Michael Ventre

Sorry, West Virginia. If you want time on the shrink’s couch, you’ll have to wait. There are more needy schools ahead of you.

Step aside, Drake. Crisis counselors are available only for those with massive burdens of expectations, not feisty upstarts from the Missouri Valley Conference.

In fact, Vanderbilt, Clemson, USC, Purdue, UNLV, Stanford and many others really should just sit back with cool beverages and bags of chips, put their feet up on the coffee table, and relax until their tipoff times. That’s because the pressure is elsewhere.

In the men's NCAA tournament, pressure is spelled UCLA.

It’s also spelled Kentucky.

And North Carolina.

And Duke.

And Kansas.

And arguably, there are a few other versions of the word, depending on how liberally the criteria is applied.

At March Madness time, there are just some schools that have a lot more to live up to, and their kids have a lot more eyes on them. As soon as a young player dons a jersey from one of those institutions of higher hoops, he is immediately blinded by klieg lights and stalked by sports paparazzi. Imagine Britney Spears in high tops and that will approximate the amount of attention received.

The New York Yankees of college basketball reside in Los Angeles. That would be the UCLA Bruins, the West’s top seed. Thanks to coaching great John Wooden, who, at 97 years old, recently had a health scare when he broke his wrist and collarbone in a fall — actually, at 97, just making coffee in the morning can be a health scare — the Bruins have the most illustrious history of any team in the land.

The Bruins won 10 titles under Wooden and one more under Jim Harrick in 1995. During Wooden’s reign, the Bruins also had an 88-game winning streak.

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So when a recruit considers Westwood — and only the finest of the finest are even approached — he knows he will be pledging a fraternity in which the conditions for full membership are absurdly demanding. Lose, and you look like a chump. Win it all, and you get a place in the pantheon alongside Lew Alcindor, Gail Goodrich, Bill Walton, Sidney Wicks, Jamaal Wilkes and a host of others.

The downside is rough. Nowadays, in the era of message boards, blogs and YouTube, a player who fails to achieve his potential or sullies UCLA’s reputation in some small way by missing a big shot or committing a costly turnover, will be forever exiled to the land of the hardwood dorks.

That kind of treatment doesn’t always dissuade potential recruits from considering UCLA — the ones who get the golden invitation, like Kevin Love, usually come — but the pressure is still immense.

Fortunately, UCLA's Ben Howland is the type of coach who has the kind of serenity that comes from confidence. Therefore, he isn’t the target that many before him — Harrick, Steve Lavin, Larry Farmer, Walt Hazzard — have been. Instead, most UCLA fans understand that the program has returned to prominence under Howland, and figures to remain there as long as he stays. But that doesn’t make it any easier for the kids.

The same goes for Kentucky, No. 2 on the all-time championship hit list. The Wildcats have won seven titles, the last in 1998 under Tubby Smith. The first four were accomplished under the guidance of Adolph Rupp, who created the monster that is Kentucky basketball. I use the word monster because treatment of Kentucky players and coaches is similar to what the villagers did to Frankenstein’s creation, all the way down to chasing him through the countryside with torches and sticks after an early-round ouster in the tournament.

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This year Billy Clyde Gillispie, who revived Texas A&M and in 2006 took the Aggies to their first NCAA tournament since 1987, took over in Lexington. But as he soon found out, Kentucky fans greeted him with smiles and hidden weapons.

Just imagine what it’s like for a young man signing on to play at Kentucky, let alone for a new head coach who was under fire almost before he started. While UCLA certainly can be a steel cage of death, Kentucky has the added benefit of being in the South, where the typical sports fan tends to burst a vein when his basketball team loses the opening tipoff.

A Kentucky player carries not only the load of the current basketball administration and its lofty hopes on his shoulders, he also has to parry with the ghosts of the program's past. And there is no mercy: Win, or be scorned.

Miss the Tournament, and the best course of action for Kentucky players and coaches is to travel incognito. Get the No. 11 seed in the South — as the Wildcats did on Selection Sunday — and get ready to be on edge for a few more days.

UCLA and Kentucky are the most prominent examples of excess mental strain placed upon its guys in uniform. But they are by no means alone. Although other storied programs may not have the same glow on their heritages, there is still pressure galore.

North Carolina, Duke and Kansas also are havens for harassment from fans and foes alike. Because they too promise a white-hot spotlight upon enrollment to prospective student-athletes, their progress in the NCAA tournament is intensely scrutinized, and any stumbles are reacted to with outrage.

To a lesser extent, there are others who don’t have quite the same pedigree, but who have established excellence, and with it prying eyes. Connecticut, Georgetown, Arizona, Louisville and Indiana are schools in the big time, with accompanying big-time stress.

Only one team can win the NCAA tournament. The ones among basketball’s traditional elite that don’t would be advised to hit the couches long and hard before the next season begins.

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