Thursday's WAC roundball digest

SoCal power forward Kyle Benton has committed to Portland State of the Big Sky Conference.

In a September 26 article, the 6-foot-7 senior described Idaho as his leader.

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But this probably had something to do with the above as Coach Don Verlin recently landed Ayodele Ojo, a JC frontcourter out of Missouri as Loyalvandal has posted at the Vandals.net MB.

Here's a brief note. Ojo scored 6.8 points, nabbed 5.5 rebounds and blocked 1.1 shots per game as a freshman, shooting 49% overall and 58% from the foul line.

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Here's the Utah State out-of-conference schedule analyzed by Myron Medcalf/ESPN:

UTAH STATE

Toughest: at BYU (Dec. 5)
Next-toughest: Saint Mary’s (Nov. 15)
The rest: Idaho State (Nov. 10), Texas A&M Corpus Christi (Nov. 17), Weber State (Nov. 24), at Santa Clara (Nov. 28), Western Oregon (Dec. 8), at Utah Valley (Dec. 15), Nicholls State (Dec. 20), UC Davis (Dec. 21), Southern Illinois (Dec. 22)
Toughness scale (1-10): 4 -- Before Utah State takes its talents to the Mountain West, it will finish its tenure in the WAC vying with New Mexico State for the conference championship. If the Aggies can win at BYU and take out SIU and Saint Mary's at home, they’ll certainly be prepared for another run to the WAC title. But one or two additional matchups against high-major opponents wouldn’t have hurt.

Speaking of the Aggies, Matt Sonnenberg writes about the suitorship between Stew Morrill and Rashard Figures.

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Chris Johnson is not overly impressed with the recent additions to the WAC.