Where did the west coast basketball talent go?

As the 2011-2012 men’s college basketball season winds down, a number of storylines will stand out among most fans. Suffice to say, we’ve witnessed a wide range of events over the last couple months.

We’ve learned Kentucky is really, really good. We’ve seen No. 2 seeds Duke and Missouri flame out in the first round of the NCAA tournament. We’ve seen one of the sport’s titans, Indiana, by and large, come back from the dead.

But for those of us out west, we’ve also seen a historically bad season for the Pac-12, considered among the sports’ traditional six “power conferences.”

Just two teams from the Left Coast’s allegedly premier basketball conference made the Big Dance. And even then, No. 12-seeded California was routed by South Florida in its play-in game, while No.11-seeded Colorado ended up with one victory.

Call it, well, a down year.

“There is no doubt our conference is off from a historical level this year,” conference commissioner Larry Scott admitted at the Pac-12 tournament at Staples Center in Los Angeles earlier this month. “But I know we’ve got great coaches. We’ve got great facilities that are improving. The more I talked to people, the more I learn this is a bit cyclical.”

But it wasn’t solely just a drop for the Pac-12, either. Teams were also missing from the Mountain West, Western Athletic Conference and the West Coast Conference.

For the first time in fact since 1985 and for just the second time since the tournament expanded to 16 teams in 1951, the Sweet 16 did not include teams from either the Mountain or Pacific time zones.

There have been a number of explanations offered by a countless number of administrators, coaches, sportswriters, bloggers and casual observers in recent months. But perhaps more than anything, Wednesday night’s McDonald's high school All-American game – a 106-102 win for the West team – illustrated one rather disturbing trend: Talent on the pacific coast appears to be missing.

You can fault coaches for the overall decline of the conference – that’s probably fair. You can cite a lack of financial resources. That’s probably fair, too. Heck, just go ahead and blame the coaches again.

But more than anything, Pac-12 rosters aren’t loaded with decorated, elite prospects, and a seemingly drop-off in local prep talent might offer at least one explanation for the recent struggles.

Of the 24 high school players selected to play in the 35th annual all-star game on Wednesday at the United Center in Chicago, just four – forward Brandon Ashley (Nevada), forward Anthony Bennett (Nevada), center Grant Jerrett (California) and guard Shabazz Muhammad (Nevada) – hailed from the Pacific Time Zone.

And even Bennett’s hometown is, technically, Brampton, Ontario, Canada. He currently plays for Findlay Prep in Henderson, Nevada.

And 2011 might have been worse, as just two players came from truly western states in guard Myck Kabong from Henderson, Nevada, and forward Kyle Wiltje from Portland, Oregon.

Moreover in Yahoo! Sports’ Rivals.com’s top-40 list of prospects for the class of 2012, just five come from the Pacific time zone.

Essentially, for the Pac-12 to reel in top talent, it needs to recruit on a national level. It needs to recruit in the state of Texas, which had four players on the west team in the McDonald’s game Wednesday.

It probably needs to recruit in the Midwest and on the east coast, too. But recruiting nationally isn’t always that easy. It requires a lot of resources. It goes without saying that it’s easier to recruiting in one’s own backyard.

So how long does this last?

“I’ve really got very little worry about this conference remaining one of the elite basketball conferences,” Scott said.

But...only time will tell.

Joey Kaufman is a Spring 2012 USA TODAY Collegiate Correspondent. Learn more about him here.

This story originally appeared on the USA TODAY College blog, a news source produced for college students by student journalists. The blog closed in September of 2017.