WAC Notebook
by Dean Austin
So let’s face it, you haven’t been paying much attention to the WAC. Every year Tulsa wins a boat load of games, Fresno State does something really stupid and ends up on probation and San Jose State stink out the joint. The excellent Tulsa coach takes his Golden Hurricanes into the second week of the tournament and promptly bolts for pastures new.
So there you are, casually perusing the results and standings; checking out who is going to join Tulsa in the Big Dance this year and all of a sudden there’s that sense of unease. Is this an episode of Sliders where unbeknownst to yourself you are in a parallel Earth? Sure most things still look the same, the right wing and the left are fighting over something, you still can’t find a radio station anywhere that plays four songs in a row that you like, nobody cares about the NBA or NHL until the playoffs, Duke keeps winning, the East Coast media is over ranking their clubs – again, North Carolina is a tournament train wreck waiting to happen and the Committee will screw one of the SEC teams again this year.
But for the love of Timmy Hardaway what is going on in the WAC? Fresno State has a losing record, Tulsa has lost 20 games, Rice and Boise State have both won over 20 and aren’t even in the top two of the conference and UTEP and Nevada are battling it out for bragging rights. At least San Jose State is trying hard to remain some resemblance of normalcy going a mind numbing 1-20 in their final 21 games.
Certainly you could make a case at the start of the year for Nevada to be the best team in the conference and there were enough national scribes to generate an occasional comment about a possible break out year for Rice or Boise State but UTEP? The Miners came out of nowhere.
There may be a couple of better coaching turn-arounds in the country this year but from 6 wins to 24 is a pretty darn impressive feat for coach Billy Gillispie and his UTEP squad. I’m generally not a fan of powder puff early season schedules, but the Miners showed how to schedule smartly. Easy games against the likes of Portland State and Arkansas Pine Bluff were bracketed around battles against Texas Tech, Houston and a rare home and home in season against a non conference opponent in New Mexico State. Sweeping the Aggies and beating the Cougars was offset by the one pre conference blemish in the loss to Bobby Knight and his Red Raiders. A 94-68 pounding of Rutgers finished off the excellent 9-1 pre conference schedule and set the stage for a good WAC run.
In retrospect of course combining four returning starters with a couple of JUCO transfers who made a significant impact is a good way to rebuild a program. Point Guard Filberto Rivera was all he was cracked up to be but it was Omar Thomas who stole the show leading the team in scoring while only sixth in minutes played. And the Miners had one other thing going for them, a 1.2:1 Assist to Turnover ratio. Now having such a ratio isn’t a prerequisite for a good team but if you have such a positive ratio then good things start to happen.
It will be curious to see if UTEP goes dancing, they are certainly right on the bubble and would be a nasty #11 or #12 seed that could upset one of the over rated #5’s.
Definitely going dancing are the Wolf Pack of Nevada who made sure winning the WAC tournament over the Miners Saturday night. Pre season WAC conference player of the year Kirk Snyder did not disappoint leading the WAC in scoring for the year and maintaining his 19.0 average through the month of February.
The only other team in the WAC to exhibit a 1.2:1 assist to turnover ratio was Hawaii and that goes some way to explaining why the Rainbow Warriors were nipping at the heals of the Top 25 for part of the year. A strong 14-3 start for Riley Wallace’s squad was derailed by a 4-4 February and the team limped home 5-7 over the last dozen games of the season to extinguish any chance of an at large bid. Particularly damaging was the loss on February 22nd to Southern Illinois, which ironically boosted the Salukis’ stature. Heralded recruit Julian Sensley was a disappointment in that game the sophomore scoring only 4 points in 38 minutes and while the local product has rebounded well (7+ per game – 4th in the conference) and has a very nice A/TO ratio of almost 2:1, his 12+ points a game are not as many as was anticipated.
Rice built on last year’s 19-10 team adding three more victories and improving their conferences wins by one as well. But like the Rainbow Warriors, February was the Achilles heal of the Owls who went 4-3 in seven contests. Coach Willis Wilson’s squad ironically was more defined by their losses to Stanford and Connecticut by a combined 13 points. Junior Forward Michael Harris made a move for all conference honors with four consecutive double-doubles down the stretch and maintained his 3rd place in the conference rebounding stakes.
Holding the No. 1 spot in the rebounding stakes was easily the freshman of the year within the conference, Paul Millsap whose presence in Ruston was enough to rate the incoming class highly by a number of services. Millsap was also a top ten scorer and it remains to be seen how long he will stay to be part of Coach Keith Richard’s transition from last year’s senior laden squad. Richards gets props for scheduling games at Alabama, Arkansas and UAB but unfortunately the Bulldogs lost all those games and a majority of their WAC contests.
Over in Boise Coach Greg Graham really turned around his program from his debut season of 13-16. An excellent 7-1 record in February combined with a signature win at Oregon State early in the year shows that this senior packed team bought into the coach’s program. I had a sneaking suspicion that the Broncos would make noise in the WAC tournament but they fell at the second hurdle to UTEP. Still the NIT would be smart to bring this team into the fold.
SMU remain one of the stranger teams in the country. A team that could beat Texas Tech and Purdue and yet perform so badly in conference that the Mustangs cost their Coach, Mike Dement, his job following a 39 point loss to Boise State. Ironically sophomore guard Bryan Hopkins played his best ball after Dement’s demise averaging 24.4 points down the stretch.
Coach Ray Lopes has major problems in Fresno as the senior and junior laden Bulldogs finished with a losing record after starting 2-5 and never fully recovered. Similarly in Tulsa Coach John Phillips has to have wondered what he got himself into. The Golden Hurricane fans are used to excelling in the Big Dance not losing 20 games and losing them convincingly. Only a one point victory at San Jose State prevented Tulsa losing every game in February.
The less said about San Jose State the better.
