Steve McClain has had little to say about swirling rumors of his impending departure from the Wyoming helm.
Athletic director Gary Barta has had nothing to say with his third straight no-show at a postgame news conference.
McClain doesn’t know his future, but he finally had his say about the rumors after pushing San Diego State into overtime of the Mountain West Conference Tournament before losing 69-64 as a seventh-seed against the regular-season champ.
“This wasn’t about Steve McClain. This was about a group of kids who invested. They never let it be a distraction. We’re a family. What happens stays in our family and you don’t let people outside tear you apart,” McClain said.
“This group of kids didn’t worry about the people that had quit (supporting the team). They worried about the 10,000 Wyoming fans who walked in here tonight and gave everything they had to give, just like our team did.”
The Wyoming contingent remained after the game to salute the Cowboys. When the Cowboys took a late lead, the Pepsi Center erupted like Wyoming’s home gym in earlier times.
Utah coach Ray Giacoletti, whose team lost to Wyoming in the semifinals Friday, praised McClain for his job in the tournament and said, “I’m sure there are going to be a lot of bandwagon-jumpers now.”
One-bid wonders?
Before the start of Saturday’s championship game, MWC commissioner Craig Thompson was confident San Diego State would be in the NCAA Tournament, win or lose.
If he was wrong, the MWC was 51 seconds away in overtime from being a one-bid league with a 15-17 team getting the one bid while three 20-game winners (San Diego State, Air Force and BYU) stayed home.
But San Diego State pulled it out in overtime to head into the NCAA bracket with a 24-8 record.
Virtually every national “bracketology” website Saturday had San Diego State as the lone MWC team in the NCAA Tournament. Moreover, there wasn’t much love from ESPN and virtually no promotions for the televised championship game.
Most of those brackets projected the Aztecs as a No. 12 seed.
All season, ESPN analysts sneered at the MWC as a “one-bid league” while the CSTV-bound Mountain West collectively sneered back that three (San Diego State, Air Force and BYU) were tournament-worthy.
“If they want to waste their $7 million, that’s their issue,” Thompson said of ESPN’s rights fees in the final year of its contract.
Triple-double
Wyoming forward Justin Williams was looking for a triple-double all season. But he said he had no idea he needed just a free throw with less than two minutes left to record the milestone.
Williams’ gem of a personal record – 12 blocks, along with 15 boards and 10 points – was nearly lost in the midnight finish of the Wyoming-Utah semifinal game.
“I looked up on the JumboTron while (a teammate was shooting free throws) and I saw it,” he said.
Cowboys arrive
Despite bad weather north of Denver, the influx of Wyoming fans pushed final-night attendance to 10,840, a record for the three-year tournament run in Denver. Going into the championship game, the tournament averaged 7,543 per session, down an average of 598 from a year ago and 1,322 from 2004.
Natalie Meisler can be reached at 303-820-1295 or nmeisler@denverpost.com.
