It wasn’t always the case that anything could happen on any given day in the Western Athletic Conference. Utah State over San Jose State in Logan, Utah, was generally a lock and a conference tournament final sans Stew Morrill’s Aggies, Nevada or New Mexico State came around once in a full moon.
That was before the West Coast based conference added Chicago State and Texas-Pan American, before the WAC’s survival reached a level of desperation that forced WAC Commissioner Jeff Hurd to slip Grand Canyon an invite. Yes, the same for-profit, online-based Grand Canyon University that caused a national stir less than a year ago.
Yet in a jumbled WAC that is still searching for some kind of consistency, it’s the relative newcomers that are making a mess of things. Meanwhile, New Mexico State, Seattle U and Idaho, three of the top five preseason picks, according to both coaches and media, look on with a blank stare.
Nothing is as it was supposed to be in what was once referred to as a watered-down conference. Utah Valley sits pretty at the top of the WAC standings unscathed, and with a 4-0 record, Chicago State checks in second at 3-1 and NMSU, the overwhelming preseason favorite, is in third at 3-2.
The Aggies, who are without 7-foot-5 center Sim Bhullar, are riding a two-game slump, but still hold claim to the league’s best overall record at 14-7.
Idaho just escaped from the dead bottom of the standings with its second conference win, leaving room for Seattle, who swapped places with Idaho after a one-point loss to Utah Valley — three wins and eight places ahead of the Redhawks.
“They’re all important if you look at how close this league is,” Idaho coach Don Verlin told the media after Saturday’s home win against Cal State-Bakersfield. “I’m a little shocked that New Mexico State got swept, but anything can happen on the road and it sure was proven this weekend.”
The Aggies, back-to-back league champions, lost on the road to Chicago State and Missouri-Kansas City. The Kangaroos were picked to finish ninth by the WAC coaches.
Granted, most of these teams have played merely a quarter of their conference schedule and it’d be a shocker to see NMSU in third, Idaho in seventh and Seattle in ninth by March.
You’d expect those three teams would rebound from embarrassing early-season losses and dictate the second half of conference play.
However, as we’ve learned through the first five games, it may be safe not to set any expectations and let this conference play out how it will.
And if the regular season played out in favor of the newbies, it would surely make for an electrifying conference tournament — for a league that could really use a spark.
Theo Lawson can be reached at [email protected]