It’s Anyone’s Race in a Balanced WAC

The Western Athletic Conference basketball race begins tonight and, for once, there seems to be no clear-cut favorite to win the league title.

When the season began, two-time defending champion Texas El Paso was considered the team to beat. It had four starters returning from a team that went 13-3 in the WAC last season, and it had won 20 straight games at home.

Then came the non-conference season, and the Miners now find themselves entering league play with a 7-4 record, including three losses at home.

Such is the parity in the WAC this year that Coach Don Haskins’ squad may merely be one of the best teams in a conference that doesn’t have a single team in the nation’s top 20.

“Leagues go up and down,” Brigham Young Coach Ladell Anderson said. “Last year, I thought the WAC was pretty strong in basketball. It’s probably not as strong this year.”

Balance and mediocrity appear to be the watchwords in the WAC this time around. The fact that six of the league’s nine teams have winning records does not mean much.

“If you go by record alone,” Anderson said, “San Diego State is the best team in the league. If you include other factors, any number of teams could be the best.”

The primary “other factor” is the caliber of competition the teams have faced.

San Diego State won its first eight games before losing to Texas Christian University and Michigan State in the Cabrillo Classic. Its 8-2 record is the best in the league, but the Aztecs have played a relatively soft schedule, and they lost at home to the two strongest teams they faced.

Still, the Aztecs were picked to finish no better than fifth in the league, and their early success has surprised WAC coaches.

Colorado State’s schedule was even softer. The Rams, a young and talented team that could be the surprise in the league, have gone 7-3 against teams such as Texas-Arlington, Northern Colorado and United States International University.

“I feel that the preseason is for the young people to get confident with what we’re doing,” Ram Coach Tony McAndrews said. “They have to learn to play aggressively.”

New Mexico and Wyoming are both 6-4. The Lobos made national headlines when they were narrowly defeated by top-ranked Georgetown, 69-61, in Albuquerque. In that game, New Mexico trailed by only three points with three minutes to play.

Wyoming has been both exciting and inconsistent. The Cowboys lost by 10 to USC, defeated Cal State Long Beach by 24, and lost to Nebraska by 14. In the opening round of the Cowboy Shootout last weekend, Wyoming beat Baylor, 86-84, on a 25-foot jump shot by Jamal Hosey with three seconds to play.

BYU is only 6-5, but two of those losses were by one point, and the Cougars have won five of their last six games. Included in those victories were home wins over UCLA, 89-81, and nationally-ranked Washington, 84-75. The loss during the Cougars’ hot streak was a 91-61 thumping by a strong Villanova team.

“Villanova is a lot better ballclub than we are at this time,” Anderson said. “They are a veteran team that is a good 10 to 15 points better than us. We couldn’t challenge them.”

With a lineup of players who had to be introduced to one another at the start of the season, Anderson is pleased with his club’s progress, but also concerned. The fortune of the Cougars will depend a lot on the knee of senior center Timo Saarelainen, who leads the team with a 22-point average. Saarelainen suffered a torn cartilage in his knee in the second game of the season.

“He has been going downhill since that time,” Anderson said, “and the knee is getting weaker and weaker.”

After this week’s games against UTEP and New Mexico, the Cougars will decide whether Saarelainen should immediately undergo arthroscopic surgery on his knee.

In the preseason picks, Air Force, Utah and Hawaii were picked to finish in the bottom third of the league. Their pre-conference records do little to indicate they will finish any higher.

Air Force is 4-5, and that includes wins over USIU and Adams State. Utah is 5-7. Its best performance was an 84-75 win over a Nevada Reno team that had defeated Nevada Las Vegas.

Despite playing all its games at home, Hawaii is 4-6. It beat Oregon State and lost to Maryland and Washington in the Rainbow Classic.

“There are a lot new faces in the league,” Colorado State’s McAndrews said, “and there is the potential for a heck of a race.”