudly be referred to as "The Conference of Champions." THIS IS PAC-12 BASKETBALL ... • 16 NCAA titles - more than any other conference. • Since 2008, the Pac-12 has had 29 players drafted in the first round of the NBA. Over the last seven NBA Drafts a total of 48 Pac-12 players have been selected representing 11 of the Confer- ence's 12 member institutions. • Four former Pac-12 players on Team USA that won Gold at the 2012 London Olympics. Four former players on the 2014 Team USA squad that won Gold at the 2014 FIBA World Championships. UCLA's Lew Alcindor (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) and Bill Walton flank John Wooden - arguably two of the greatest college players and coach ever. Arizona State's James Harden is one of four former Pac-12 players to play for Team USA in the 2012 London Olympics. Oregon State's Gary Payton was one of college basketball's most dominant players in the mid- 1980's. He was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2013.