A Cinderella Label Can Turn Slippery : Preview: Carlesimo was Seton pretty last season, but now he’s on the outside looking in.

P.J. Carlesimo, author of last year’s college basketball Cinderella story with Seton Hall, was sitting in his hotel room in Tucson exactly one year ago today with one thought stirring in his head.

“I knew we could win the national championship,” Carlesimo said. “After the Big East tournament, we knew we could beat anybody in the country.”

One team they couldn’t beat was Michigan, which defeated upstart Seton Hall in the national championship game in Seattle. Even so, the Pirates had sailed through the West Regional and into the Final Four and had even managed to dock near the harbor of the NCAA championship.

It was a story for the ages, or at least 12 months, which is how long it has been since Carlesimo and his beard became front page news and his team lost by a whisker to the Wolverines. Now, it’s time for a new Cinderella team, or whatever you call it, to take its place in the NCAA basketball tournament that begins today.

The top-seeded teams are Oklahoma in the Midwest, Connecticut in the East, Michigan State in the Southeast and Nevada Las Vegas in the West. There are 60 others in the field, all of them searching for the NCAA title, which slipped out of Carlesimo’s hands a year ago.

Seton Hall lost its top seven players from the Final Four runner-up team and finished 12-16, which means that instead of playing its way through the NCAA tournament again, Carlesimo is busy recruiting. Tuesday and part of Wednesday he was in Kansas. He was in the studio Wednesday afternoon to tape his television show. He was in Madison Square Garden Wednesday night to watch the New York City basketball championships. However, he was not in the NCAA tournament.

“No, but we’re going to be good in the future,” Carlesimo said.

So Cinderella will be somebody different this year. Will it be 28-5 Connecticut? Well, first a word about Cinderella.

“There are people who are still going to tell you that Connecticut is a Cinderella team,” Carlesimo said. “You can’t help ignorance. There are people still questioning Connecticut. They were co-champs of the Big East, they just won the Big East tournament, they were 28-5 with one of the best schedules in the country and people are still saying ‘How good are they?’ I mean, they’re as good as anybody in the country.

“I think there are Cinderella teams, but I don’t think we were one last year, either,” he said. “The No. 11 team in the final AP poll is a Cinderella team? I didn’t mind it, it was a nice story, but people weren’t giving our kids credit for how good they were. Just like they’re not giving Connecticut credit.

“How many teams can win the national tournament this year? There are 10 to 15 real strong candidates. Last year, we were 11, we were top 20 from like the first week in December. The problem was, people weren’t used to looking at Seton Hall being nationally ranked, so they had trouble dealing with that. We were still answering that question at the press conference Sunday in Seattle: ‘How are you guys here?’ ‘Are you surprised you are here?’

“Talk to Southwest Missouri and Evansville and Indiana and Vegas and Duke. Ask them if they think we were a good team. Connecticut will go through the same thing. If and when they lose, people are going to say ‘I knew they weren’t that good.’ ”

The Huskies are that lucky, though. Through the graciousness of the NCAA selection committee, Connecticut is scheduled to play its first two games in the Hartford Civic Center, where the Huskies were 7-1 this year waiting for their arena to be built on campus in Storrs, 20 miles away.

Such placement of a top-seeded team has caused some consternation among many, including Dick Vitale. The ABC and ESPN broadcaster says Connecticut got an unwarranted home-court advantage.

“I thought Connecticut played its Husky Classic in December,” Vitale said. “Now it’s in March. It’s just a no-no at tournament time and that really bothers me.”

The path that Seton Hall traveled last year from its campus in South Orange, N.J., was not as friendly--Tucson to Denver to Seattle--and the trip took 22 days. They passed quickly, Carlesimo said.

“It was a whirlwind,” he said.

Besides the obvious favorites to experience the same ride, Carlesimo said there are some dark horses out there in the field. He mentioned East Tennessee State (27-6) as one, but the Buccaneers have a first-round meeting with Georgia Tech (24-6) in the Southeast Regional.

“Providence is a sneaky team,” Carlesimo said.

But the Friars’ draw is downright straightforward--Ohio State in the first round and then probably UNLV.

“I like the teams that are kind of down the line a little bit in the big conferences,” Carlesimo said. “I think they can do some damage. I just think it’s very, very difficult if you’re not from one of the strong conferences. I would say this year, the Big East, Big Ten, Big Eight and ACC. I think it’s very difficult if you’re not from one of those leagues to get it done.

“And that’s not to say that Arizona or Louisville isn’t good enough to do it because certainly they are,” he said. “I just think there’s such a tremendous edge when you play 15-16 killer games during the year as opposed to six or eight or nine. I think it just helps you a lot more, that you’re better positioned and you’re better able to win the six games you’ve got to win to get the thing done.”

Barring upsets, the first showdowns between the big powers occur in the second round:

Midwest: Oklahoma (26-4) vs. North Carolina (19-12); Illinois (21-7) vs. Arkansas (26-4).

Southeast: Louisiana State (22-8) vs. Georgia Tech (24-6); Minnesota (20-8) vs. Missouri (26-5); Syracuse (24-6) vs. Virginia (19-11).

East: Connecticut vs. Indiana (18-10); Clemson (24-8) vs. La Salle (29-1); St. John’s (23-9) vs. Duke (24-8).

West: Oregon State (22-6) vs. Louisville (26-7); New Mexico State (26-4) vs. Michigan (22-7); Alabama (24-8) vs. Arizona (24-6).

Carlesimo believes the best coaching jobs in the country have been turned in by Jim Calhoun of Connecticut, Gene Keady of Purdue and Jud Heathcote of Michigan State, but he also believes that no coach wins without talented players.

“I don’t think a fluke wins this tournament,” he said. “You got to win six games against great teams. In single-elimination, it doesn’t mean the best team wins it. But it certainly is an excellent team and a team playing well. One thing I’ll give the pros over us is the way they do their playoffs because playing the best three of five and the best four out of seven, you find out who the best team is. In college, you never know who the best team is.

“But when we get to Denver, the four teams are there because they deserve to be there. It’s absolutely impossible for somebody to get to the Final Four who doesn’t belong.”

Whoever wins the national title April 2 in McNichols Arena, whether it be someone such as La Salle, the team with the best record, or a team such as Southern Mississippi, which just barely got in the tournament, Carlesimo said it will have earned its triumph.

Take Southern Mississippi for example. The Golden Eagles (20-11) are seeded 13th in the East Regional and the lowest-seeded at-large team in the 64-team field. And that means Southern Mississippi was probably the last team chosen.

“The bottom line is we did get in,” Coach M.K. Turk said. “And now, it’s what you do when you get there.”

What Seton Hall did when it got there is something Carlesimo won’t forget when he’s watching the games on television or when he’s sitting in the stands in Denver as a spectator.

“What we did last year, it’s very difficult to express,” he said. “It means a lot to the coaches and the school, but it’s incredible what it means to the kids. It was easily the best thing I had every experienced in basketball.”

Someone will share Carlesimo’s experience in the very near future. They may remember the practices, the press conferences, the fans, the games and how fast it all went. In this game, 64 teams are going to be divided down to a Final Four. It will be long division, lasting over two weekends at 12 sites until the final weekend in Denver.

Nearly one year ago in Seattle, Carlesimo was immersed in his own Final Four experience, even if he didn’t know what was hitting him at times.

“It was really a relief when they’re doing the starting lineups on Saturday and Monday,” he said. “That was the most fun. Then there’s nothing else to do but play the game. It was just great. I wouldn’t trade it, don’t get me wrong, but when we got back, people said ‘What was it like?’ It was like ‘It’s over.’ Bang, bang, bang. It’s so quick. It’s incredible.”