who have to hear this from Ute fans continually. I am surrounded by Utah fans and I hear about it several times each year.

Personally I've been to arenas in St Marys, Santa Clara, San Francisco, and of course to BYU. I've watched the rest extensively on TV and I'd say the two worse gyms in conference are Pepperdine's and St Marys. Pepperdine's program isn't the greatest (although they've been better lately), so to me they get a pass. But St Marys has little excuse. Their gym is roughly the same size as my high school gym, and when it fills up the humidity on the court is always a problem. As much as I don't like Bennett, he's proven he's a talented coach and he deserves a better arena. I like the USF gym and was very impressed with Santa Clara's arena. I don't know about San Diego but my impression isn't great... The Kennel seems like a great venue, and I've never heard anyone knock that arena... Surprisingly, I've heard good thing about Pacific's arena.

You can defend the atmosphere of smaller gyms, I think it's harder to play at Saint Marys than at Arizona's arena, for example. But attendance DOES indicate lower revenue, which indicates smaller programs. Smaller programs are more challenged by recruiting. That said, I love the WCC and going to the WCC tournament. I root for every WCC team when they don't play my Cougars, and I'm very hopeful that some of these new coaching hires produce good recruiting and talent. It's got to be hard recruiting against perception and money for those coaches though - really about finding and developing less established talent. I think that's where real coaches prove themselves, and in my mind there's no better coach in the world than Mark Few.