WAC NOTES
WAC TEAMS IMPRESSIVE IN EXHIBITION GAMES
WAC teams have gone a perfect 9-0 in this year’s exhibition season. During those nine exhibition contests, teams from the WAC won by an average scoring margin of 24.8 points.
WAC TOURNAMENT RETURNS TO LAS VEGAS
The 2012 WAC Men’s and Women’s Basketball Tournament will be held March 7-10 at the Orleans Arena in Las Vegas and will include all eight WAC teams. Ticket information and tournament format will be available soon at www.wacsports.com.
ESPN SEARS BRACKETBUSTERS
For the 10th year in a row, the WAC has partnered with ESPN and several other top college basketball conferences for ESPN Sears BracketBusters, a weekend men’s basketball event matching potential NCAA tournament hopefuls against each other. All eight WAC teams will be a part of this year’s pool of teams. The event will be held February 18. The match-ups for Sears BracketBuster Saturday will be determined by ESPN in conjunction with the conferences about three weeks before the event.
WAC STAT LEADERS RETURN TO THE COURT IN 2011-12
The WAC returns six of its stat category leaders (all games) from last season. Nevada’s Dario Hunt returns for his senior season after leading the league in rebounding last season at 9.7 rebounds per game. Hunt also led the conference in blocks at 1.69 per game. Idaho’s Kyle Barone will head into his junior campaign after leading the WAC in field goal percentage at 61.1 percent. Deremy Geiger also returns to Idaho for his senior season after fronting the conference with an 86.9 free throw percentage. Hawai‘i’s Zane Johnson enters his senior season after leading the league with 3.16 three-point field goals per game. Idaho’s Landon Tatum led the league in assist/turnover ratio at 2.20 last season, and returns for his senior season. Six of the WAC’s top 15 scorers and eight of its top rebound leaders return this season.
TOURNAMENT OPPONENTS
WAC teams will play at least 10 non-conference games against opponents that played in last year’s NCAA Tournament. Nevada leads the conference with four games scheduled against last year’s NCAA Tournament opponents. Utah State will play two games against 2011 NCAA Tournament teams.
Brigham Young at Utah State, Nov. 11
New Mexico State at Northern Colorado, Nov. 12
Nevada at UNLV, Nov. 14
Nevada vs. Brigham Young, Nov. 25
Nevada vs. Wisconsin (Possible game), Nov. 26
Texas-San Antonio at San Jose State, Nov. 30
Washington at Nevada, Dec. 2
UALR at Louisiana Tech, Dec. 17
Saint Peter’s at Utah State, Dec. 21
UNLV at Hawai‘i, Dec. 31
LETTERWINNER/STARTERS RETURNING
This season, five WAC teams return at least three starters. Nevada returns all five of its starters from last season, while New Mexico State returns four. Hawai‘i, Louisiana Tech and San Jose State each return three starters. Fresno State returns two starters from last year’s squad, while Idaho and Utah State each return one starter. Nevada has the most number of returning letterwinners with 11.
WAC TEAM-BY-TEAM NOTES
Fresno State Bulldogs (0-0, 0-0 WAC)
Rodney Terry takes over as Fresno State’s 18th head coach after nine seasons as an assistant at Texas ... Kevin Olekaibe, the Bulldogs’ leading scorer during the 2010-11 season, is back as one of two returning starters ... for the first time in four years, Fresno State has more than one senior on its roster (Steven Shepp and Jonathan Wills) ... Terry hired longtime mentor Jerry Wainwright, who served as a head coach at Depaul, Richmond and UNC-Wilmington, as his associate head coach ... Fresno State will make its third appearance in the preseason NIT with a road opening date against the Pacific-12’s Stanford in Palo Alto, Calif. ... this marks the Dogs’ first preseason NIT appearance since 2001 when the Dogs advanced to Madison Square Garden for the tournament’s semifinals ... as Fresno State begins its ninth season in the Save Mart Center, the Dogs have averaged 11 home wins per year.
Hawai‘i Rainbow Wahine (0-0, 0-0 WAC)
UH returns six letterwinners, including three starters from last season’s squad that finished 19-13 overall and 8-8 in the WAC ... UH loses two starters from last year’s squad in point guard Hiram Thompson and 6-9 forward Bill Amis who concluded his career by earning all-WAC second team honors ... UH looks to make the postseason for the second straight season after earning a bid to the 2011 CollegeInsider.com Tournament and winning its first-round game versus Portland--the program’s first postseason appearance and first postseason win since 2003-04 ... after sitting out last year per NCAA rules, center Davis Rozitis (USC) and guards Pi`i Minns (Chaminade) and Jace Tavita (Utah) will be eligible for the ‘Bows this year ... senior shooting guard Zane Johnson is among UH’s six returnees ... Johnson led the team in scoring (15.8 ppg) and set a new single-record for three-pointers made in a season (98).
Idaho Vandals (0-0, 0-0 WAC)
With just six years of NCAA Division I playing experience last season, Idaho was the least-experienced team in the nation to qualify for postseason play ... they’ll be in a similar situation this year when the Vandal returners account for just eight total years of experience and only two players with more than one year of D-I playing time ... Idaho returns 43.8 percent of its scoring, 45.1 percent of its rebounding and 52.5 percent of its assists from last season’s team ... WAC field goal percentage leader Kyle Barone (.611) and conference assist-to-turnover ratio leader Landon Tatum (2.20) both return for Idaho this year ... Barone also holds the distinction as the most accurate shooter in the history of WAC games, with a career 63.1 shooting percentage against conference opponents.
Louisiana Tech Bulldogs (0-0, 0-0 WAC)
Louisiana Tech returns only six letter winners from last year’s team while it welcomes a total of eight newcomers (four high school, two transfers, one redshirt) ... sophomore guard Kenyon McNeaill is the only returner this year who started more than half of the Bulldogs 32 games last year ... returners Romario Souza (15), Brandon Gibson (12), Cordarius Johnson (11), Lonnie Smith (9) and JL Lewis (5) all started at least one game last year ... tTech welcomes a pair of Ole Miss transfers who follow former Rebel coach and new Bulldog head coach Mike White to Ruston in guard Trevor Gaskins and forward Isaiah Massey ... Tech will look to bounce back after winning only two WAC games last year, the fewest by the program since it joined the league in 2001-02.
Nevada Wolf Pack (0-0, 0-0 WAC)
Nevada was picked first in the 2011-12 WAC Coaches’ Preseason poll and second in the media poll ... Deonte Burton was selected as the 2011-12 Preseason WAC Player of the Year by the conference coaches and to the first-team All-WAC squad ... Dario Hunt and Malik Story were named to the Preseason WAC Coaches’ second team ... Hunt and Burton were named to WAC media preseason team ... Nevada returns all five starters in orward Dario Hunt, senior forward Olek Czyz, junior guard Malik Story, sophomore guard Deonte Burton and guard Jerry Evans, Jr. from last year’s team that posted a 13-19 record and went 8-8 in WAC play to finish in a tie for fifth. Hunt is the only starter who had suited up for the Wolf Pack prior to last season ... the returning starters were the Pack’s top five scorers last season with Story (14.5 ppg), Burton (13.7 ppg), Hunt (12.4 ppg) and Czyz (12.3 ppg) averaging in double figures.
New Mexico State Aggies (0-0, 0-0 WAC)
The Aggies return four starters for the 2011-12 season including senior guard Hernst Laroche, sophomore center Tshilidzi Nephawe, junior forward Tyrone Watson and junior forward Bandja Sy, in addition to senior forward Wendell McKines, who had to redshirt the 2010-11 season due to injury ... New Mexico State has three seniors, three juniors, four sophomores and seven freshmen on the 2011-12 roster ... Due to injuries in the 2010-11 season, the Aggies return eight players that accounted for 74 percent of the minutes ... the Aggies set a school record with a 12-game WAC home win streak last year that dated back to the 2009-10 season ... guard Hernst Laroche returns after 99 consecutive starts for the Aggies and ranks second on the all-time list for career assists (416) at NM State.
San Jose Spartans (0-0, 0-0 WAC)
San Jose State returns three starters and 11 players from the 2010-11 team that won 17 games, posted its first winning season since 1994, and was invited to the 2011 College Basketball Invitational ... San Jose State seeks back-to-back winning seasons for the first time since the 1986 and 1987 seasons ... guard Keith Shamburger is San Jose State’s top returning scorer at 12.4 points per game. Shamburger set a school record for scoring average by a freshman and played more minutes (1,034) than any other conference freshman last season ... San Jose State is coming off of back-to-back single season record free throw shooting. Last season’s Spartans led the WAC with a school-record 75.4 percent figure ... forward Wil Carter was fifth in the WAC in rebounding at 8.0 per game. His 265 rebounds matched the seventh best single season mark at San Jose State.
Utah State Aggies (0-0, 0-0 WAC)
Utah State won its fourth-straight Western Athletic Conference regular season title in 2011, including its third outright. USU also won its second WAC Tournament championship in the past three years in 2011 ... Stew Morrill was named the WAC Coach of the Year for the third straight year in 2011. Overall, it is the fifth time he has earned Coach of the Year honors at Utah State ... Utah State finished the year ranked No. 25 in the ESPN/USA Today Coaches’ Poll, marking the first time since 1978 that USU has been nationally ranked at the end of the season. It is also just the eighth time in school history that USU has finished the season nationally ranked ... Utah State returns one all-league player from last year in senior point guard Brockeith Pane who was named first-team all-WAC and to the league’s all-newcomer team. Pane was also named the Most Valuable Player of the 2011 WAC Tournament.