COLLEGE BASKETBALL Tarkanian recalls last perfect team before tourney

Saint Joseph's and Stanford are chasing UNLV's legacy.
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
PHILADELPHIA -- Every year, someone makes a run, lining up the W's, ignoring the L's, and Jerry Tarkanian gets the call.
The man is, after all, one of the few remaining authorities on the subject. As Saint Joseph's and Stanford push through February with undefeated records, the man retired in Las Vegas isn't surprised when his home phone rings and someone wants to know what it's like to be perfect.
His 1990-91 Nevada-Las Vegas team is the last to go into the NCAA Tournament bracket with an unblemished record.
"I never think about it, but every year certainly somebody could do it," Tarkanian said last week. "It's not something I concentrate on, but I usually hear about it when it starts to happen."
Tarkanian might go down in the college basketball annals as the evil NCAA-rules dodging villain, but he also coached arguably one of the most talented college teams ever assembled.
30-0
His 1991 Runnin' Rebels finished the regular-season 30-0 and didn't just beat teams. They dismantled them. Ultimately three NBA first-round draft picks -- Larry Johnson, Stacey Augmon and Greg Anthony -- were culled from the squad.
Other teams have flirted with perfection this late in the season -- Connecticut went 19-0 before losing to Syracuse in February 1999, the year it won the national championship --but even that is a rarity.
Tarkanian thinks there's a good reason for that.
"It's so hard, because there are so many good players around, anybody can beat you," Tarkanian said. "I'm absolutely impressed with what Stanford and St. Joe's have done.
"You have to have a good team, keep them focused. And to be honest, you have to have a little luck. The ball has to fall out of bounds your way. You have to be good and lucky, and that's a rare combination."
You also have to have a good set of earplugs. Tarkanian said the hardest thing about that magical season wasn't always winning the games. Often, it was shutting out the noise.
As St. Joe's (23-0) and Stanford (22-0) both have found, becoming the season's hot story has just as many minuses as it does pluses. The phone never stops ringing. The television cameras multiply with each passing game, and everyone wants to talk about just one thing.
Media factor
"You know it's there, but it's not something you want to focus on," Tarkanian said. "The problem is, the media is always reminding you. They keep saying, 'You're undefeated, the first team to do this or do that.' You can't get away from it. We never talked about it, not the winning streak, not going undefeated, none of it. But we always knew."
Now 13 years later, Tarkanian remembers it all very clearly, but as much as the coach is flattered to talk about what his team accomplished, he's very quick to point out what it missed.
His team's final record that year was 34-1.
UNLV lost to Duke in the national semifinals that year, catapulting the Blue Devils to their first national championship and denying UNLV the chance at a bigger spot in the record books. Indiana's 1975-76 team, which went 32-0, remains the last team to go unbeaten from start to finish.
"The loss is the one that stays with you," Tarkanian said.