PAC 10 and M.O.P.’s

Well lets break it down first:

ACC-8 of the last 21 (Only one not being UNC or Duke)

SEC-5

Big East-4 (3 UCONN)

Pac-10-2

Big 10-1

Big 12-1

So, that breaks down the 21 by conference. Not too mention, out of those 21, Duke has won 4, NC/UCONN have won 3 and Kentucky/Florida have won 2. So, 2/3 of the championships in the last 21 years have come from 5 schools (6 coaches as Pitino/Tubby each won at Kentucky).

To answer your question about the Pac-10, the conference has at times been wildly inconsistent. UCLA and Arizona have remained forces pretty much throughout, but even they have had their stumbling blocks. Also, and I do not know why this is, players from the West Coast seem to go out East at a greater rate that top East coast players go out West. Kyle Singler was from Oregon, Mario Chalmers from bloody Alaska. Really, the only "prestigious" basketball program in the Pac-10 would be UCLA. Arizona won a championship, but very few other Pac-10 institutions have done so outside of UCLA having the most of any program (Oregon won the first in 1939!).

Not to mention, that while I am an avid Pac-10 fan, and think their have been years where our conference has been fantastic, we are not the deepest conference. UCLA, Arizona and Stanford have mostly been at the forefront of the conference, and Washington has been good for quite a while as well, but teams like Oregon, USC, California and ASU have been all over the radar. Oregon State and Washington State have been pretty consistent bottom feeders, apart from the occasional tourney appearance. Really, if you go through the league, you will see a couple really good Pac-10 players (Mostly from UCLA, Stanford, Arizona and USC, not to mention Brandon Roy when he was healthy and possibly Nate Rob from UW), but the top recruits from the West Coast choose prestige schools on a regular basis. That might explain the lack of chips in the conference. Hey, still have one more in the last 21 years than the Big 10 or Big 12!

As for your second question, here would be my list based on their NBA careers thus far (and possibly throwing in some projection):

1. Carmelo Anthony

2. Richard Hamilton

3. Joakim Noah (Who is appearing to be more of a winner than the next two players I list, again, PROJECTION)

4. Emeka Okafor

5. Christian Laettner

Man, when you think about it, winning MOP has kind of been the kiss of death. Only 3 have become All-Stars, only Melo consistently. Shows if anything that while great players may be a part of winning championships, having a great team is even more important.