A pair of interesting tweets from Nick Jezierny

Here's is Nick Jezierny's extra large All-WAC first-team.

Plus, Nick projects the WAC tourney seeding.

Nick Jezierny offering a public service

Here's Nick on his Twitter account: "To my WAC media friends: The rate for the Orleans Hotel during WAC Tourney is cheaper w/out using the special code. Just an FYI."

What are the odds that Nick's OH room reservation disappears into the ether?

Why the WAC will be better this season

Chris Murray has a post up about the WAC having a solid number of players being listed right now as 2010 NBA draftees. Go here for Chris' post.

This is indicative of how much better the league will be overall in 2009-2010 and we'll expand on that in a minute. What also deserves mentioning is there are quite the number of undergrad players listed (or not) who have yet to declare their intentions, plus any number of European players who may or may not come to the states to play professional ball. So do look at such a list as 'penciled' in at the moment.

We will take a more serious and lengthier look a little while down the road but we see the WAC as wide open this coming season. In fact, it really isn't a stretch to say that ANY team in the conference actually has a chance of finishing on top in the league tournament -- cases can be made for such.

It remains unlikely that more than one team will be Big Dancing but it's going to be fun.

Nick Jezierny tops the list

So which WAC team will be leaving Las Vegas in March 2011 victorious? (please no Nicholas Cage jokes from you film buffs)

We looked around and in our humble estimation it is Nick Jezierny who provided the most comprehensive look at the moving of the WAC basketball tourneys to Las Vegas. Here you go:

WAC betting that basketball fans will flock to Vegas
The league's basketball tourney is moving to a neutral site, and it will need fan support to be a success
Nick Jezierny
Idaho Statesman
6/25/09

WAC basketball coaches got the neutral site they coveted for their conference tournaments, but the real winner in playing the 2011 and 2012 events in Las Vegas could be the fans.

"I think it's an opportunity for our people to travel because Las Vegas is a destination area," Idaho athletic director Rob Spear said.

And the fans are the ones being asked to make sure the men's and women's tournaments are a financial success. The WAC is counting on selling out the 7,500-seat Orleans Arena.

Past tournaments, which have been played on campus sites, have paid schools handsomely. Nevada guaranteed each WAC school $60,000 for the 2009 and 2010 tournaments.

"We believe if we sell the building out - and it's our goal - we'll be able to generate the same type of revenues," WAC commissioner Karl Benson said...

Go here for the remainder.

Teddy Feinberg of the Las Cruces Sun-News comes in next with his report here.

Dumping the WAC play-in game is a great idea because the atmosphere in the building was similar to a chess match.

Plus, the WAC should be able to accomplish the same if the West Coast Conference had a sell-out tournament in Vegas this year. Right?

Nick Jezierny sums it up

Concisely and succinctly, Nick Jezierny/Idaho Statesman wraps up why the move of the WAC basketball tournaments to Las Vegas was long overdue:

Moving WAC basketball tournaments to Las Vegas is wise
Nick Jezierny
Idaho Statesman
6/24/09

Talk about a no-brainer. When the WAC formally announces Wednesday it is moving its postseason basketball tournaments to Orleans Arena in Las Vegas in 2011 and 2012, you'll hear little or no opposition to the move (unless you count the Reno-Tahoe tourism folks).

In fact, those are cheers you hear coming from as far as Honolulu and Ruston, La. Boise State and Idaho fans should love the move - a sunny destination in the winter...

Go here for the remainder.

WAC basketball tourney to reduce entries

It's hard to argue against this idea:

Tourney fields will be reduced
Ferd Lewis
Honolulu Advertiser
June 5, 2009

The Western Athletic Conference said it will trim the number of teams qualifying for both its men's and women's basketball tournaments from nine to eight as a cost-cutting measure.

Commissioner Karl Benson made the announcement yesterday following the end of the WAC's annual Board of Directors meeting in Las Vegas.

Benson said the move could come as soon as the March 2010 tournament but there was a chance it could begin in 2011. The WAC has held a so-called "play-in" or "pig-tail" game between the eighth and ninth seeds. This past season UH was the eighth seed in both the men's and women's tournaments...

Go here for the remainder.

Consider it a done deal

No, Karl Benson doesn't have PTW's number on speedial (thereby joining gazillions of others) nor do the folks at the Orleans Hotel have us on a consulting contract but the following is a done deal. March in Vegas may not be April in Paris but...

Basketball also has eyes on Las Vegas for 2011 and 2012
Ferd Lewis
Honolulu Advertiser
April 30, 2009

Yesterday, the Western Athletic Conference men's basketball coaches took
a walk into the future.

As part of their annual meetings, the coaches
visited the Orleans Arena in Las Vegas, a proposed site for the conference
basketball tournament for 2011 and '12.

If approved, the 9,000-seat
facility at The Orleans hotel and casino would be the first real neutral
facility the conference has used in the 26-year history of the tournament. It
would follow the women's volleyball tournament into that arena, an agreement for
2009 that was announced yesterday...

Go here for the remainder.

Move the WAC tourney?

Craig Hislop of KVNU has a contribution today in the Herald Journal about the WAC tournament:

WAC needs to move tournament
Craig Hislop
Herald Journal
February 20, 2009

It came up again Tuesday at the Coppermill coach’s luncheon and, true to form, Stew Morrill was hardly timid in his response.

“It” is the Western Athletic Conference post-season basketball tournament and why can’t we, asked an exasperated Aggie fan, get this thing at a neutral site?

In a few days — and most certainly with a regular season championship secured — the Stew Crew heads to Reno and the WAC tourney which will determine the league’s official representative into the NCAA Tournament.

Hosting this year is Nevada’s Wolf Pack, a program in recent years that’s always at or near the top in regular season standings. They’re plenty good enough already, why should they have home court advantage in an era when, be assured, Utah State will never host this tournament.

Murmur all you want, the Pack’s got it, this year and next.

Coach Morrill Tuesday reminded the crowd WAC coaches once voted — unanimously — that when the tournament’s two seasons in Las Cruces were done, the proceedings thereafter be conducted at a neutral site...

Go here for the remainder.