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The WAC did not have an official Media Day, but they did release a preseason poll and preseason conference honors.
WAC PRESEASON COACHES’ POLL:
- Grand Canyon
- Stephen F. Austin
- Seattle U
- Utah Valley
- Abilene Christian
- Tarleton State
- Cal Baptist
- UT Arlington
- Southern Utah
- UTRGV
- Utah Tech
PRESEASON ALL-WAC TEAM:
-Ray Harrison – JR, G – Grand Canyon (Preseason Player of the Year)
-Gabe McGlothan – SR, F – Grand Canyon
-Cameron Tyson – SR, G – Seattle U
-Sadaidriene Hall – JR, F – Stephen F. Austin
-Drake Allen – JR, G – Utah Valley
COMMENTS FROM DAVID GRIGGS
-With New Mexico State moving on to Conference USA, Grant Canyon appears to be next in line to carry the flag for the conference and they are the near unanimous pick to win it this year. They’ve won 20+ games the last two years and I fully expect them to do that on a regular basis for the foreseeable future. Ray Harrison is an amazing player who averages just under 18ppg. He returns along with Jovan Blacksher, who missed much of last year with an injury but who appears to be back and is hopefully healthy. Also joining the Lopes is Collin Moore, who averaged over 14ppg last year at Georgia State. The Lopes are loaded with talent, they have a fantastic fanbase and home court, and are working toward becoming the type of program that cannot just make it to the NCAA Tournament but win games in the Round of 64.
-SFA was having a pretty good season last year, but fell apart at the start of March and lost their last two regular season games, then were upset by a really bad Utah Tech team in the WAC tournament. Four starters are back, including two double-digit scorers in Day Day Hall and Latrell Jossell, and they should be improved this year, and perhaps good enough to challenge the Lopes for 1st place.
-Chris Victor has won 20+ games in his first two seasons as head coach at Seattle U and appears to be set up to do it again. This program has taken some pretty big steps forward in recent years and with three starters back including Cameron Tyson (who is one of the best players in the conference), this team has a fair amount of talent/experience and should continue their improvement. I think they are a dark horse candidate to win the league this year.
-Utah Valley had an amazing season last year where they won 28 games, flirted with the NCAA Tournament bubble, and advanced to the semifinals of the NIT. The bad news is that they are now starting completely over. No starters are back and they have a new head coach in Todd Phillips. He is tasked with rebuilding the roster and they have gone into the portal to try and get some guys who can step in and contribute, but it feels like they just lost too much to repeat the success of last year.
-After four straight 20+ win seasons Abilene Christian won just 13 games a year ago, which was a major step back from what we had been seeing. They are looking to rebuild things this year, but they return just two starters and when you look at their roster it is hard to see anybody who is proven and can step up/contribute in a big way for them.
-Tarleton State is continuing their transitional phase and will likely struggle to finish in the top half of the league.
-Cal Baptist had a decent year last year with 17 total wins, but finished just 8th in the conference and now have a revamped roster after having to replace four starters. None of the returning players really stand out, but they are adding some JUCO transfers that really look like standout players, so this team can probably hang with a lot of the other teams in the league outside of the top two/three.
-UT Arlington has a new coach in KT Turner and he has his work cut out for him as it has been a while since they have…well…not stunk. They were playing better in the latter part of the season last year, or…perhaps a better way of putting it was that they were not playing as bad. They do have some promising-looking freshmen coming in so maybe they can take a step forward and start to build their program back up.
-Southern Utah has had a great run since being one of the worst teams in all of D1 a short time ago. They have had three straight 20+ win seasons, finished 3rd in the conference last year, and had 24 overall wins. The problem is that everybody is gone: not a single starter is back. Rob Jeter takes over as head coach and he has had some success in his career so hopefully he can start to build them back…but this is just a complete reset/rebuilding mode for the Thunderbirds.
-UTRGV has three starters back from a team that won just 5 conference games a year ago, but the program has been improving since Matt Figger took over as head coach. I do not think this team will finish near the top of the standings, but I think they will do better than where they have been picked to finish. They have a couple of notable JUCO transfers coming in to go along with the three returning starters, and I think they will be able to finish closer to the middle than to the very bottom.
-As for Utah Tech: yeah, it is going to be a long year for them.