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Mountain West, Atlantic-10 Challenge Looks To Be A Go
Looks like a new conference challenge is in the works
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Atlantic-10 vs. Mountain West challenge?
The Mountain West is in the final year of the basketball challenge between itself and the Missouri Valley Conference, and most are glad this relationship is ending since it was not really set up in the best way for either league.
A new conference challenge looks to be in the works, and it would have the Mountain West go up against the Atlantic-10. The Mountain West is keeping mum and saying it is weighing its options, but the San Diego Union-Tribune is reporting it was approved by the athletic directors 10-1 to play the Atlantic-10. The tournament is to be a four-year event begin during the 2020-21 seasons.
“This is a league like us,” said Mountain West’s senior associate commissioner Butterly. “The Big Ten and ACC aren’t playing them (regularly in nonconference). They don’t want to lose NCAA Tournament bids, and we don’t want to lose bids. Ultimately, we have to determine what’s best for the league. If that means getting 10 more quality games, that helps the overall Mountain West, which helps San Diego State.”
The single lone vote was San Diego State and that is because head coach Brian Dutcher school feels that it does not need help scheduling games and does not want to be forced to play an assigned non-conference game.
“For San Diego State, we don’t have trouble scheduling games,” Dutcher said via the San Diego Union-Tribune. “I can get a Pac-12 team instead of playing an A-10 team, and I don’t have to travel three time zones to play them.
“Some teams in the conference that are in tough locations have a hard time getting someone to play them. For the conference, I can understand their point of view, that it’s good for some teams.”
Dutcher is right, well sort of. The Aztecs are in the Maui Invitational and play Cal and a top-three WCC team in BYU. However, they also play Jackson State, Brown, Cal State Northridge, and a school called Cal State Dominquez Hills. So, playing an Atlantic-10 team in place of one of those schools mentioned above would be an upgrade and help at-large chances.
Also, the A-10 has had three teams in the NCAA Tournament in each of the past four years and has had years where they had four, five and even six. The last time that league had just one NCAA Tournament team was all the way back to 2004. Compare that to the Mountain West where it has been a one-bid league in two out of the past three years.
However, the A-10 is top heavy and last year had three top-100 RPI teams but at the other end had four teams with an RPI worse than 200 and another two in the 190-range, so there is a point to Dutcher and competition.
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The Atlantic-10 has 14 teams and the Mountain West has 11 but the league wants its best teams to play in these events which means not only San Diego State play but so will the likes of UNLV, Nevada, New Mexico and whoever is considered to be at the top of the league and a rotation with the bottom which likely will include at least San Jose State and Air Force.
Travel is a big issue in this challenge since the Atlantic-10 is made up of schools on the East Coast and it could cause issues on games leading up to and especially coming back if some of these schools are hard to get to.
While San Diego State may not like this it is an upgrade over playing the MVC, but we will see if the schedule works out better and maybe some consistent television coverage or an assigned week or weekend to play these games.
The Mountain West is never going to get a challenge with the Pac-12 or Big 12 so why not play the likes of the A-10 and maybe even the Big East or American. Yeah, trave is pain and getting games forced upon a school is great but playing a WCC or WAC challenge does far worse than playing this proposed Atlantic-10 challenge.
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