An early look at the WAC awards

Hughes Views

By Eddie Hughes

There’s just one week of Western Athletic Confer-ence basketball left until Fresno State hosts the WAC tournament at the Save Mart Center.

Texas El-Paso looks to be the frontrunner for the No. 1 seed in the tournament and Fresno State is trying to hang on to that No. 6 seed with home games against San Jose State and Hawaii remaining.

Usually the WAC has one or two teams who are the obvious favorites to make a run at an NCAA Tournament bid come WAC Tournament time. But this year the WAC has a number of teams with a shot at winning the conference tournament and gaining an automatic bid to the “Big Dance.”

Why are there so many teams with a chance this year? Well, simply put, the conference’s best players are spread all over the place. Here’s a look at some of them with one opinion on how the All-WAC team should turn out.

GUARDS

The nominees: Shantay Legans (Fresno State), Jason Parker (Tulsa), Bryan Hopkins (SMU), Filiberto Rivera (UTEP), Michael Kuebler (Hawaii), Jason McKrieth (Rice)

The picks: Legans and Kuebler

The breakdown: Legans gets the nod over Hopkins and Rivera as the WAC’s best true point guard. The Bulldogs’ senior transfer from Cal leads the conference in assists with 5.77 per game and also puts up a respectable average of 14.2 points. Hopkins averages a couple more points and is just fifth in the WAC in assists. Plus, he’s less experienced than Legans and is on a worse team. Rivera is also less experienced than Legans, and averages less points and less assists.

Kuebler gets the other guard spot over Parker and McKrieth. Kuebler is tied for the WAC lead in scoring at 18.7 points per game. Parker isn’t far behind at 17.5 points, but Kuebler has a 47 percent field goal percentage, compared to 40 percent by Parker. Plus, Hawaii is tied for second in the conference and Tulsa is having its worst season in recent memory.

FORWARDS

The nominees: Omar Thomas (UTEP), Michael Harris (Rice), Kirk Snyder (Nevada), Nick Fazekas (Nevada), Aaron Haynes (Boise State), Jermaine Blackburn (Boise State)

The picks: Snyder and Harris

The breakdown: Snyder is tied with Kuebler for the scoring lead at 18.7 points. The Junior was the WAC’s preseason player of the year and will likely be taken in the NBA draft once he decides to leave college—whether it be after this season or after next. None of the other candidates are as versatile and athletic as Snyder.

Harris has led Rice to one of its best seasons of late and has the Owls in prime position to compete for a postseason berth. He hasn’t done it all by himself, but his 18 points per game and 9.3 rebounds per game cannot be ignored. Anytime someone is third in the conference in scoring and second in rebounding, that person is almost a lock for the all-conference team.

While it’s tough to leave the freshman Fazekas off, Snyder and Harris are obvious picks.

CENTER

The nominees: Mustafa Al-Sayyad (Fresno State), Paul Millsap (Louisiana Tech), John Tofi (UTEP)

The pick: Millsap

The breakdown: Millsap is a freshman, but it doesn’t show very often in his play. He leads the WAC in rebounding with 12.3 boards per game. No one else even averages double digits in that category. On top of that, Millsap scores 15.2 points per game for Louisiana Tech. He will be a force in the coming years of WAC play. Tofi, a sophomore, is young and coming too, but he just can’t match-up statistically with Millsap.

Al-Sayyad, the fourth-year junior, is on a recent hot streak and has the ability to put up points and gather rebounds against any of the WAC’s other centers. But Al-Sayyad doesn’t rank in the top 20 in scoring and his 7.2 rebounding average is significantly lower than Millsap’s.

COACH

The nominees: Willis Wilson (Rice), Billy Gillispie (UTEP), Trent Johnson (Nevada)

The pick: Gillispie

The breakdown: This one is easy. Gillispie has led the Miners to a 22-5 overall record (13-4 WAC) in just his second season as coach. Last season, UTEP finished 6-24. Dramatic turnarounds don’t just happen that drastically without good coaching. Now, UTEP finds itself atop the WAC standings with one game to go and in position to earn a postseason berth.