THE FRONT ROW with MARK NELKE: The West finally shows out again in college hoops

There was a time when Tommy Lloyd was the presumed coach-in-waiting at Gonzaga. 

Except he couldn’t wait. 

Mark Few wasn’t leaving the Zags anytime soon, and even now, there’s no evidence a departure for the future Naismith Basketball Hall of Famer is coming in the near future. 

So Tommy took a chance on Arizona, and, this season at least, it seems to have worked out well. 

WHEN YOU’RE old, like some of us, you remember when West Coast teams were good at basketball. 

Mostly, UCLA, during its run during the 1960s and early 70s under John Wooden and with Lew and Bill in the pivot, and occasionally since then. 

Also, Arizona, in the late 1980s through the early 2000s under Lute Olson. 

Gonzaga? The Zags seem to have more of a national identity, with a cool story — the small Jesuit school whose name few could pronounce correctly (and some still can't), suddenly emerging into one of the top programs in the country over the last quarter century. 

Everybody loves the Zags. 

ANYWAY, WHEN people started paying attention to college basketball, the West Regional of the NCAA tournament was truly the WEST Region. 

UCLA usually won the West Regional, often beating other West teams — Weber State, Long Beach State and, yes, sometimes, Arizona — along the way. 

Then Arizona came along as a national power as well, and UNLV had its memorable run in the 1980s and early '90s, and it was a source of pride to say yeah, the teams in our part of the country are the best, or at least among the best, in college basketball. 

But since then, the West Regional was usually won by UConn or Duke or Louisville or Wisconsin or Oklahoma or Michigan or Texas Tech or Alabama or Florida ... or even Butler and Wichita State. 

Until Arizona won the West this year, other than the two West regionals won by Gonzaga in 2017 and 2021 (which was in Indianapolis due to COVID-19), the last West Coast team to win a West Regional was UCLA in 2008. 

It’s a tough one for West Coast fans to swallow when we were reminded that Arizona is headed to the Final Four for the first time in 25 years. And that Arizona, in 1997, is the last Western team to win a national title. 

That’s too long. 

Ironically, Illinois has made it to the Final Four for the first time in 21 years. 

The team the Illini beat to get there in 2005 — Arizona, which blew a big lead in the regional final. 

(One thing I learned — don’t bring that game up to Mike Patrick, our former longtime managing editor. Or the 1998 West Regional final, when Rick Majerus’ Utes routed Mike’s ‘Cats, who were coming off said national title.) 

TOMMY LLOYD has returned the bar in Tucson to its lofty place — Final Four or else.  

Which makes the chatter linking him to the North Carolina job all the more interesting. 

I couldn’t imagine Lute leaving Tucson for Chapel Hill back in the day — even as storied a program UNC was at the time. 

These days ... Tommy has a better chance to win a national title where he is now. 

But you never know.

It’s still North Carolina. 

Mark Nelke is sports editor of The Press. He can be reached at 208-664-8176, Ext. 1205, or via email at [email protected]. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) @CdAPressSports.