Jamal Fenton – Rush The Court

RTC Summer School: Mountain West Conference

AMurawa — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 19:13:21 +0000

Over the next couple of week’s we’ll be checking in with each of the high mid-major leagues as to their mid-summer offseason status. Up next: the Mountain West.

Drew Murawa is the RTC correspondent for the Mountain West Conference. You can also find his musings on Twitter @amurawa.

Three Summer Storylines

Tectonic Movement Continues. For the second straight year, the landscape of the MW shifts. Last year it was BYU and Utah heading off to greener pastures with Boise State landing in their place. This year TCU is on its way out the door with Fresno State and Nevada on their way in. And [...]

Mountain West Tournament Preview & Season Wrap-Up

AMurawa — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 18:14:17 +0000

Andrew Murawa is the RTC correspondent for the Mountain West Conference.

Tournament Bracket

Coming into the year, we thought we had a couple really good teams in New Mexico and UNLV, and six other teams with more questions marks than answers. Four months later, add San Diego State to the list of really good teams, but add the other five teams in the conference as, at a minimum, pretty good. Only Air Force and Boise State end the season with losing records, and each of those teams has risen up and played one of the top three [...]

Checking In On… the Mountain West Conference

AMurawa — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 21:47:04 +0000

Andrew Murawa is the RTC correspondent for the Mountain West and Pac-12 conferences.

Reader’s Take

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A Look Back

Coming into the week, three Mountain West teams appeared in the RTC Top 25, but it was New Mexico, who was ranked #25, that had the biggest chance to make a splash, getting a crack at the other two teams: San Diego State at home and UNLV on the road. Following an 0-2 week, however, there are more questions than answers in Albuquerque, as the once impressive Lobo defense took a huge step back, allowing 1.25 points per possession in their two games [...]

Checking In On… the Mountain West Conference

AMurawa — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 22:02:53 +0000

Andrew Murawa is the RTC correspondent for the Mountain West and Pac-12 conferences.

Reader’s Take

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A Look Back

At long last, Mountain West conference play is finally here. And after the long wait, the opening weekend did not disappoint in the least.

The conference opener between San Diego State and UNLV was the sole matchup between ranked teams across the nation on Saturday, and it was everything that could be expected of it and more. But, we’ll get to that shortly.

Jamaal Franklin Was Outstandings Against UNLV (AP)

Elsewhere around the league, Colorado State knocked off TCU in a wild double overtime [...]

Checking In On… the Mountain West Conference

AMurawa — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 20:34:05 +0000

Andrew Murawa is the RTC correspondent for the Mountain West and Pac-12 conferences.

Reader’s Take

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A Look Back

One of the unpleasant side effects of the recent spate of conference realignment maneuverings was this year’s MW being left with just eight teams, meaning a 14-game conference schedule is all that is required to complete a full home-and-away round-robin. Meaning that while conferences like the Big East, Big Ten and Pac-12, all of whom play 18-game conference schedules, have been going at it for two weeks now, the MW is just now gearing up to kick off conference play this weekend. And, [...]

Checking In On… the Mountain West Conference

AMurawa — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 20:15:15 +0000

Andrew Murawa is the RTC correspondent for the Pac-12 and Mountain West conferences.

Reader’s Take

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A Look Back

This past week in the Mountain West wasn’t exactly jam-packed full of great match-ups. New Mexico had a couple of very important games against quality opponents and came through with wins in each, but elsewhere there were relatively uninspiring games everywhere you looked. Air Force and Colorado State each played a couple games in four-team tournaments against middling competition (CSU won its tourney – the Sun Bowl Invitational in El Paso), TCU hosted a decent Tulsa team, UNLV went halfway across the Pacific [...]

Checking In On… the Mountain West Conference

AMurawa — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 21:29:51 +0000

Reader’s Take

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A Look Back

It’s been a relatively quiet week around the Mountain West as teams took a bit of a break to celebrate the holidays. However, despite just eight games in the past week, we’ve had three fairly significant injuries. Boise State was the team hardest hit, as it lost freshman wing Igor Hadziomerovic to a broken foot and will likely play the rest of the season without him, while fellow freshman Anthony Drmic, the team’s leading scorer, missed the Broncos’ visit to Iowa with a sprained ankle. Meanwhile, Air Force lost is leading scorer, Michael Lyons, early [...]

76 Classic Notes From Day One

AMurawa — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 22:31:48 +0000

Andrew Murawa is an RTC correspondent for the Pac-12 and Mountain West conferences and a Pac-12 microsite staffer. This week he’s checking on the eight teams at the 76 Classic in Anaheim with some thoughts…

While the old tradition about Thanksgiving Day and football going together like turkey and mashed potatoes is all well and good, college hoops fans know that Thanksgiving week has fast become a smorgasbord of hoops action as well. Thursday night after some turkey and fixings with the family, I got a chance to dig into the basketball buffet a bit at the 76 Classic with a [...]

Checking In On… the Mountain West Conference

Brian Goodman — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 23:39:05 +0000

Andrew Murawa is the RTC correspondent for the Mountain West and Pac-12 conferences and a Pac-12 microsite writer.

Reader’s Take I

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A Look Back

Coming into the season, New Mexico and UNLV were the clear favorites to be the class of the conference this season, with the other six teams in the conference were littered with question marks. After a little more than a week of the regular season, UNLV has more than lived up to expectations while New Mexico has already stumbled once (to in-state rival New Mexico [...]

RTC Conference Primers: #7 – Mountain West Conference

Brian Goodman — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 21:00:53 +0000

Andrew Murawa is the RTC correspondent for the Mountain West and Pac-12 conferences; he is also a staffer on the Pac-12 microsite. You can find him on Twitter @AMurawa.

Reader’s Take I

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Top Storylines

Tectonic Shifts in the MW: As the landscape of college sports continues to shift, the Mountain West continues to change. This year, the conference is without BYU and Utah for the first time in its history. Aside from the fact that the state of Utah was sort of the center of the conference for many years, the impact on the basketball side of things cannot be overstated. In [...]

The 13 Best Midnight Madness Dunks of 2011

rtmsf — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 16:00:02 +0000

It wouldn’t be Midnight Madness without a dunk contest (or a hundred), so we fished around to find the 13 best dunks from the opening weekend’s many extravaganzas. There are some impressive flushes here, but nothing like Keion Bell’s record-breaker from last season, so if you know of something better send it to us @rushthecourt or rushthecourt@yahoo.com for inclusion.

#13.75. Another late addition — Rhode Island’s Jonathan “Sponge” Holton soaking up all kinds of nasty with this 360.

#13.5. A late addition (sent from reader, Dennis) — Reggie Smith of UNLV uses all 5’9″ of his frame to get after this one. [...]

RTC Summer Updates: Mountain West Conference

Brian Goodman — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 16:00:51 +0000

With the completion of the NBA Draft and the annual coaching and transfer carousels nearing their ends, RTC is rolling out a new series, RTC Summer Updates, to give you a crash course on each Division I conference during the summer months. Our latest update comes courtesy of our Mountain West correspondent, Andrew Murawa.

Reader’s Take I

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Summer Storylines

A New Look League: In the aftermath of last summer’s conference shake-ups, the Mountain West is a slimmer volume this year than last, and will look even different next year. Last year’s regular season champion, [...]

Mountain West Report Card

Brian Goodman — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 19:20:43 +0000

Andrew Murawa is the RTC correspondent for the Mountain West and Pac-10 conferences. We will be publishing a series of conference report cards over the next week for conferences that got multiple NCAA bids to recap the conference, grade the teams, and look at the future for the conference.

Conference Recap: It was a banner year for the Mountain West despite the turbulence of the offseason that will see two of the standard-bearers of the conference (Utah and BYU) leave for arguably greener pastures this summer with TCU following them out the door [...]

Checking in on… the MWC

Brian Goodman — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 20:29:40 +0000

Andrew Murawa is the RTC correspondent for the Mountain West and Pac-10 conferences.

A Look Back

After a strong early start to the season for the Mountain West as a whole, the wheat has begun to separate from the chaff. Utah and Colorado State gave the first hint this week that they may be pretenders rather than contenders, while BYU and UNLV posted early-season tournament wins, proving their qualifications for being considered among the favorites in the conference. While it was BYU and San Diego State who were considered 1 and 1-A (not necessarily in that order) coming into the [...]

RTC Conference Primers: #8 – Mountain West Conference

Brian Goodman — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 15:02:54 +0000

Andrew Murawa is the RTC correspondent for the Pac-10 and Mountain West Conferences and an occasional contributor

Predicted Order of Finish

San Diego State (13-3) BYU (12-4) New Mexico (11-5) UNLV (11-5) Colorado State (9-7) Wyoming (6-10) Utah (6-10) TCU (3-13) Air Force (1-15)

All-Conference Team (key stats from last season in parentheses)

G: Jimmer Fredette, Sr, BYU (22.1 PPG, 4.7 APG) G: Dairese Gary, Sr, New Mexico (13.1 PPG, 3.9 APG) G: Tre’Von Willis, Sr, UNLV (17.2 PPG, 3.9 RPG) F: Afam Muojeke, Jr, Wyoming (16.8 PPG, 3.9 RPG) F: Kawhi Leonard, Soph, San Diego State [...]