This Mid Doesn't Declare It's Major

Johnny Gray shares the name his father made famous by competing in four Olympics. So sure, the Pacific point guard tried track and field.

"I was pretty good at it, but I didn't like the practices," Gray said, then grinned.

"Too much \o7running \f7for me."

His father, standing under the basket as his son snipped a strand of the net and tucked it behind his ear after being named most valuable player of the Big West tournament Saturday in Anaheim, had to laugh.

"Like I tell everybody, in other sports, they make you run when you're being punished," said the elder Gray, bronze medalist at 800 meters in the 1992 Olympics.

Pacific is on quite a run now.

The Tigers are in the NCAA tournament for the third consecutive year -- the second in a row for Gray, a senior who transferred from Moorpark College and went to Agoura High.

Pacific has done more than just get there the last two seasons, pulling first-round upsets of Pittsburgh last season and Providence two years ago. The Tigers made it back this season even though they lost every starter except Christian Maraker, the polished and versatile 6-foot-9 senior forward from Sweden, this season's Big West player of the year.

Winning another first-round game will be a tall order, with 13th-seeded Pacific (24-7) playing fourth-seeded -- and seventh-ranked -- Boston College (26-7), a team that beat North Carolina twice this season and lost to Duke by two points in the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament final Sunday.

Pacific's only advantage is that BC has to come west to play Thursday in Salt Lake City -- 2,400 miles from home on three days' rest.

Pacific has come its own great distance under Coach Bob Thomason, who was a Pacific senior in 1971 when he scored 19 points in an NCAA tournament loss to Long Beach State in a game played, coincidentally, in Salt Lake City.

He returned to campus as Pacific's coach in 1988, after the Tigers had suffered through a 5-24 season. They've had 13 winning seasons in the 18 since, and won 20 games six times, including 1997, when future No. 1 overall NBA draft pick Michael Olowokandi led them to the NCAA tournament, where they lost to St. Joseph's in the first round.

Thomason has gone from competing in a league with Nevada Las Vegas at its peak to a period of struggle and defections by UNLV, New Mexico State, Fresno State and Utah State.

"Our league has gone through such a transition," Thomason said.