Around the WAC

Hawaii was down to eight scholarship players in placing third at its Outrigger Hotels Rainbow Classic last week. Matt Gibson, last year’s leading scorer, is recovering from a staph infection; Julian Sensley, this year’s leading scorer, had a strained Achilles tendon; and Bobby Nash (6.7 ppg) is out for the season with a sprained shoulder. Sensley returned Tuesday to score 18 points in a win over North Carolina A&T. … Utah State shot 60 percent and had 27 assists in beating Brigham Young for the fourth straight time. Coach Stew Morrill has 173 wins at USU, tied with Ladell Andersen for No. 2 in school history. … Nevada coach Mark Fox was an assistant at Washington under former UW head coach Lynn Nance. Nance, who lives in Missouri and is writing a novel, attended Wolf Pack practices last week and offered some advice to Fox. Nance did the same thing when Trent Johnson, another former Huskies assistant, was Nevada’s head coach.