philip mcdonald – Rush The Court

Checking In On… the Mountain West Conference

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

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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 [...]

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 Mountain West

Brian Goodman — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 01:30:17 +0000

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

[Ed. Note: This was published before BYU suspended Brandon Davies for the rest of the season.]

A Look Back

With BYU’s second 13-point win of the season over San Diego State on Saturday, the Cougars have put the clamps on their first outright regular season Mountain West Championship since 2007-08. They’ve got a one-game lead now over the Aztecs, but own the tiebreaker as a result of their two head-to-head wins, so one more win clinches the #1 seed [...]

Checking in on… the Mountain West

Brian Goodman — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 22:24:25 +0000

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

A Look Back

With the battle for the conference title just a day away, the conference race has taken its shape. Up top, of course, are national top-ten teams BYU and San Diego State, tied at 12-1 and ready to battle on Montezuma Mesa on Saturday morning. Next, UNLV has moved backed into third and seems a lock to be asked to the Big Dance, while Colorado State is still waiting in the wings, hoping to secure its own invitation in its remaining [...]

Checking in on… the MWC

Brian Goodman — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 19:00:21 +0000

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

A Look Back

The Mountain West goes national – at least for a night. On Wednesday, the much-anticipated MWC clash between BYU and San Diego State took the nation by storm, and Jimmer Fredette and the Cougars certainly did not disappoint. After a pretty standard first eight minutes, during which Fredette “only” had five points, he exploded for BYU’s final 15 points of the first half, then picked up right where he left off after the break, scoring nine of the first 12 [...]

Checking in on… the Mountain West

Brian Goodman — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 21:00:08 +0000

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

A Look Back

While the top of the conference was business as usual, with BYU and San Diego State both taking care of things on their way towards Wednesday’s collision, there was quite a bit of shakeup in the middle of the conference. Colorado State handled UNLV at the Thomas & Mack with ease on Wednesday, before falling in a fairly close battle with BYU on Saturday. UNLV bounced back from their loss to squeak one out over New Mexico on Saturday, while the [...]

Checking in on… the MWC

Brian Goodman — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 01:03:24 +0000

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

A Look Back

San Diego State and BYU continued to get separation from the rest of the pack this week, adding three more wins between them and hurtling us one week closer to an epic matchup between the two favorites in Provo on January 26. While BYU’s one game this week was a big 25-point win over intrastate rival Utah (more on that game later), the Aztecs posted the two most impressive wins of the week, getting a home win over UNLV in a slugfest [...]

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 [...]

Checking in on… the Mountain West

rtmsf — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 01:07:52 +0000

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

Standings (as of 2/11)

New Mexico 22-3 8-2 BYU 22-3 7-2 UNLV 19-5 7-3 San Diego State 17-7 6-4 Colorado State 15-9 6-4 Utah 11-12 4-5 TCU 11-14 3-7 Wyoming 9-15 2-8 Air Force 9-14 1-9

Superlatives

Team of the Week. New Mexico. Huge week for the Lobos, getting a couple hard-fought wins, including a home overtime win over San Diego State and an impressive road win at UNLV. Those wins, coupled with UNLV’s win over BYU, leave the Lobos sitting alone atop the MWC standings, [...]

Checking in on… the Mountain West

rtmsf — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 05:51:43 +0000

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

Standings (as of 2/4)

BYU 22-2 7-1 New Mexico 20-3 6-2 UNLV 18-4 6-2 San Diego State 16-6 5-3 Colorado State 13-9 4-4 Utah 10-12 3-5 TCU 10-13 2-6 Wyoming 9-13 2-6 Air Force 9-12 1-7

Superlatives

Team of the Week. BYU. Of the big three in the MWC, the Cougars were the only ones to play twice this week. They won both impressively over teams from the bottom half of the conference, but the biggest reason Dave Rose’s club gets this spot is they lead the conference at the turn. Everybody has played [...]

Checking in on… the Mountain West

jstevrtc — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 23:39:44 +0000

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

Standings (as of 1/28):

BYU 20-2 5-1 New Mexico 19-3 5-2 UNLV 17-4 5-2 San Diego State 14-6 3-3 Colorado State 12-8 3-3 Utah 10-10 3-3 TCU 10-11 2-4 Wyoming 9-11 2-4 Air Force 8-11 0-6

Superlatives:

Team of the Week. New Mexico. For the second week in a row, it’s the Lobos who win this prize, with this week’s biggest scalp that of the number 12 team in the country, BYU. The Lobos have now won five games in a row [...]

Checking in on… the Mountain West

jstevrtc — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 09:28:08 +0000

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

Standings (as of 1/21):

BYU 19-1 4-0 New Mexico 17-3 3-2 UNLV 15-4 3-2 San Diego State 14-5 3-2 Colorado State 11-7 2-2 TCU 10-9 2-2 Utah 9-9 2-2 Wyoming 8-11 1-4 Air Force 8-9 0-4

Superlatives:

Team of the Week. New Mexico. Two road games (albeit against the eight and ninth place teams in the conference) and two road wins, getting back on track and breaking out of their shooting slump in a big way, knocking down 13 of their 27 three-point attempts [...]

Checking in on… the Mountain West

rtmsf — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 09:21:00 +0000

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

Standings (as of 12/4)

New Mexico 7-0 UNLV 6-0 BYU 5-1 San Diego State 5-2 TCU 5-3 Air Force 3-2 Colorado State 4-3 Utah 3-4 Wyoming 3-4

Superlatives

Team of the Week. UNLV – The Running Rebels had the toughest week of any Mountain West team, playing two down-to-the-wire games against two major national programs in Louisville and Arizona, and came through with their perfect record intact.

Player of the Week. Darrington Hobson, Jr, New Mexico – The nod goes to Hobson for the second week running, after he turned in [...]

Checking in on… the Mountain West

rtmsf — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 21:11:33 +0000

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

Standings (as of 11/26)

New Mexico (5-0) BYU (4-0) UNLV ( 4-0) Air Force (2-1) TCU (4-2) Colorado State (3-2) San Diego State (3-2) Utah (2-2) Wyoming (2-2)

Superlatives

Team of the week. New Mexico – this could have been UNLV or BYU in this spot, but the nod goes to the Lobos for their sheer volume, hoisting five wins before Thanksgiving, including the win over their in-state rival, four impressive wins over mid-to-low major programs and a Basketball Traveler’s World Vision Classic title.