New Mexico State senior Wendell McKines, a 6-foot-6 forward from Oakland, is an All-Western Athletic Conference first-team selection.
McKines leads the WAC in scoring (18.5 points per game) and rebounding (10.8) heading into this week's conference tournament. He led the Aggies (23-9 overall, 10-4 WAC) to second place in the regular-season standings and a No. 2 seed in the conference tournament. They will play Fresno State (13-19, 3-11) at 3:30 p.m. (Mountain time) on Thursday in the tournament's opening round.
Deonte Bruton, a sophomore guard for Nevada, the regular-season champion, was named WAC Player of the Year. He's averaging 17.3 points and 4.1 assists per game. The rest of the first team includes Hawaii junior center Vander Joaquim, Nevada senior forward Olek Czyz and Utah State sophomore guard Preston Medlin. Nevada's David Carter was named coach of the year, and Louisiana Tech guard Raheem Appleby is freshman of the year.
New Mexico State senior guard Hernst Laroche is a second-team selection, senior center Hamidu Rahman earned honorable mention. Also earning honorable mention is Hawaii guard Zane Johnson, a senior from Phoenix who began his career at the University of Arizona. New Mexico State freshman guard Daniel Mullings was picked for the all-newcomer team.
