Mountain West wants no piece of Utah State

Friday, Jan. 14, 2005 | 9:58 a.m.

Fortunately for the Mountain West Conference, Utah State, which has slammed Brigham Young twice this season and crushed Utah, will not be joining in 2005-06.

Instead, the Aggies will be leaving the Big West next season for the Western Athletic Conference, which might be a good thing for Dave Rice, too.

The former UNLV assistant coach became one of Utah State coach Stew Morrill's lieutenants in April. He confessed that, if and when the day arrives, it would be challenging to plot strategy for a victory over his alma mater.

"I learned so much from my years at UNLV, and I owe everything to coach (Jerry) Tarkanian for the start he gave me," said Rice, 36. "I will always bleed Runnin' Rebel red. I'm still a huge fan."

Leaving Las Vegas wasn't much of a choice for Rice or the rest of Charlie Spoonhour's staff once Lon Kruger landed in town and did not retain any of UNLV's assistants.

Jay Spoonhour, who ran the Rebels for the month after his father resigned in February, is an administrative assistant at Missouri, where he's working on his master's degree.

Deane Martin is finalizing a financial settlement in Sweden from Sallen Basket, whose penny-pinching owners fired him just before Christmas, and Vince Booker has explored coaching opportunities at Andre Agassi's prepatory school.

Even when the Rebels whom Rice helped recruit leave the UNLV program, he said he will always follow the team with passion.

"Right now, I pull so hard for those players," Rice said. "I so much want them to have success. We were only a Nick Jacobsen missed 3-pointer away from going to the NCAAs last season. We had a great run.

"I'd love to see Jerel (Blassingame), Romel (Beck) and 'O-dot' (Odartey Blankson) get to the NCAA tournament this year. I think that's where they belong. But once those guys are gone, I'll still be a fan. Right now, it's even deeper than that."

Rice first became acquainted with Morrill when he coached at Colorado State. Rice also forged a relationship with Morrill assistant Don Verlin during many recruiting trips, in which they scouted the same players, in Southern California.

With 127 victories over the previous five seasons, Morrill is one of the nation's top-10 winningest coaches over that span.

That has yielded rare security in the game. In June, he signed a contract extension, with a base of more than $300,000 and laden with incentives, through 2011-12.

The Aggies entered Thursday's game against Pacific in Stockton, Calif., with a team shooting percentage of .538, tops in the country. Florida, at .528, was second.

Utah State dropped to 11-4, and 2-2 in the Big West, with a double-overtime defeat to UOP, but 10 of the Aggies' 11 victories have been by double digits.

"I have so much respect for the job he does coaching his team," Rice said of Morrill. "I stayed in touch with him, and the opportunity presented itself. I jumped at it. It's been very beneficial, from a professional standpoint. I've worked for a lot of great coaches."

In addition to beating BYU and Utah, Utah State has also defeated Weber State this season, making the Aggies the kings of the state.

"We've joked that we've gotten off to a good start in the Mountain West," Rice said. "But beating Weber State was a big deal, too. It's important for our in-state recruiting success."

For Rice, it will be an entirely different deal if he ever finds himself on that other bench inside the Thomas & Mack Center.

The Pac-10 Conference is currently looking very good, with four teams among the top 13 in a Ratings Percentage Index that mirrors the one used by the NCAA tournament selection committee.

Not even ESPN analyst Jay Bilas' beloved Atlantic Coast Conference can make the above boast.

Arizona (seventh), Washington (eighth), Oregon (12th) and UCLA (13th) each has schedule strengths rated 17th or higher, too.

While the ACC checks in with three teams among the top 13 -- No. 2 Wake Forest, No. 5 Duke and No. 10 Georgia Tech -- only the Demon Deacons, at fifth, have a strength of schedule of less than 20.

UCLA's comeback Saturday at home against Washington, from 20 points behind in the first half to 10 points ahead in the second, was especially sweet for second-year coach Ben Howland.

Then the Bruins zapped Arizona State and standout Ike Diogu in Tempe, Ariz., on Thursday.

If Howland has toughened up UCLA as quickly as many believed he would, and as he apparently has, then athletic director Dan Guerrero acted shrewdly, and wisely, in coaxing him away from Pittsburgh.

Many in the Pac-10 executive offices in Walnut Creek, Calif., must be dreaming for a repeat of 1996-97 and '97-98, when four programs advanced to the Sweet 16 of the NCAAs each season.

That was a superb stretch for the Pac-10, which it might be primed to repeat.

Then the third-seeded Spartans were ousted by 14th-seeded Weber State in the first round of the NCAAs. And then Respert found out about real challenges.

In a compelling Tuesday interview on Jim Rome's popular radio show, after an Associated Press feature was circulated nationwide Saturday, Respert spoke candidly about what he had tried to hide for so long.

That abdominal cancer sidetracked him at the very start of a professional career that limited him to 172 games over four NBA seasons.

He is now the director of basketball operations at Rice University in Houston. For too long, he has heard others call his pro career a bust because of the fantastic potential he displayed at Michigan State.

"I really wanted to say, 'Look, this is what I've had to deal with,' " Respert told the AP. "But people don't want to hear excuses in pro sports, even if the excuse is cancer.

"Life is so busy for a lot of us that we don't take time to say thanks to anybody ... inspired by my grandfather's passing, I really took a step back and realized there were a lot of people I should say thanks to, because I realize I'm lucky that I'm still around to say that."

A phase that will pass, if it hasn't already.

The 'Cuse has been shooting the free ones at a 64.7-percent clip, putting it 10th in the 12-team Big East.

Recently, though, it has only tanked it from 15 feet away once, five games ago in a 10-for-24 effort at Notre Dame. And that came courtesy of senior forward Hakim Warrick's woeful 2-for-10 performance.

At least, for Orange fans, Syracuse beat the Irish. Since then, Warrick has gone 24-for-31.

Michigan State is leading the nation, at 80.7 percent, in free-throw shooting.

Army, by the way, might have started the week winless in 11 games and at the very bottom, or No. 330, of the RPI. But being second, at 80.2 percent, behind the Spartans in free-throw percentage at least gives fans of the Black Knights some reason to cheer.