Sometimes you have to do something just to avoid the appearance of impropriety. The NCAA, which makes a lot of curious decisions, blew that one too.

I’m going back to the NCAA Division II West regional hosted, and not surprisingly won, by Western Washington on Tuesday night. The decision to let the school, located in Bellingham,  host both the men’s and women’s eight-team regionals was a mind-boggling one on a lot of counts and I have addressed that.

But something else was brought to my attention. Turns out one of the referees who worked the semifinal game between Western Washington and Cal State San Bernardino, not only is from Bellingham, but owns a popular family restaurant  adjacent to the campus which is frequented by the students.

Not only did he work that game, won by the Vikings 86-77, but he also worked the championship game in which Western defeated rival Seattle Pacific 62-58 for a berth in the Elite Eight.

How is that right?

No I wasn’t there. But I did watch the videocast of the Cal State game and there were some curious calls, many of which even the announcers, who were from Western Washington, questioned. There were two technical fouls on the Cal State bench. Fouls were 24-18 against Cal State and one Coyote fouled out despite playing seven whole minutes.

Was that the reason the Coyotes lost? Maybe but probably not. And I hate when a losing coach starts blaming the officiating – no matter what the sport. But why put yourself in the position to be questioned. All that had to be done is put the Bellingham resident official on the earlier semifinal between Cal Poly Pomona and Seattle Pacific and have one of those official work the latter game. Problem solved.

As far as the championship game, well there were enough officials on site he didn’t have to be one of the chosen three to work that game.

I’m sure that official worked several of that school’s game during the regular season. That’s fine. But this is the postseason where much more is at stake. The other schools in the eight-team field deserved a fair shake.

Every now and then the NCAA makes a decision that makes you shake your head. Such was the case on Sunday night when the 64 teams for the men’s and women’s Division II basketball field were unveiled.

It wasn’t a matter of who got in and who didn’t, it was what should have been a far easier decision. It was in deciding who to award hosting rights for the West Region events.

Western Washington University was award hosting rights for both which will go on simultaneously. It’s not that it is unprecedented. But Bellingham, 90 miles from Seattle, is too small an area to be able to accommodate 14 visiting teams.

There aren’t enough hotel rooms to accommodate the visiting teams, much less the parents of players and fans who want to attend. The other seven men’s teams are being housed in Everette, about a 70-mile drive from the site. How’s that for home-court advantage for the Vikings?

Air fares are outrageous.

And talk about a scheduling nightmare.Twice the number of games in one venue. Oh, and don’t forgot those religious schools that want to inconvenience everyone else by not playing on Sundays.

Instead of running a regional over the course of three or four days. Now it’s Thursday through Tuesday. Men’s teams play the quarterfinals on Friday then don’t play again until Monday. Just brilliant!

There were other options, including having two four-team sub-regions, then have the highest seed host the championship game.

What should have done . . . Western Washington pick one, then assign the other regional to another school. Period, end of discussion.

Both championship games on Tuesday but the men’s not starting until 8:30 p.m. What are they trying to do, avoid a rush-hour traffic jam in the thriving metropolis. How many papers will get that score in the paper? Answer -  none.

The worst part of the debacle is that the NCAA had no contingency plan in place. Western had been ranked No. 1 in the region in both men and women for a month, yet when the men’s field was announced Sunday night, they didn’t give a site until well over an hour later.

The NCAA couldn’t see this coming? Really? Everyone else did?

Everyone but the folks at Western Washington are getting jobbed here. It’s shame for the players and fans of other schools to have to deal with this.

So strike another blow for the student-athlete experience the NCAA is all about. Time and time again it proves that is not the case.

It’s been a drama filled season for the Cal State San Bernardino men’s basketball team. The second-seeded Coyotes can’t seem to do anything easy. It was no different on Tuesday as they needed three overtimes to turn back UC San Diego 102-99 in a CCAA Tournament quarterfinal.

Should they have need three overtimes? Probably not. But seventh-seeded San Diego played well and responded each time the Coyotes (19-7) delivered a blow.

It’s a team that is marvelously talented and features the most exciting player in the conference in senior beast Kwame Alexander. Not to mention sharp-shooting guards in Lacy Haddock and Brian Goins who are exciting in their own right. When they’re good, they’re real good. But you can’t help but wonder why they can’t sustain that high level of play for 40 minutes.

The Coyotes were good enough to beat Cal Poly Pomona (25-2), which just one other opponent has done. But they also have two losses to 10-16 Cal State Stanislaus and one to 7-19 Cal State East Bay. And they needed overtime to beat 9-20 Cal State Monterey Bay.

The Coyotes started the week ranked sixth in the West region, two spots ahead of where they need to finish to qualify for the NCAA postseason. They needed at least the quarterfinal win to maintain that position.

Now the Coyotes will advance to the semifinal at 8 p.m. on Friday at Citizen’s Business Bank Arena in Ontario.  They will play Chico State, a foe to whom they have lost twice by a combined seven points.

Which team will show up is anyone’s guess!

Most Valuable Player: Daisy Feder (UC San Diego)
Freshman of the Year: Cydnie Jones (Cal Poly Pomona)
Newcomer of the Year: Nikki Beckman (Cal State Monterey Bay)
Coach of the Year: Brian Fogel (Chico State)

The CCAA will be announcing its men’s basketball All-Conference teams on Tuesday. With our local teams Cal Poly Pomona and Cal State San Bernardino finishing 1-2 there should be pretty good representation.

I’m going to go out on the limb and predict who takes home the top honors and I’ll start with the one that will be the biggest slam dunk

Coach of the Year – Hands down it has to be Greg Kamansky of Cal Poly Pomona. Don’t even think anyone else is in the discussion. The Broncos are 24-2 overall, 20-2 in a pretty tough conference. And they could easily be undefeated.

The Broncos are No, 5 nationally and Kamansky had his work cut out for him early. He had a lot of newcomers to integrate into his system and his team, had a tough schedule early on. Losing junior Shannon Sharpe to grades was yet another challenge.

Still flabbergasted that Kamanksy hasn’t landed a D1 job yet. Their loss!

Player of the Year – This one isn’t so clear cut but there aren’t more than two choices – Mitchel Anderson of Cal Poly Pomona and Kwame Alexander of Cal State San Bernardino.

Anderson averaged 14 points, 7.9 rebounds, 2.3 assists, 2 steals, while Alexander averaged 16.1 points, 8.7 rebounds, 1.8 assists, 1.6 steals.

Alexander led the conference in scoring and rebounding which is difficult to do. He is the flashier player but Anderson has always been Mr. Steady. Cal Poly’s style of play doesn’t lend itself to gaudy statistics either.

There is a school of thought that says you pick the top player on the best team but I have never thought the POY has to come from the winning team. It just shouldn’t come from a team not in the top 3-4.

I would probably pick Alexander but there isn’t a wrong choice here. Both are worthy and it’s close enough I wouldn’t surprise if it ends up a tie since there are 12 coaches voting.

Onward

Freshman of the Year – This is one where it really doesn’t matter the record of the team. The player has to be a true freshman, not a red-shirt freshman. After looking at the numbers, I’m going with Alex Fertig of Cal State Monterey Bay. (13.4 ppg).

Other candidates include Cal Poly Pomona’s Jordan Faison (8.5 ppg, 3 rpg), who has improved considerably since the start of the season, as well as Joshua Munzon of Cal State Los Angeles (9.2 ppg, 4.2 rpg).

Newcomer of the Year – A real tough one here. Don’t think they consider 4-year school transfers.  I’ll go with Cal State San Bernardino’s Brian Goins, a transfer from Diablo Valley CC. He’s third in the CCAA in scoring (15.4 ppg). This is probably the toughest of the categories though with a lot of the CCAA coaches relaying on solid JC transfers,

Cal State San Bernardino’s Lacy Haddock has been named the Wilson/CCAA Men’s Basketball Player of the Week for Feb. 25-Mar. 3.

Haddock led the Coyotes in two must-have wins over San Francisco State and Sonoma State.

In Friday’s 89-58 blowout over San Francisco State, the junior guard recorded his first double-double of the season as well as established a school record with 14 assists.

Saturday he scored 23 points after shooting 69.2 percent (9-for-13) from the floor and 83.3 percent (5-for-6) from the free throw line.  Haddock was just shy of his second consecutive double-double, dishing out nine assists in the Coyotes overtime win against Sonoma State.

In 74 minutes of play the Las Vegas native averaged 16.5 points and 11.5 assists, while adding five rebounds and three steals to his weekend performance.

Hannah Womack of Chico State was the Women’s Player of the Week.

The first round of the CCAA tournament is hosted at campus sites, with the top four teams hosting the bottom four teams in games on Tuesday.

The semifinals will be held on Friday with both men’s and women’s title games on Saturday at Citizens Business Bank Arena in Ontario. Tickets are available at the arena box office.

The seedings are as follows:

MEN

No. 8 Sonoma State (11-15) at No. 1 Cal Poly Pomona (24-2)
No. 7 UC San Diego (11-14) at No. 2 Cal State San Bernardino (18-7)
No. 6 Cal State Dominguez Hills (16-13) at No. 3 Chico State (17-9)
No. 5 Cal State L.A. (16-10) at No. 4 San Francisco State (15-11)

WOMEN

No. 8 San Francisco State (12-14) at No. 1 Chico State (22-4)
No. 7 Cal State San Bernardino (13-13) at No. 2 UC San Diego (19-10)
No. 6 Cal Poly Pomona (14-12) at No. 3 Cal State Monterey Bay (18-7)
No. 5 Cal State East Bay (16-10) at No. 4 Cal State L.A. (19-10)