WAC adjusts to changes as conference in flux

LAS VEGAS – In the casino at the Orleans Hotel, banners still hung above the smoke touting the West Coast Conference tournament 24 hours after it ended – perhaps because more Gonzaga logo apparel remained at the craps and blackjack tables than Idaho, Nevada and New Mexico State combined.

But when the Western Athletic Conference moved in for its basketball event in earnest Wednesday, the proper decorations finally went up.

Though not the attendance. Nor the fellowship.

Welcome to the 28th WAC tournament, sponsored by…

“Awkward,” admitted commissioner Karl Benson.

OK, he wasn’t talking about the corporate underwriting – that’s being picked up by a cellular company. But he was talking about the undercurrent.

Four of the nine participant teams have declared their intentions to move out either this summer or next. Two of those beat feet to the Mountain West Conference only days after signing a blood oath to hang with the WAC. Another school that could have jumped stayed. Its president was caught by e-mail reveling in a strategy that stood to embarrass the annoying president of one of the turncoats – only to have that strategy unravel.

The Real Housewives should have so much drama and backstabbing.

Thank heavens the tournament, for the first time in its history, is being played in a neutral city. But Vegas usually sells itself as a destination rather than a DMZ.

“But,” sighed Benson, “we’ve been through it before. We’ll get through it again. The history of the WAC has been one of membership change. It’s been an identifying mark.”

Has it ever. By the time the WAC turns 50 in a year, it will have seen 40 member transactions if you count the original six schools banding together. So dramatic has been the churn that one of its new recruits – the University of Texas at San Antonio – didn’t even exist when the WAC was hatched.

It could have been worse, and Benson knows it. Three other WAC schools had discussions with the Mountain West before it went into a holding pattern.

“It was quite evident,” he said, “that if invited, Idaho or Utah State or San Jose State would have accepted and there was nothing I was going to be able to do.”

But now the conference has settled back to redefine itself again. UTSA, Texas State and no-football Denver have accepted invitations. Seattle, another basketball entry, would join in a minute, and athletic director Bill Hogan is here being, well, seen. Benson sees a league as large as 12 schools, nine with football, but to get there more FCS types must be courted. So the Big Sky and Southland conferences had better bunker in.

“Not to be disparaging,” Benson said, “but it’s a great opportunity for an FCS school to move up and be competitive immediately.”

Except, well, it is kind of disparaging, isn’t it?

But the WAC has very much entered the it-is-what-it-is phase of life. For instance, the basketball tournament could have found a fair and neutral home at the Orleans two years ago except that the presidents were leery of cozying up with the gaming industry. Then another neutral arena – in West Valley, Utah – presented a promising bid. But Reno “frankly just bought the tournament,” offering $25,000 more per school.

“Four ADs were willing to sacrifice $25,000 for a neutral court,” Benson said, “and five said, ‘Tough.’ So we went to Reno.”

ESPNU wanted the men’s quarterfinals here as an afternoon package – so Wednesday’s first round started at noon and was played in front of an announced crowd of 2,814, though realistically that was the number of eyeballs.

If this sounds like FCS economics, so be it. The dividing line is thinner these days, and you sell what you have to sell – even to your holdover members.

“It’s a great opportunity for those schools, too,” Benson insisted, “for Idaho to win a football championship, to win a basketball championship and elevate itself. We all know that winning championships is how you grow a fan base and a revenue base.”

And it doesn’t matter that it will be in a demonstrably inferior conference? Aren’t the strides that both football and basketball have made in this WAC – and Don Verlin’s work is the most under-noticed hoops story in our area – more impressive than a championship in a re-imagined one?

Maybe. But you don’t hang banners for strides. And it’s possible Idaho’s indifferent fans – anybody notice the attendance at Cowan Spectrum this season? – wouldn’t grasp the difference.

“I’ve said many a time that when schools join the WAC, they get better,” Benson said. “We expect that to be the case again.”

Even if it’s awkwardly better.