If there is a "wow" team in the sadly sagging Western Athletic Conference his year, it is tonight's University of Hawai'i opponent at the Stan Sheriff Center, Utah State.

In the case of the Aggies, that is usually "wow" as in "how?"

How, for example, are the Aggies 18-1 and, with 13 victories in a row, owners of the second longest winning streak in the country?

How are they the only unbeaten team in the Western Athletic Conference (6-0), the nation's best shooting team (51.6 percent) and on the verge of a national ranking?

As enduringly pitiful as Utah State football has been (well, except against UH this season, anyway), Aggie hoops has been head-scratchingly remarkable for nearly as long. At Utah State, it is said, folks start looking forward to basketball in August. Football has had a revolving door of head coaches. Basketball has had but one for more than a decade, grizzly bear-like Stew Morrill.

He must be the Morrill of this success story because it sure isn't overwhelming talent, a stepping stone to the NBA or Logan, Utah, as a recruiting paradise.

Look at them and, individually, these Aggies are nothing special. But, then, they never are and here they are headed to a 10th consecutive 20-win season and, likely, a 10th postseason in a row.

Much of their roster is comprised of in-state kids. Several times this year they have gone with an all-Utah starting five. This year's center, Gary Wilkinson, didn't even play high school basketball. They are players mostly passed over by Utah, Brigham Young and, sometimes, even Weber State.

Yet, they turn right around and, surprisingly often, beat those same teams with them. When Rick Majerus was at Utah his biggest nemesis might have been the guy up the road in Logan, Morrill.

The Aggies haven't had a player stick in the NBA for any length of time since about the period UH coach Bob Nash was playing in the pros, so you know it has been a while. Perhaps the two greatest basketball players in Utah State history, Wayne Estes and Cornell Green, never even played in the NBA. Estes died a tragic death before the draft and Green was an all-pro defensive back for the Dallas Cowboys.

Except for in-state opponents the Aggies have played a largely Sister of the Poor schedule, the bill for which annually comes due in the postseason where Utah State seems to win a game every other decade or so.

But they know how to win in conference and Morrill has done it everywhere he's been: Montana, Colorado State and, now, Utah State. They've done it the old-fashioned way, by mastering the "little" things that tend to add up to big things which is why they lead the WAC in eight statistical categories. They rebound, shoot free throws, pass and play defense better than most other people. They play unselfishly and funadamentally sound.

Which, in this day and age, is "wow" indeed.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8044.