Sports

La Salle doesn’t want Cinderella tag

LOS ANGELES — Given its Hollywood script in the making, No. 15 seed Florida Gulf Coast, the darling of this year’s NCAA Tournament, is better suited than any team to be in the West Regional to be played tonight at the downtown Staples Center.

Instead, the West Regional gets La Salle, which, had it not been for the flashy, improbable story FGCU is weaving, might be the Cinderella story of the tournament.

After all, the No. 13-seeded Explorers, who play No. 9-seed Wichita State tonight, had not been to the NCAA Tournament since the 1991-92 season and have posted 16 losing records in the 19 seasons since.

However, listening to La Salle coach John Giannini and his players speak yesterday, if you are slotting the Explorers into the same Hollywood Cinderella genre as the more celebrated Florida Gulf Coast, look elsewhere.

“This attention is great, but this is not what motivates us,’’ Giannini said. “We’re a school that’s won a national championship. This is our 12th NCAA Tournament. It’s not our second year of eligibility. We play in one of the top six conferences in the country. So we’re not rags to riches.

“We play in a conference where we play top 50, top 100 teams every night. This isn’t an upset thing. … We’ve played high level competition all year.’ “This is not a low major success story who all of a sudden gets on a big stage and … wow.’’

Fair enough. La Salle (24-9), indeed, has wins this season over fellow NCAA Tournament teams such as Villanova, Butler and VCU and it lost to Temple by just eight points.

It is only the fifth No. 13 seed to reach the Sweet 16, and none of the previous four advanced to the final eight.

However, that national championship Giannini referred to came in 1954. La Salle’s most recent NCAA Tournament victory prior to this season came during the 1989-90 season. And since the ’91-92 team got to the NCAAs and was one-and-done, La Salle played in only one postseason tournament — last year’s NIT, in which it was ousted in the opening round.

“To everybody else, we’re a Cinderella story,’’ guard Ramon Galloway said.

“I think we belong with any team we’re playing against,’’ forward Jerrell Wright said.

La Salle defeated Boise State in Dayton and then went to Kansas City, where it shocked No. 4 seed Kansas State before beating No. 12 seed Mississippi to advance .

“I think before, we were definitely the underdog, but right now we’ve shown other teams that we can play amongst the top teams in the nation,’’ guard Sam Mills said. “Right now, we are proving that we are not unproven.’’

Maybe LaSalle will carve out a Hollywood script after all while it’s out here.

“For the Florida Gulf Coast thing, we’re not trying to shine on ESPN every day. We’re just trying to be low-key like we’ve been doing and sneaking these wins by,’’ guard Tyrone Garland said.

“If we keep winning,’’ guard Tyreek Duren said, “we’ll end up getting the national spotlight.’’