WAC now stretches from here to Ruston

By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Columnist

The nation's most widespread collegiate athletic conference just stretched a little more this week.

Wahine basketball coach Vince Goo said his team embraces the addition of Louisiana Tech to the Western Athletic Conference. Advertiser library photo

With the addition of Boise State and Louisiana Tech as members as of July 1st, the new, 10-team Western Athletic Conference (motto: If you don't have to change planes at least twice it must not be a WAC roadtrip) now stretches from Honolulu to Ruston, La. Or, about 4,035 miles.

This development has drawn scant notice outside the conference. Even in the WAC, perhaps because the traffic in and out has been like an airline terminal, there has been little fanfare.

Everywhere, that is, except for Room 343 of the University of Hawai'i athletic department. That's home to the Wahine basketball team, the program most likely to feel the force expansion.

To nearly everybody else in the WAC, the arrival of the newcomers mostly means new travel obstacles and higher travel budgets. Or, as Wahine coach Vince Goo likes to put it, "Our point guard from Slovakia (Janka Gabrielova) will be halfway home when we go play in Ruston, La."

To the Wahine, it also means a whole new way of thinking to go with a heightened challenge. As his coaching brethren have only too gleefully liked to remind Goo, the arrival of the Lady Techsters means the Wahine are now competing for second place.

Such is the power and pedigree of the Lady Techsters, one of only two schools (Tennessee is the other) to appear in every NCAA Women's Tournament. In 20 tournament appearances, they have been to the title game six times, winning two.

After a 26-8 season and eight 20-win finishes in the past 10 years, it means UH instantly goes from contender to underdog.

Of course, the flip side is that now, if the Wahine finish second, they are more likely to go to the NCAA Tournament as an at-large team, which sometimes eluded them in the Big West and the WAC. With the headaches of playing the Techsters also comes an enhanced power rating. Had the Wahine played home-and-home with Louisiana Tech last year, the Wahine would have likely had a power rating in the 40s come Selection Sunday instead of the 52 that sent them to the Women's NIT.

The challenge of the Techsters is one the Wahine have embraced rather than cowered from. "My thought is that it is up to us to improve our program to another level so we can compete with them," Goo said.

In a conference that now stretches across five time zones, there is room for optimism.