Western Athletic Conference (Conference Tourney Part 10)
We’re back with Part 10 of our College Conference Knockout Tournament! Check out our rules and some context for the tourney in Part 1 here. After covering perhaps the most legendary college basketball conference ever in the ACC in last week’s entry, we turn in a totally unexpected direction to cover a historical underdog in the three seed…
Western Athletic Conference (WAC)
The WAC has an astounding forty-one eligible schools for this exercise. However, many of them have none or just one player eligible for consideration. Furthermore, seventeen have just recently joined within the past decade, indicative of terrible membership consistency. And yet, although it lacks much Hall of Fame star power, it does boast a deep pool of All-Stars including several players who earned All-League honors:¹
- PG — Tiny Archibald (UTEP — 876 total games played)
SG — Paul George (Fresno State — 793)
SF — Pascal Siakam (New Mexico State — 471)
PF — Shawn Marion (UNLV — 1,163)
C — Mel Daniels (New Mexico — 639)
B — Danny Ainge (BYU — 1,042)
B — Michael Cage (San Diego State — 1,140)
B — Joe Caldwell (Arizona State — 782)
B — JaVale McGee (Nevada — 863)
B — Andre Miller (Utah — 1,304)
B — Paul Millsap (Louisiana Tech — 1,085)
B — Flynn Robinson (Wyoming — 543) - Total Games Played — 10,071
As mentioned above, only twenty-one of the forty-one WAC schools offered at least one eligible player for selection. Of those twenty-one, ten of them had just one eligible player. I didn’t give much serious consideration to six of those ten: Colorado State’s Milt Palacio, TCU’s Lee Nailon, Rice’s Mike Wilks, SMU’s Quinton Ross, Tulsa’s Michael Ruffin, and San Jose State’s Tariq Adul-Wahad. Those six omissions left fifteen schools from which to pick the WAC roster.
Fortunately, there were several easy decisions to start out the construction of this team. Paul Millsap from Louisiana Tech and Pascal Siakam from New Mexico State didn’t have any competition from their schools for selection and Paul George from Fresno State had just Rafer Alston as competition and Shawn Marion from UNLV had just Keon Clark. Despite all four of Millsap, Siakam, George, and Marion playing roughly the same position and providing roughly the same skillsets, their overlapping skills also happen to be very conducive to coexisting with each other on both sides of the ball, namely defense, shooting, rebounding, and cutting. Basically, you can never have too much wing depth, so all four of these guys easily made the cut for this hypothetical team.
Given the immediate depth of wing talent with which this team was blessed, point guards, off guards, and centers were prioritized among the eligible players from the remaining eleven schools. Fortunately, one school happened to offer not just one, but two Hall of Fame point guards in Tiny Archibald and Tim Hardaway. I previously lamented in earlier hypotheticals about how difficult it is to parse the UTEP point guards and it was no different this time around. However, this instance was a tiny bit simpler given the presence of the four aforementioned wings already on the roster, so I set about deciding which of the two point guards’ skillsets would most thrive next to the wings and/or help maximize the wings’ talent. Apart from George, the wing players already on the team operate at their best without the ball in their hands as part of a team offense. As such, a one-man offensive juggernaut like Archibald is a perfect fit next to them. Tiny can ably initiate an individual attack, improvise, or facilitate a set play for the deadly wings. Hardaway would also succeed in this role, but Archibald’s superior individual scoring ability separates him just a bit in my eyes. One of my all-time favorite players, Antonio Davis, was also available from UTEP but didn’t stand much of a chance for selection against Archibald and Hardaway.
The WAC also had a Hall of Fame center available in ABA great Mel Daniels. Daniels easily slid into the team’s starting big man spot to provide defense, rebounding, and some emergency post-up offense if needed. His competition among the New Mexico pool of players was formidable though, as all of Michael Cooper, Ira Harge, Luc Longley, and Kenny Thomas warranted a look.
Although there were no other centers available of the same caliber as Daniels, there were plenty of strong backup options, including Shawn Bradley from BYU, Theo Ratliff from Wyoming, JaVale McGee from Nevada, and Michael Cage from San Diego State. Similarly, there were also several strong backup point guard options available in Flynn Robinson from Wyoming, Eric Money from Arizona, Freddie Lewis and Lionel Hollins from Arizona State, Danny Ainge from BYU, and Andre Miller from Utah.
Of all those point guard and center options, Andre Miller is undoubtedly my favorite player and, in my eyes at least, also clearly the best player. However, he also had the toughest competition from within his own school for selection, including the likes of Tom Chambers, Mike Newlin, and Keith Van Horn. However, the presence of the initial quartet of wings around whom this roster was being built rendered the need for another wing or power forward less critical, meaning playing time for Chambers, Newlin, or Van Horn would be less likely despite their impressive skillsets than it would be for Miller even as a backup to Archibald.
I felt that the remaining center options were largely interchangeable, so I opted for Michael Cage because he was the only player from a school without any other eligible players for selection. As such, sliding him into the backup center role still left the option to select a third center from those listed above or one of the other players from their schools.
I thenturned my sights to Arizona State, which offered three strong options in Joe Caldwell, Lionel Hollins, and Freddie Lewis. I felt that these three were the best overall players remaining from any school regardless of position. I selected Caldwell from this trio to get a fifth wing on to the squad, as there aren’t many other wing options available following the omission of Van Horn, Chambers, and Newlin in the wake of Andre Miller’s selection from Utah. Caldwell should fit in seamlessly with this group and work well in a rotation with Siakam, Millsap, George, and Marion.
Following Caldwell’s selection, there were six eligible schools remaining to fill the final three roster spots. However, it was clear to me that the options from Denver, Arizona, and Hawaii weren’t as strong as those from BYU, Nevada, and Wyoming, so the former three were removed from consideration. Among those schools, the toughest omission was Royce O’Neale from Denver. Larry Demic and Eric Money from Arizona and Anthony Carter and Trevor Ruffin from Hawaii were the other considered players not to make the cut.
Regarding BYU, Nevada, and Wyoming, I felt that McGee had the biggest advantage over his fellow Nevada options in Luke Babbitt and Ramon Sessions, so I picked him to be a third center. His presence rendered Shawn Bradley and Theo Ratliff unnecessary, so I went with Danny Ainge from BYU and Flynn Robinson from Wyoming for the final spots despite both being point guards. I don’t like having four point guards on the team, so I considered reversing my selection of Andre Miller, using Ainge as the backup point guard instead, and sliding Van Horn, Chambers, or Newlin into the wing rotation, but I couldn’t bring myself to excise Miller and instead chose to roll the dice with both Ainge and Robinson. Both have just enough shooting prowess to possibly coexist with another point guard to find some play time.
Altogether, this is a good but not great squad. A starting lineup of Archibald, George, Siakam, Marion, and Daniels is very competitive, but it’s also a certainty the other high-seeded schools will have significant advantages in at least two or three positions. As such, while this team should be competitive, I can’t see them winning it all.
Footnotes
¹ For reference, here are the eligible WAC schools and the timeframes from which we are able to select players:
Arizona from 1962 to 1978; Arizona State from 1962 to 1978; BYU from 1962 to 1999; Utah from 1962 to 1999; Wyoming from 1962 to 1999; New Mexico from 1962 to 1999; Colorado State from 1968 to 1999; UTEP from 1968 to 2005; San Diego State from 1979 to 1999; Hawaii from 1979 to 2012; Air Force from 1980 to 1999; Boise State from 2001 to 2011; Fresno State from 1992 to 2012; UNLV from 1996 to 1999; TCU from 1996 to 2001; Rice from 1996 to 2005; SMU from 1996 to 2005; Tulsa from 1996 to 2005; San Jose State from 1996 to 2013; Nevada from 2000 to 2012; Louisiana Tech from 2001 to 2013; Utah State from 2005 to 2013; Idaho from 2005 to 2014; New Mexico State from 2005 to 2023; Denver from 2012 to 2013; UTSA from 2012 to 2023; Texas State from 2012 to 2013; UT-Arlington from 2012 to 2013 and 2022 to the present; Seattle from 2012 to the present; Cal State Bakerfield from 2013 to 2020; Chicago State from 2013 to 2022; UT-Rio Grande Valley from 2013 to the present; UMKC from 2013 to 2020; Utah Valley from 2013 to the present; California Baptist from 2018 to the present; Utah Tech from 2020 to the present; Tarleton from 2020 to the present; Abilene Christian from 2021 to the present; Lamar from 2021 to 2022; Sam Houston State from 2021 to 2023; Stephen F. Austin from 2021 to the present; Southern Utah from 2022 to the present)
