Expect a wild, wacky event

Steve Guiremand

Wednesday, March 10, 2004 | 9:29 a.m.

DENVER -- In just about any other year, the comments coming out of this week's Mountain West coaches' conference call about the MWC men's basketball tournament, which begins Thursday at the Pepsi Center here, would border on cliche:

"It's 0-0 at this point. You can't count on anything that has happened in that past." (Utah coach Kerry Rupp).

Or ...

"You've got to get hot for three days. Any team in this league can do that." (Wyoming coach Steve McClain).

But considering the history of the four previous Mountain West Conference tournaments, and considering what happened during the conference race this year, maybe it isn't so crazy to expect the unexpected this week.

Consider:

So it's little wonder that Air Force coach Joe Scott was very cautious when asked his team's first round matchup with Colorado State on Thursday night.

"Obviously, we have our work cut out with Colorado State," Scott said. "They've won this tournament before. One vs. eight doesn't matter. We have to concentrate on ourselves. We're going to try and be as good as we can be."

Besides, Nelson, who pulled down tournament MVP honors for Colorado State a year ago when he scored 70 points in three games, didn't play in either of the first two meetings between the teams. Air Force won by nine and eight points.

"There's some positives and negatives with Nellie playing," Colorado State coach Dale Layer said. "The positives are he can score some points for us on offense. But on defense it remains to be seen if he can defend the co-player of the year (Nick Welch) outside.

"It's not like Air Force has not seen a big player before and not had success against them. ... Air Force is the story of the year in college basketball this year."

But if form means anything, there's a very good chance Joe Scott's squad won't be the story of this year's Mountain West Conference tournament.

Araujo received a technical foul for hitting UNLV guard Jerel Blassingame in the second half Saturday. He denied throwing a punch at Blassingame, who was knocked to his back and sat out for several minutes.

Araujo later made the game-winning basket in the final second to give BYU an 89-88 win.

The MWC reviewed the game tape and decided to reprimand Araujo for violating the league's sportsmanship policy. Araujo will still be eligible to play for the Cougars when they open the MWC tournament Thursday against Wyoming.