Mountain West won't expand for now

By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Staff Writer

The Mountain West Conference has extended its moratorium on expansion through at least 2004, ending for a while speculation about adding any more Western Athletic Conference members.

	WAC Lineup
	(Conference members for fall 2001)
•	Boise State *
•	Fresno State
•	Hawai'i
•	Louisiana Tech *
•	Nevada
•	Rice
•	San Jose State
•	Southern Methodist
•	Texas-El Paso
•	Tulsa
	* = As of July 1, 2001.

Hawai'i and Fresno State have been the most often mentioned possibilities to join Air Force, Brigham Young, Colorado State, Nevada-Las Vegas, New Mexico, San Diego State, Utah and Wyoming in the MWC.

But MWC commissioner Craig Thompson said members are "interested in building a foundation and establishing the eight current members. What makes the most sense right now is for the league to stay at eight."

WAC Commissioner Karl Benson said: "I never felt like (expansion) was imminent. Now, I hope this will put to rest all the speculation and allow us to truly go forward and build the WAC as a strong 10-team league."

Hugh Yoshida, UH athletic director, said, "We're a member of the WAC and we're focused on moving forward with the league."

In 1999, the MWC initially put a two-year cap on expansion but its presidents extended the moratorium through at least 2004. Thompson said the next likely window for consideration of expansion would be in 2005 when the conference enters the final two years of its seven-year, $40 million ABC and ESPN television agreement. "That would be about the time we would consider if there were new members who would add value," Thompson said.

There had been interest in adding a ninth member to facilitate balanced four-and-four conference football scheduling. But Thompson said while it would help football, "it would goof-up the bracketing in some of the other sports like basketball."

Yoshida said: "If an opportunity arises down the road we'll look at it at that time. Right now we're just trying to make our program as good as it can be."

Conference USA is looking for a 12th football-only member. CUSA's addition of Texas Christian has given it 14 basketball-playing members, but only 11 for football.

Current speculation has centered on Navy, Marshall and Central Florida as possibilities. WAC members Southern Methodist and Tulsa were passed over when CUSA added TCU for 2001-2002.