This is how college basketball coaches out West are referring to last year's NCAA Tournament, to the fact that seven of the eight teams from their region weren't alive after the second round. A fluke, they say. An illusion.

A stubbed toe.

"I think we've proven ourselves over the past several years to being very good," said Stanford coach Mike Montgomery. "But we had a lot of teams go out early last year, so now we're back to answering the same questions about how strong we are out here.

	Matt Santangelo and Gonzaga put a scare into many teams last season.

"West Coast basketball is every bit as good as the rest of the country."

It seemed that way last season, until tiny Gonzaga of the West Coast Conference emerged as the sole representative once 64 teams became 16 in March. The Zags, in fact, walked to the doorstep of a Final Four date, only to have eventual champion Connecticut slam the door. Cinderella, alas, was stood up in the Elite Eight.

But should one disappointing year (three of four Pac-10 teams bid adieu in round one, while Stanford and three WAC schools exited a game later) detract from Utah and Stanford reaching the 1998 Final Four or Arizona winning it all the previous season or UCLA doing the same two years before that? Should the fact that college football out West this year has at times been more embarrassing than your average U.S. president carry over when people start talking hoops?

No, but perception can be a decisive tool in sports. Labels stick like day-old gum. College ball is no different than the pros, where those from out West are often called soft in their approach, their style.

"I thought that when I was playing AAU ball growing up in Chicago," said Arizona sophomore forward Michael Wright. "West Coast guys ... they didn't come hard at you. The refs out here called everything. Ticky-tack stuff."

And now, a year after playing out West?

"Same things," said Wright.

Translation: You can't please everyone.

The facts: Teams prove their worth and earn their place at the dinner table come tourney time, and when the Oklahomas and Detroits and Miami of Ohios of the world are bouncing you early, your reputation endures a charge even Stanford forward Mark Madsen might think twice about taking.

Well, maybe not Mad Dog.

"There is something to the 'soft California kid' label," said first-year New Mexico coach Fran Fraschilla. "But those kids are everywhere. We called them 'suburban players' back East. I still think there's respect for us from the other parts of the country, but it's more an out-of-sight, out-of-mind deal.

"Television, especially ESPN, has helped the nation watch more basketball from out here. But it's still awfully late back there when we're playing games."

Fraschilla is an East Coast guy suddenly swimming in a Southwest fish bowl, but his passion with the Lobos will mimic those days at Manhattan and St. John's. His address has changed. His style has not.

The same is true at Utah, where Rick Majerus' team has reached the Sweet 16 three of the past four years and made the '98 final. Majerus is a coach, which means he is fairly transient in location but not necessarily in world view. His outlook today is the same as when he strolled the sidelines at Marquette and Ball State.

"I don't think because we lost to Miami (Ohio) in the second round last year means West Coast basketball is any worse," said Majerus. "We're never going to be the ACC or SEC because those parts of the country have more schools and players to draw from. Why get caught up in that stuff?

"But I'm not sure there's a specific West Coast style, either. What is that? I've never heard of it. If it means playing fast and taking a bunch of crazy shots, we've never been that way and never will be that way. We play slow because we are slow. We play big because we are big. You play the way you are. I like the way we play. A lot of people do, because our kids do very well in the NBA."

His, and many others from the West. Consider: Since 1987, NBA teams have used first-round picks on 10 point guards from the Pac-10. More than 30 perimeter players from that conference now play in the league. More talents from the West will follow this year, including Fresno State senior Courtney Alexander (the WAC's best player) and New Mexico senior Lamont Long.

Some things will change out West this year. Some will not. The Pac-10 in many spots is younger than your average Michael Douglas girlfriend. The league lost its true big men in Stanford's Tim Young and Washington's Todd MacCulloch, but has acollection of power forwards (Madsen, Wright, UCLA's Jerome Moiso and Oregon's A.D. Smith) that rivals any conference nationally.

The Mountain West Conference is new, but the fact Utah is favored to win is not. The new-look WAC has NCAA-caliber teams in Tulsa and Fresno State. Gonzaga returns its capable backcourt (Matt Santangelo and Richie Frahm) from that improbable run.

In other words, they didn't kick their balls into the Pacific Ocean after last year. No one near the Rocky Mountains took a sledge hammer to their rims. Those teams in the desert didn't leave their recruiting lists out on the sidewalk to burn.

"What we need to do now is have some very strong preseason results to solidify the fact that West Coast basketball is as strong as ever," said Oregon coach Ernie Kent. "People need to see us play on television, see our teams and our styles and our organization and our depth across the board. Believe me, people not from this part of the country know how good the level of play is still out here."

It's a new season, and the little boy is excited again. He has wiped away the blood from his toe.

He is running again.

Ed Graney of the San Diego Union-Tribune is a regular contributor to ESPN.com.