Miss us, Big West?

Just jumping in quickly to excitedly say: We’re going back to the Big West!!!

See ya, WhACk!

EDIT: Yes, they did!

History Lessons

Graham Hays, ESPN’s version of STAN, posted a neat profile of Fresno State head coach Adrian Wiggins yesterday. Fresno is sitting atop the WAC at 11-0, but according to Graham, Coach Wiggins is teaching the Bulldogs about much more than just being successful at basketball.

Yet if you stumbled into a Fresno State huddle at practice on any given day and expected to hear chalk talk, you’d be almost as likely to find Wiggins talking to his players about the minuscule number of African-American students enrolled in college in the United States in 1917, or sharing with a generation too young to remember even Don Mattingly’s days in pinstripes the details of how Lou Gehrig seized an opportunity provided by Wally Pipp’s headache.

Wiggins’ approach to his team as part coach, part American history teacher is particularly interesting for a roster that sports four players from Australia. And it is definitely a far cry from the days of Stacy Johnson-Klein, whom the university alleged “had engaged in financial improprieties” and verbally abused and endangered the welfare of her players. That is definitely history not worth reliving.

Vegas, baby!

Exciting news from the WAC: 2011-12 WAC basketball tourneys will be in Vegas at the Orleans arena.

The WAC tourneys have previously been held in Vegas at the Thomas & Mack, back in 1997-1999, when UNLV joined the WAC. The tournaments left Sin City after 1999 when the Runnin’ Rebs joined the group of eight traitors who broke away from the WAC to form the Mountain West Conference.

The return of the basketball tourneys to Vegas follows the lead of the WAC volleyball tournament and the WCC basketball tournaments in choosing the casino as a neutral site to host conference championships.

I think this is a good move for the WAC. Not only is Vegas a fair neutral site, it is a central location for a conference whose members range from the middle of the Pacific Ocean to the middle of the North American continent. Vegas may a tourist trap, but that also means there are always good deals and lots to do to attract fans to travel their for the tourneys. Which, hopefully, they’ll still find time to attend.

I personally attended all three women’s tourneys when they were held in the Thomas & Mack and am already planning to be busy the second week of March, 2011