Yesterday, the Western Athletic Conference men's basketball coaches took a walk into the future.

As part of their annual meetings, the coaches visited the Orleans Arena in Las Vegas, a proposed site for the conference basketball tournament for 2011 and '12.

If approved, the 9,000-seat facility at The Orleans hotel and casino would be the first real neutral facility the conference has used in the 26-year history of the tournament. It would follow the women's volleyball tournament into that arena, an agreement for 2009 that was announced yesterday.

Increasingly, the WAC wants to place its major championship events in neutral locations and the basketball and women's volleyball tournaments, its biggest ticket events, are the anchors of that plan.

For UH, the neutral-first philosophy would, especially in basketball, be a welcome move. For reasons of cost, UH, the longest current active WAC member, has never hosted the basketball tournament in its 31 years in the conference. Nor, with the necessity of picking up the freight for 18 teams, was it likely to, officials will conceded.

Even other sports, such as women's volleyball, which UH hosted for the first time in 13 years in 2008, and baseball, which the 'Bows host May 21 to 24, aren't likely to be coming back in the current economy. The 2010 WAC Baseball Tournament is likely headed to Mesa, Ariz., where the concept has city support.

Playing basketball on somebody else's home court, which the WAC has been doing, is obviously less than ideal.

The closest the WAC has come to playing its basketball tournament at a neutral site was in 1994 at Salt Lake City's Delta Center, a few miles from Utah's home court, where UH won its first men's tournament title against Brigham Young.

Meanwhile, playing in Las Vegas has a lot to recommend it for UH. There will be a steady population of Hawai'i visitors likely to make the Rainbows and Rainbow Wahine at least feel like they are at home.

UH athletic director Jim Donovan, who is scheduled to vote on men's basketball tournament site selection at this weekend's conference meetings in Phoenix, likes the Las Vegas location.

"I think it is good for our fans and I think it is good for the WAC," Donovan said.