Our love/hate relationship with articles like this

*** Do note Perry Missner's comment regarding this article at the bottom --- his article's purpose was meant to be for fantasy league aficionados and not an actual listing of this coming season's top WAC players ***

There's the old adage that any publicity is better than no publicity and while that's not always correct there's a degree of truth in that. So we generally enjoy it when we come across any articles about Western Athletic Conference (WAC) basketball as such provides greater WAC public relations and the chance for us to learn more.

But with the 'net and easily available web and blog sites comes the opportunity for anyone to post anything, regardless of accuracy or quality. Now some of you are already thinking why is the Parsing The WAC guy describing himself here with that last aside but we'll ignore that and continue on. ;-)

Recently, we came across a listing of the Top 10 players in the 2008-2009 WAC and decide to bypass posting it after we read the article. We felt it was both incomplete and that the writer hadn't actually seen any of the players he detailing. Our sense is he was basing the names he selected solely on the previous season's stats (an assumption on our part which may or may not be accurate). Most importantly, there was no mention of any of last year's transfer redshirts anywhere to be found (as they had no stats for their inclusion to be based on).

But Chris Murray has an article about this Top 10 list today in the Gazette-Journal and that made us re-visit our decision and now think it worthwhile to have here.

Here's the beginning of the article that contains the list:

WAC Players to Watch
Perry Missner
ProFantasySports

I’ll let you in on a little inside project I have been working on. It has been my hope to reduce the number of comments made on teams referring to players that have moved on. Is there any other sport in which the offseason coverage seems to center on which the team no longer has more than college basketball? I realize that it is a nice way to connect Nevada to casual fans to mention past studs as Marcellus Kemp and Nick Fazekas, but those guys are gone. Why talk about them now? However, with this year’s WAC, things get a little dicey. Almost all of the rosters of the nine teams feature huge amounts of turnover. In fact, only one member of the team’s All-Conference first and second teams returns. And just in the past week another excellent prospect, New Mexico State F Herb Pope, also left. One might conclude that this will be a down year in the WAC. Not me. My guess is that some of these lesser known players will step up and help fantasy teams to championships...

Here's the players who were selected but go to this link to see the complete article.

10. G Brandon Fields, Nevada Wolf Pack

9. G Anthony Thomas, Boise State Broncos

8. G Jonathan Gibson, New Mexico State Aggies

7. F/C Chris Oakes, San Jose State Spartans

6. F Roderick Flemings, Hawaii Warriors

5. G Armon Johnson, Nevada Wolf Pack

4. F/C C.J. Webster, San Jose State Spartans

3. G Kyle Gibson, Louisiana Tech Bulldogs

2. F Luke Babbitt, Nevada Wolf Pack

1. F Gary Wilkinson, Utah State Aggies

So where is Louisiana Tech's Magnum Rolle (LSU)? Maybe Jamel White (Nebraska) or even Proposition 48-er Olu Ashaolu? How about Adrian Oliver (Washington) of San Jose State? NMSU fans sure are speaking highly of Prop. 48-er Troy Gillenwater? Fresno State's Sylvester Seay (Arizona State) will certainly have a ton of shot opportunities available with the current Bulldog roster and should be a leading scorer this season in the WAC.

Well, there you have it. Love the PR for the WAC but wish the piece was more complete.