WAC NOTES
HAWAI‘I’S THOMPSON NAMED WAC PLAYER OF THE WEEK
Hawai‘i’s Hiram Thompson has been named the Verizon Western Athletic Conference Men’s Basketball Player of the Week for the week of Nov. 8-14. The honor marks the first career WAC Player of the Week award for Thompson.
Thompson, a senior guard from Sacramento, Calif. (Oak Ridge HS), led Hawai‘i to a pair of wins against Montana State and Cal State Fullerton. Thompson scored a career-high 21 points and added six rebounds with four assists in 24 minutes of action in the 77-59 win over Montana State. He connected on 8-of-9 field goals, including all three of his three-point attempts. Thompson tallied 18 points and seven assists against Cal State Fullerton. He scored 17 of his 18 points in the second half, including nine during the decisive 14-0 game-ending run that gave UH the 84-70 victory.
On the week, Thompson averaged a team-high 19.5 points, 4.5 rebounds and 5.5 assists per game. He also shot 66.7 percent (12-of-18) from the field, including a 5-of-7 clip from three-point range.
Other nominees included: Boise State senior guard La’Shard Anderson … Fresno State senior forward Nedeljko Golubovic … Idaho junior forward Djim Bandoumel … Louisiana Tech junior forward Olu Ashaolu … Nevada freshman guard Deonte Burton … New Mexico State junior forward Troy Gillenwater … San Jose State senior guard Adrian Oliver … Utah State junior guard Brockeith Pane.
HAWAI‘I WINS 2010 RAINBOW CLASSIC TITLE, OFF TO BEST START IN SIX YEARS
Hawai‘i captured the Outrigger Hotels Rainbow Classic title with a hard-earned 65-62 victory over Central Michigan in the championship game on Nov. 15. With the win, UH improved to 3-0 on the season for its best start in six years. The nationally-televised game—which tipped of at 11:00 p.m. local time—was emotionally charged from the get-go with the Rainbow Warriors eventually grinding out the win. The lead changed hands 11 times, including seven times in the second half, before UH took the lead for good at the four-minute mark and held off the Chippewa squad. Senior guard Hiram Thompason was named the Tournament MVP. The win gave UH its 12th all-time Rainbow Classic title and first since the tournament went to a four-team, round-robin format in 2009.
WAC TEAMS OPEN SEASON WITH IMPRESSIVE COMBINED RECORD
WAC teams have played 16 games through Nov. 17 and hold an 11-5 (.688) record.
ESPNU BRACKETBUSTERS
For the ninth year in a row, the WAC has partnered with ESPN and several other top college basketball conferences for ESPNU BracketBusters, a weekend men’s basketball event matching potential NCAA tournament hopefuls against each other. All nine WAC teams will be a part of this year’s pool of teams. The event will be held February 19. The match-ups for Bracket Buster Saturday will be determined by ESPN in conjunction with the conferences about three weeks before the event.
WAC TOURNAMENT HEADS TO LAS VEGAS
The 2011 WAC Men’s and Women’s Basketball Tournament will be held March 9-12 at the Orleans Arena in Las Vegas and will include the top eight teams in the regular-season standings. Ticket information will be available soon at www.wacsports.com.
WAC ANNOUNCES TOURNAMENT FORMAT CHANGE
The WAC will change its postseason men’s and women’s basketball tournament format, effective for the 2011 tournament. The change was recommended by both the WAC men’s and women’s basketball coaches and approved by the WAC Board of Directors. The change will reward teams based on regular season success, giving the top two teams byes into the tournament semifinals. Under the format, the tournament will begin on Wednesday with two men’s and two women’s games featuring the No. 5 seed against the No. 8 seed and No. 6 versus No. 7. The winners then advance to Thursday’s quarterfinal matchups to play the No. 4 and No. 3 seeds. The winners of those games then advance to Friday’s semifinals against the top two seeds. The change also results in two men’s and two women’s games being played each day of the tournament except for Saturday, which will feature the men’s and women’s championship games.
WAC TEAM-BY-TEAM NOTES
Boise State Broncos (1-0, 0-0 WAC)
Boise State opened the season with a 78-52 victory over Western State ... La’Shard Anderson scored 20 points and had a team-high six assists to lead Boise State to the win ... for Anderson, the 20-point outing was
just the second of his career ... Robert Arnold also contributed 16 points to help lead the Broncos, who dominated all facets of the game in giving head coach Leon Rice his first victory at Boise State ... Rice is the first Bronco head coach to win his debut since Bobby Dye in 1983 ... Fourteen different players saw action for Boise State, six of which were making their Bronco debut ... Boise State also had 11 different players score, a feat that was accomplished just once in all of last season.
Fresno State Bulldogs (0-1, 0-0 WAC)
Fresno State dropped an 83-56 road match with Brigham Young in its season-opener ... it was the first game for head coach Steve Cleveland in Provo as the leader of an opposing team after leading the Cougar program for eight successful seasons and won 2003 Mountain West Conference coach of the year honors with five postseason appearances ... Nedeljko Golubovic did play one of his best halves of his four-year Bulldog career with 12 first-half points ... Greg Smith helped with seven points and seven rebounds ... Jonathan Wills and Kevin Olekaibe each added eight points for the Bulldogs.
Hawai‘i Rainbows (3-0, 0-0 WAC)
Hawai‘i opened its season with three-straight wins at home in the Outrigger Hotels Rainbow Classic, earning the team the tournament title ... the team defeated Montana State, Cal State Fullerton and Central Michigan on its way to the Rainbow Classic title ... in the championship game against Central Michigan, Bill Amis led the way for UH with 17 points on 8-of-11 shooting, while also adding eight rebounds ... Tournament MVP Hiram Thompson battled foul trouble all game before finishing with 15 points, while Joston Thomas chipped in 14 and Zane Johnson 13 points ... The win gave UH its 12th all-time Rainbow Classic title and first since the tournament went to a four-team, round-robin format in 2009.
Idaho Vandals (1-1, 0-0 WAC)
Idaho opened the season with a 1-1 record ... five Idaho players scored in double digits and the Vandals shot 56.4 percent from the field to open the 2010-11 season with an 86-74 victory over Eastern Oregon ... Shawn Henderson and junior forward Djim Bandoumel led Idaho with 14 points each, while junior Luiz Toledo, senior Brandon Wiley and junior Jeremy Geiger also went for double figures in the team’s regular-season debut ... in an 88-71 loss at Washington State, Jeff Ledbetter had the top game of his Idaho career with 18 points on 6-of-9 shooting, all of which came from behind the 3-point arc ... next up for Idaho is a home matchup with Portland on Saturday.
Louisiana Tech Bulldogs (1-1, 0-0 WAC)
Louisiana Tech went 1-1 on the week with an 89-58 loss at No. 25 Texas followed by a 90-58 win over Austin College ... Olu Ashaolu recorded two double-doubles with 13 points and 11 rebounds at Texas and 18 points and 11 rebounds against Austin College ... he also added a career-high six assists against the Kangaroos ... DeAndre Brown recorded a career-high 21 points against Austin College ... the Bulldogs host Houston on Wednesday before resuming play in the 2K Sports Classic benefiting Coaches vs. Cancer in Irvine, Calif. against Seattle, Navy and UC-Irvine.
Nevada Wolf Pack (1-2, 0-0 WAC)
Nevada opened the season with a 1-2 record ... Nevada opened the season with an 81-66 win at home against Nevada ... Nevada started three freshmen, a sophomore and a junior in the victory over Montana ... in total nine new players saw action in the game with six being freshmen and three were transfers ... the nine newcomers combined to score 58 of the Pack’s 81 points in win against UM ... Nevada also dropped games at the NIT Tip-off against Pacific (64-53) and Pepperdine (76-75) ... in the one-point loss to Pepperdine on Tuesday night, Dario Hunt scored 16 points, and Malik Story and Jordan Burris added 15 each for the Wolf Pack.
New Mexico State Aggies (2-0, 0-0 WAC)
New Mexico State is off to a 2-0 start as it defeated Louisiana-Lafayette on the road, 92-76, before taking down Western New Mexico at home, 95-62 ... in the win at Louisiana-Lafayette, Troy Gillenwater and Hernst Laroche both had career-best performances ... Gillenwater scored a game-high 30 points on 10-for-17 shooting with five 3-pointers, while Laroche added 21 points and was 6-for-6 from the field including 4-for-4 from beyond the arc ... against Western New Mexico, Troy Gillenwater led New Mexico State with 21 points and six Aggies scored in double figures ...Gillenwater scored New Mexico State’s first 10 points as the Aggies pulled away with an early 10-0 run for a 17-4 lead and never looked back.
San Jose Spartans (1-0, 0-0 WAC)
Adrian Oliver scored a game-high 34 points leading San Jose State University to a 67-60 win over Eastern Washington in a season-opening game ... Oliver, 12-of-23 from the field, made his first five field goal tries to open the game and his final four in the last 6:08 to close out the Spartans’ fourth consecutive season-opening victory ... San Jose State won despite shooting just 32.7 percent from the field and did not have any of its other nine players in double-figure scoring ... forward Wil Carter of the Spartans led all players with 11 in his major college debut ... the Spartans open their home schedule, Wednesday, November 17, against USF at The Event Center.
Utah State Aggies (1-0, 0-0 WAC)
Junior guard Brockeith Pane scored 23 points in his Aggie debut and senior forward Tai Wesley added 19 to lead Utah State to a 77-65 come-from-behind win against Weber State here inside a rowdy Dee Glen Smith Spectrum Saturday in both team’s season opener ... for Utah State, it was its 16th-straight regular season win dating back to last year as it improved to 24-1 at home under head coach Stew Morrill against in-state competition ... Pane scored 17 of his 23 points in the second-half for the highest scoring game by an Aggie newcomer since Jay Goodman had 33 in his Aggie debut back in 1990 against Brigham Young ... USU returns to action on Wednesday at No. 24 Brigham Young at 7 pm ... the game will be televised live on the Mtn.