I sometimes wonder what college basketball on the West Coast would look like if the league’s premier programs had continued to put a full-court press on the state of California.

As we enter a Final Four that features a single team west of Florida — the Mountain West’s San Diego State — the Pac-12 better take a good, hard look at how it got here. This is the Conference of Champions, yet it has put just 2 teams in the Final Four since 2008. In the same span, the Big East has had 11 (including 4 titles), the ACC has had 10 (including 5 titles), the Big Ten has had 9, and the Big-12 has had 6 (including 2 titles).

Why? The Pac-12 hasn’t been able to lock down its borders and keep its best players.

But it wasn’t always this way.

UCLA’s first Final Four squad of the 2000s, the special 2006 squad that kicked off a run of 3 straight, featured a dozen California products. Arron Afflalo (Compton) and Cedric Bozeman (Mater Dei), Jordan Farmar (Tarzana) and Josh Shipp (Fairfax), Darren Collison (Rancho Cucamonga) and Ryan Hollins (Pasadena), Lorenzo Mata (Huntington Park) and Mike Roll (Mission Viejo). Basically every single one of UCLA’s contributors, save for Alfred Aboya and Luc Richard Mbah a Moute, who both hailed from Cameroon.

The next year, the Bruins lost Farmar to the NBA but added SoCal’s Russell Westbrook. Another Final Four.

It wasn’t until the next season, 2007-08, that the Bruins opened their borders, heading slightly north to pluck Kevin Love out of Oregon. But still — UCLA’s only other signing in the class was Fairfax 4-star Chace Stanback.

And then there was the Pac-12’s next great (or at least very, very good) team: the Arizona Wildcats of the mid-2010s.

The squad that started their run in 2013 featured Gabe York (West Covina), Aaron Gordon (San Jose), Jordin Mayes (Los Angeles) and Brandon Ashley (San Francisco). The following year, the Wildcats fielded another Elite 8 squad, including the additions of Parker Jackson-Cartwright (Los Angeles), Stanley Johnson (Fullerton) and Ryan Anderson (Long Beach by way of Boston College).

Then there was Oregon’s back-to-back Elite 8 squads that came along 2 years later and featured future NBA players Tyler Dorsey (Los Angeles) and Jordan Bell (Long Beach).

USC’s Elite 8 squad in 2021 featured the San Diego-born-and-bred Mobley brothers, Evan and Isaiah, and that same year, more than half of Oregon State’s Elite 8 roster came from California, including its top 2 scorers: Ethan Thompson (Los Angeles) and Jarod Lucas (Hacienda Heights).

All that is to say: Putting up borders around the state is almost a prerequisite to NCAA Tournament success.

Am I saying that the reason the 2nd-seeded Arizona Wildcats lost in the first round to Princeton was because they don’t have a single player from California on their roster? Yes. Yes I am.

Princeton does: Ryan Langborg, the Tigers’ second-leading scorer, born in San Diego.

*****

The Pac-12’s best hope for a rare NCAA Tournament title — which would be the league’s first since 1997 — went up in flames when UCLA lost the country’s best perimeter defender, Jaylen Clark, to an Achilles’ injury in the final game of the regular season.

That would be Riverside’s Jaylen Clark, who joined Camarillo’s Jaime Jaquez, David Singleton, Gardena’s Dylan Andrews, and their 2 electric freshman stars, Pac-12 freshman of the year, Adem Bona, who moved from Nigeria to Turkey to Prolific Prep of Napa, Calif., and Amari Bailey, who hails from Chicago but prepped at SoCal hoops powerhouse Sierra Canyon.

The Bruins took a big leap forward in local recruiting the past 2 years with Bailey and Bona, the state’s top 2 recruits in 2022, and Peyton Watson, California’s best in 2021.

Clark, who blossomed into one of the league’s top players, was just the 12th-best player from California in 2020, the same year Mobley headed to USC, Ziaire Williams left for Stanford, Brandon Boston and Devin Askew jetted to Kentucky, Josh Christopher and Marcus Bagley absconded to Arizona State. The year prior, Jaquez was the 9th-best player in the state.

But so much for momentum.

In the class of 2023 rankings, just 1 player of the state’s top 10 players is bound for the Pac-12: Andrej Stojakovic, headed for Stanford.

*****

Back to San Diego State.

The Aztecs have spent 2 decades cultivating tough, gritty, local talent. They’ve made a home in Los Angeles, the Bay Area and San Diego.

San Diego State claims 11 players who hail from California or played high school basketball in the Golden State, including starters Matt Bradley (San Bernardino), Darrion Trammell (Marin City), Lamont Butler (Moreno Valley) and Keshad Johnson (Oakland), plus super-sub Adam Seiko (Sierra Canyon High).

Don’t be surprised if the locally-loaded Aztecs pack their California burritos from Trujillo’s, go to Houston and pull off a stunner.