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The art of selling the Alaska Nanooks men’s basketball team took on an increased challenge for head coach Clemon Johnson.

Johnson was among the spectators in the Nanook Lounge in the University of Alaska Fairbanks’ Patty Center for Wednesday afternoon’s media conference about the cancellation of the BP Top of the World Classic.

For the last 12 years, the tournament at the Carlson Center featured the NCAA Division II Nanooks among a field of seven Division I teams. This year’s tournament, scheduled for Nov. 20-23, and the 2009 event were cancelled because of changes in NCAA rules that govern college basketball tournaments and the economic challenge of competing with tournaments that offer attractive appearance fees.

Johnson coached

in his first Classic last November at the Carlson Center, leading the Nanooks to sixth place. Before Alaska lost to Indiana University Purdue University at Indianapolis in the fourth- and sixth-place game, it defeated Oregon State of the Pacific-10 Conference in a consolation semifinal.

Alaska volunteer assistant coach Jocquis Sconiers, who’s on vacation, called Johnson before Wednesday’s media conference to ask him about the fate of the Classic.

“He said we’ve got to notify these kids because that’s (Classic) the first thing we use to recruit them to come here,” Johnson said.

To fill the void of the week that the 2008 Classic was scheduled, Johnson hopes to schedule a game against a D-I team and try to get the Nanooks into a tournament.

“I looked at my schedule and there’s a lot of gaping holes between the Glacier Classic, which ends on the 13th of December, and my next game, which is on January 8,” he said.

Johnson hopes to schedule a rematch against the University of California-Irvine of the D-I Big West Conference after the teams met in December at Irvine.

One D-I team he won’t schedule is the Pacific-10’s California Golden Bears, who walloped Alaska 100-42 last Nov. 8 in Berkeley, Calif.

“I wouldn’t go back there if they paid us all the money in the world,” Johnson said with a laugh.

He doesn’t want to schedule any games this season against Pac-10 squads, as he said he would prefer mid-level or lower-level D-I opponents.

“Even though we beat Oregon State last year, I wouldn’t want to see them win this year,” Johnson said. “I’m looking for individual games against D-I level (teams) that we can be competitive in. I do not want to demoralize this team.

“I feel like I have a very exciting team coming in this year, and sometimes teams can’t bounce back after getting beat by 40 or 50 points when they’re better than that. Then, they think that maybe I’m not as good as I think I am, and it takes me the rest of the year to convince them, ‘No gentlemen, you are good. They’re just better.’”

Alaska athletic director Forrest Karr, during the media conference, said there is a possibility of the Nanooks men playing in a D-II tournament Outside that weekend or playing host to a similar tournament with four or five teams. Division II teams, according to NCAA rules, are allowed to play up to four games in a D-II tournament in Alaska and the games won’t count against the regular-season schedule limit of 27 games.

“I’m sure there’s a lot of D-II tournaments outside of Fairbanks that we can attend,” Johnson said, “and like Forrest said, I’d like to bring four or five teams up here because I’m sure that not a lot of D-II teams are aware of that rule that Forrest mentioned.

“We can get those guys up here to play a nice tournament just to see how it would roll with the local fans.”

Before 2006, the Top of the World Classic was among only 10 certified preseason tournaments in the nation. An NCAA rule was implemented in 2006 that allowed any school to play host to a multiple-team event. There were 45 such tournaments last season and at least 50 are scheduled this year.

Alaska had to compete with tournaments that offer appearance fees of $60,000 to $100,000 plus what Alaska offered each team for the Classic — airline tickets, hotel lodging and per diem money.

Johnson said he thought the 2008-09 edition of the Nanooks could be competitive in this year’s scheduled Classic, which was set to be a six-team format.

The Nanooks have eight players scheduled to return from last season’s ninth-place finish (5-22 overall, 2-16 conference) in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference and seven recruits are set to come in this season, including four junior college transfers and 6-foot-10 freshman Evan Matteson, the brother of Nanooks junior forward Colin Matteson.

Four D-I teams had previously committed to the Classic — Stanford, Central Florida, Tennessee-Chattanooga and Bradley, which includes sophomore center Will Egolf from Juneau-Douglas. Tennessee-Chattanooga, though, dropped out in June and paid the university $30,000 to withdraw.

“Emotionally, it’s (cancellation) a letdown because of the fact that we felt that this year we had a team to actually compete,” Johnson said. “We beat Oregon State last year, but we felt this year’s team was just that good, that it wouldn’t be a fluke. We felt we could beat teams (this year) or at least be in the ball game.”

Contact staff writer Danny Martin at 459-7586.