Michael Vernetti is the RTC correspondent for the West Coast Conference.

A Look Back

• It was an “almost” week for Santa Clara and San Francisco, Gonzaga got its mojo back, Saint Mary’s picked up its first true road win of the year and Portland kept on cruising. Loyola-Marymount, Pepperdine and San Diego continued their losing ways.
• As Santa Clara battled Washington State evenly on Dec. 19 before succumbing 85-79 in overtime, and San Francisco took undefeated San Diego State to the wire two nights later in a 61-56 loss, visions of a stronger, more successful West Coast Conference flickered before fans’ eyes. It was that old conference war horse, Gonzaga, however, that gave the conference two big wins last week – 68-64 over then ninth-ranked Baylor in Dallas on Dec. 18 and 64-54 over Xavier in Spokane on the 22^nd.
• Saint Mary’s continued its cautious way through the pre-conference season, topping Long Beach State 82-74 at the Wooden Classic in Anaheim on Dec. 18, and New Mexico State 73-53 in Las Cruces on the 23^rd. The New Mexico State game was only the Gaels’ second true road game of the season.
• Portland, meanwhile, stayed on course to a successful pre-conference slate by topping old nemesis Portland State 78-67 on the road – across town – and kicking off a three-game home stand on Dec.  22^nd with an 88-79 win over Boise State.
• Loyola Marymount continued to confound observers who picked them to challenge for the WCC title, losing to Florida State at home 74-63 on the 18^th and to South Dakota in Vermillion, SD, 82-70 four days later.
• It was the same ol’ same ol’ for conference bottom-dwellers Pepperdine and San Diego, with the Waves splitting home games against UC Irvine (W 76-69) and Cal Poly SLO (L 70-64), and San Diego falling to Baylor (83-50) and Mississippi State (69-52) in the Diamond Head Classic in Honolulu.

Player of the Week

As Portland has continued its steady re-adjustment under Eric Reveno, shoring up the point guard position vacated by the graduated T.J. Campbell has been a prime goal. True freshman Tim Douglas, all 5’10 of him, gave Reveno plenty to smile about last week with a strong performance against Portland State that netted him Player of the Week honors. Douglas, a gutsy penetrator who is not afraid to crash the lane, came off the bench to score27 points on 10-for-13 shooting from the field and 6-for-8 from the free throw line. It was his third straight game in double figures, moving his ppg average to 7.2 in less than 16 minutes per outing.

Team-by-Team

1. Saint Mary’s (10-2) notched a pair of wins away from Moraga and elevated its third candidate to the position of Omar Samhan’s successor. During a hard-fought win over Long Beach State, Randy Bennett inserted 6’8 sophomore Mitchell Young in the post following earlier try-outs by transfer Kenton Walker and redshirt sophomore Tim Williams. Voila! Young exploited Long Beach’s over-emphasis on controlling forward Rob Jones by working himself open for a succession of bunnies and jump hooks, racking up a career-high 28 points in the Gaels’ 82-74 win. Showing the LBSU game wasn’t a fluke, Young went for 20 against New Mexico State.
2. Portland (10-3) has provided a model of pre-season scheduling, losing to a few toughies – Kentucky, Washington State and Washington – but beating respectable teams like UC Santa Barbara, St. Louis and Montana to keep up morale. The Pilots’ win over Boise State put them in position to glide into the conference schedule with another two winnable home games against rebuilding Nevada and up-and-down Utah.  That would put them at 12-3 and make a 20-win season and post-season tournament consideration within reach. Not bad for a team that was supposed to be rebuilding if not recovering from major graduation losses.
3. Gonzaga (7-5) shook off an unfamiliar losing record (4-5) with a three-game winning streak that established 7’0 center Robert Sacre as their go-to guy. Sacre and front-court mate Elias Harris were the big stories in the Zags’ wins over Baylor and Xavier, a development made even more important by the loss of senior guard Steven Gray to back spasms against Baylor. Gray sat on the bench as the Zags engaged in hand-to-hand combat with low-scoring but defensively nasty Xavier, leaving Sacre and Harris to account for 35 of their team’s 64 points. No other Zag – and Mark Few used a bunch of ‘em – scored more than six points in the Xavier win. No word on when Gray will return, but it cannot be soon enough for the Zags’ fortunes.
4. Santa Clara (7-6) made Washington State re-think the wisdom of stopping off at the Leavey Center en route to the Diamond Head Classic in Hawaii, pushing the Cougars to the limit before dropping an overtime heartbreaker. Last year’s outstanding point guard Robert Smith left the team before the Washington State game, putting pressure on the Broncos to solidify a shaky offense, and Smith’s replacement, Evan Roguemore, did his part. Roquemore contributed 16 points to accompany Kevin Foster’s 29 against Washington State and ease the sting of losing Smith, by some counts the 14^th player to leave or be dismissed from the Santa Clara program since Kerry Keating became head coach four years ago. Foster and Roquemore continued their excellence in the Broncs’ 99-79 road win over Cal State Northridge on Dec. 22, scoring 38 points between them, but Keating is suffering from a guard shortage with injuries to Julian Clarke and Michael Santos in addition to Smith’s departure. He reached far down the bench to insert walk-on Nate Mensah for a few minutes against Northridge.
5. Loyola Marymount (6-7) might have erased the memory of a less-than-stellar pre-conference season by easing into a three-game home winning streak over weak sisters Cal Poly and Sacramento State and so-so South Dakota. Reality returned, however, in a visit by the ACC’s Florida State Seminoles, whom the Lions battled evenly before faltering in the stretch. The Lions, who were counting on front-court strength from redshirt freshman post Edgar Garibay and solid strong forward Ashley Hamilton, have seen Garibay struggle to recover from last year’s ACL tear and lost Hamilton to a hand injury. Garibay saw only 10 minutes action against rugged Florida State big man Chris Singleton, leaving freshman Godwin Okonji to bear most of the rebounding and defensive duties. As if losing a close one to Florida State weren’t bad enough, LMU next travelled east to complete a home-and-home engagement with the South Dakota Coyotes. Reversing a 72-67 loss to the Lions 11 days earlier, South Dakota piled on 50 points in the second half to win 82-70.
6. San Francisco (4-8) had a season-making win seemingly in sight as it battled undefeated San Diego State deep into the second half on Dec. 21. A few breaks went the Aztecs’ way down the stretch, however, and the Dons fell 61-56 in the opening game of the Las Vegas Hoops Classic. The Dons’ bad luck continued against IUPUI in the second game of the Classic on Thursday, as they fell to the Jaguars 69-68 when San Francisco guard Michael Williams missed the front end of a one-and-one with his team up 68-66. The Jaguars Sean Esposito drained a three with five seconds left to give IUPUI the win.
7. Pepperdine (5-9) found a way to lose to a weakened Cal Poly SLO – falling behind 12-0 was a good way to start – after posting a 76-69 win over UC Irvine. Leaving Malibu for the final two games of the pre-conference season, the Waves flow into the Deep South for games against Alabama and Miami.
8. San Diego (2-10) did not find a visit to Honolulu for the Diamond Head Classic relaxing, as it ran into the meat-grinder that is Baylor’s zone defense and Mississippi State with embattled forward Renardo Sidney back in action. The results were not pretty.

We missed it last night, so let’s get you caught up on the last couple day of conference look-ins…

• Atlantic 10.  How does the A-10 compare to the other conference? With 65% of the conference teams’ out of conference schedule completed, the conference-wide out of conference record stands at 71-52, for a winning percentage of 0.577.
• Big East.  I’m willing to bet that there are a lot of people around the country that haven’t heard the name Marshon Brooks before because, you know, he plays for Providence. But it’s about time you start noticing this young man. In the past two weeks, there may not be a player in the country in more of a groove that Brooks.
• Conference USA.  Gary Flowers is garnering Player of the Year consideration after scoring the final 12 points in Southern Mississippi’s big win over California on Sunday. The biggest basket was a turnaround jumper with three seconds left that lifted the Golden Eagles past the Golden Bears 80-78.
• WAC.  Utah State is the only league member in the RPI Top 100 (#29) and just one of two schools along with Louisiana Tech (#130) in the Top 150. To further illustrate the tough times the league is encountering this season, the longest current winning streak in the league is two, by Fresno State and Utah State.
• WCC.  Gaels coach Randy Bennett has said his goal with transfer forward Rob Jones is to turn him into a scoring leader, and Jones may have gotten the message this week with lines of 24 and 11 against UC Riverside following a 17 and 11 outing against Denver.

From the in-case-you-missed-it department… the weekend’s conference check-ins.

• Atlantic Sun.  East Tennessee State notched an impressive win last Wednesday at Dayton, which had a 40-game winning streak at UD Arena against non-conference foes. So with all that momentum behind them, the Buccaneers naturally went down to USC Upstate and face-planted, losing 60-59 in a game which saw them hit nine of their first 40 shots and blow no less than a dozen layups.
• Big Sky.  Don’t look now, Weber State, but the Lumberjacks of Northern Arizona are on a roll! Coach Mike Adras has his team firing on all cylinders. They have won the last seven games in a row, with three of those wins coming on the road.
• Big South.  While the Big South has mounted appropriate marks of 3-3 against SoCon foes and 2-2 vs. A-Sun opponents so far this season, other records may not reflect as well on the league, most notably an 0-6 total against the Colonial–and throw in a combined 0-4 vs. teams from the MEAC, MVC, and Patriot.
• Missouri Valley.  Everyone anointed Wichita State the preseason favorites. Some thought Creighton was ready to break out even with a new coach. There were others that said Northern Iowa would just reload. But very quietly, Missouri State has strung together the most consistency so far.
• NEC.  A few hours later, St. Francis (NY) came from four down to edge defending NEC champion Robert Morris in Brooklyn. Senior guard Akeem Bennett hit two free throws with four seconds left to put the Terriers on top. Bennett then raced down court and blocked a potential game winning three-point attempt to seal the verdict.  It is going to be that type of year….
• Patriot League.  The Patriot League has yet to win that one game that causes the rest of the Mid-Major world to turn their collective heads in. In years past, the league has beaten the likes of Pittsburgh, Syracuse, Boston College, and Maryland, but right now, the two best wins for the league are against Boston University (Bucknell) and George Washington (Navy)—hardly a blip on the radar.
• Sun Belt.  Tristan Thompson had a masterful four-game stretch for North Texas recently, averaging 26.5 points per game against Rice, Texas State, Texas Arlington and Grambling. Although Josh White and George Odufuwa are also All-Conference performers, nobody’s been better than Thompson.
• WCC.  It began as a whisper earlier in the season, but recent events have given it full throat – the WCC is down this year. Gonzaga, which has waved the conference’s banner brilliantly for over a decade, has stumbled to a 4-4 record, most recently Wednesday’s 81-59 beat-down at Washington State. Saint Mary’s, coming off a Sweet Sixteen year with high expectations, has whiffed in its only two statement games.

Here are the last couple of days worth of check-ins at a few conferences…

• Atlantic 10
• Pac-10
• SEC
• WCC

Here’s hoping everyone had a tremendous Thanksgiving Day.  Here are your west coast check-ins for this week…

• Pac-10
• WAC
• WCC

Game #12.  RTC Live is back in one of our favorite venues at our favorite times — McKeon Pavilion on the campus of St. Mary’s College at 2 am ET.

We hope you have your pot of coffee ready and a case of Red Bulls in the fridge tonight, because even though this game will take place at the relatively late time of 11 pm local time, the rowdy St. Mary’s students and fans will have you thinking they just came in from a weekend rager.  RTC Live returns to one of the more fun venues on the west coast, the tiny, dark, loud gymnasium of McKeon Pavilion on the campus of St. Mary’s College.  You might think that losses of 6’11 Omar Samhan and 6’11 Ben Allen from last year’s Sweet Sixteen team means that the Gaels are due for a dropoff; you’d think wrong.  Randy Bennett continues to find diamonds in the rough such as freshman guard Stephen Holt, a player who stepped right into the bright lights of college basketball with a nine-steal performance against the College of Idaho over the weekend.  The Gaels will have their hands full tonight, though, with a St. John’s team that returns all five starters from an NIT squad a year ago.  The biggest storyline involving the Red Storm, however, does not surround its players as much as the formal debut of former UCLA head coach and ESPN commentator Steve Lavin as the Man Anointed Next Louie (Carnesecca).  Lavin frequently called WCC games for ESPN over the past half-decade, so his return to his native Bay Area tonight will undoubtedly be fraught with excitement and familiarity.  Let’s tip off the 24 Hours of Hoops Marathon west-coast style tonight with a great one.  Hope to see you there…

Read the rest of this entry »

1. If you’re inclined to buy into the ridiculousness that “every week is a playoff” meme in the college football realm, then this post wrapping up Week 1 of the season is for you.  As the article points out, 40 of the 120 D1-A teams in the National College Football Tournament have already been eliminated.  As such, let’s never discuss them again.  And each week, when many more teams are eliminated, let’s never discuss them again either.  And if that results in a meaningless Ohio State-Michigan rivalry game or a meaningless Texas-Oklahoma game come late November, then so be it — there should be little or no attention paid to those games unless their result impacts the national title picture.  But let’s pick one or the other, ok?  Either it’s a playoff system, or it’s not.  But it simply cannot be both.
2. Oregon is bleeding players in the wake of Dana Altman’s arrival in Eugene.  The latest is Michael Dunigan, a former big-time recruit for Ernie Kent who averaged 9/5 last season while shooting 55% from the field.  Dunigan will head overseas to play professionally, and his departure represents the fifth Duck player lost since Ernie Kent’s dismissal in March.  Altman has a major rebuilding project ahead of him on the court, but hey, at least the scoreboard hanging above the court will be the best in the nation.
3. The modern-day version of Damon Bailey?  James Blackmon, Jr., a high school freshman at Ft. Wayne’s Bishop Luers HS, committed to Tom Crean’s Indiana Hoosiers before ever playing a game in high school.  Of course, this isn’t terribly unusual in this era, but don’t forget that Billy Gillispie had a few such beyond-early commitments when he was at Kentucky, and well, let’s just say that those weren’t exactly binding.  Four years is a long time in the high-pressure world of college basketball, and although Crean seems to be moving in the right direction, he doesn’t have forever either.
4. With the addition of BYU, the general consensus around the WCC seems to be that a rising tide will lift all boats there.  Is that indeed the case, though?  Only Gonzaga and St. Mary’s last year were among Pomeroy’s top 100 teams, and it seems that the addition of the Cougs would help the overall league profile.  But what really needs to happen is that the bottom half of this league (squarely in the 200s) needs to markedly improve; we’re about 50/50 on whether BYU will be somewhat dragged down by it in the short term.
5. Just a friendly reminder, but today is the deadline for UConn to respond to the NCAA regarding the eight allegations it was accused of earlier this summer.  Of course, no decisions will ultimately be made until much later into the fall, but it’ll still be interesting to see how far UConn throws itself under the bus with self-imposed sanctions in order to curry favor with the NCAA.

1. Remember the Anthony Davis for sale flap a month ago?  Predictably, the threats of lawsuits by the Davis family and Kentucky have died down, but the speculation has not.  On a radio program Tuesday, college basketball writer Gregg Doyel said that he believes that the Chicago Sun-Times “deep throat” source for the allegation that Davis was bought for $200k came from Illinois head coach Bruce Weber.  Here’s the key quote, at the 19:42 mark: “If anybody is behind this, Weber is behind this, because he doesn’t lose very well. And, he unfortunately loses recruits left and right.  Nobody loses more recruits than Bruce Weber. That ought to be on his coat of arms — Bruce Weber: Losing recruits like a son of a gun.”  Wow.
2. It became official yesterday when UConn announced it, but Ater Majok is heading to Australia to begin a professional career, effective immediately.  We discussed the likelihood of this earlier in the week, openly wondering if his departure has anything to do with the expected response on Thursday or Friday from the university over eight NCAA allegations.  For now, we’ll just have to speculate and read between the lines, but hopefully in the next few days we’ll have more with which to address his departure.
3. Gary Parrish writes about the BYU move to the WCC (in basketball), and how the little league that could on the Pacific coast may have done more to elevate its profile than any other conference in Realignment Summer.  Yahoo’s Jason King and ourselves can’t disagree — as our correspondent Mike Vernetti wrote yesterday, WCC Commish Jamie Zaninovich may have pulled off the biggest coup we’ve seen in this game in quite some time.  Meanwhile, the WAC wonders what to do with itself after BYU effectively threw the venerable conference to the wolves.
4. Mizzou took a huge hit yesterday when it was reported that top fifteen incoming recruit Tony Mitchell will not be eligible to play for at least the fall semester, although it’s currently unclear what he needs to do to become eligible for the spring.  So far Missouri hasn’t yet confirmed the information, but according to several sources, Mitchell has missed the deadline to enroll at Missouri this semester.  Jeff Goodman reported yesterday that Mizzou is hopeful that Mitchell will attend a juco for the fall semester in an effort to become eligible.
5. Tennessee’s SwiperBoy (aka junior forward Renaldo Woolridge) is back with another UT-related rap song, just in time for the “FootVols” kickoff this coming weekend against UT-Martin in Neyland Stadium.  Not that they’d be listening anyway, but SEC fans from Columbia to Fayetteville probably envision their own personal hell as an endless loop of this song, which uses “Rocky Top” as its sample in the background.  There’s nothing too abrasive in the lyrics (if you can’t bear the audio version, here’s a transcript), but SwiperBoy manages to take a shot at the departed Lane Kiffin (“we drivin in a new Lane… 4get the last 1”) — with his third football-related song in the last two years, at least we can say he knows where the bread is buttered in Knoxville.  Here’s the video:

1. Obviously, the big news of yesterday was BYU’s decision to join the WCC in basketball (and all other sports except football).  It makes sense on a number of levels (religious school, kill the WAC, etc.), but we have to admit that you typically don’t see a school ‘trade down’ in relative strength like this.  But the lure of football independence was just too much for the Cougars to resist, and although we’ll miss BYU in the Mountain West, we’re excited to see if the addition of the LDS school will help bring the WCC to the top of the mid-major heap in hoops.  Our Mountain West and WCC correspondents examined both sides of the move, while Jeff Goodman caught up with the person currently residing in the WCC most impacted by BYU’s entry, Gonzaga’s Mark Few.
2. Former Duke all-american point guard Bobby Hurley is doing his best to contribute to the collective schadenfreude that the nation feels when members of Coach K’s first two championship teams lose their shirts.  Not long ago we learned that two starters on the 1991 and 1992 title teams, Christian Laettner and Brian Davis, were facing massive debt problems as a result of their failed company, Blue Devil Ventures.  This week Hurley’s horse farm, named Devil Eleven Farm and located in Ocala, Florida, was foreclosed upon after he stopped making payments on the 140-acre property in the spring of 2009.  Clearly both of these situations likely have something to do with the nationwide recession that began in late 2007, but we know some Kentucky and UNC fans somewhere out there who are very much enjoying this news.
3. Ex-Michigan State star and 1979 national champion Jay Vincent was arraigned yesterday on charges of defrauding investors of $2 million in an internet scam that convinced people to pay him to become home inspectors, where he pleaded not guilty.  Court records, however, show that a plea bargain may already be in the works.  He has until the end of the month to change his plea.
4. High School Hoop profiles one of the most well-known but not really behind-the-scenes players in the collegiate game: Worldwide Wes.  There’s not a lot of new information here, but it’s interesting to hear some of the top recruits in the class of 2011 talk about the influence (or lack thereof) of WWW on their recruitments.
5. St. John’s head coach Steve Lavin was a strong recruiter during his time at UCLA in the late 90s and early 2000s, as he put ten players into the NBA Draft during his seven years in Westwood.  So it should come as no surprise that he’s hit the ground running by earning a commitment from his first big name at SJU.  Maurice Harkless, a 6’7 forward from Queens who originally committed to UConn but later re-opened his commitment, could be a transformative recruit for Lavin’s new program.  If city kids start considering the Johnnies as a viable destination along with the standard regional powers such as UConn, Syracuse, Villanova and a few others, suddenly New York City might have its own college team again.

We asked two of our best contributors to take a look at today’s news that BYU has decided to go independent in football while joining the WCC in all other sports.  As he’s done all summer, our Mountain West correspondent Andrew Murawa breaks down all the moving pieces here in a simple, understandable way.  Additionally, our WCC correspondent, Michael Vernetti, stops by with a profile of the architect of the biggest coup of realignment summer, WCC Commissioner Jamie Zaninovich.

What Does It Mean? by Andrew Murawa

The wait for the next step in conference realignment is over, as BYU announced today its intention to forge ahead as an independent in football while joining up with the West Coast Conference in most other sports, beginning in 2011-12. In the process, the last hopes for the Western Athletic Conference to remain a viable entity have vanished, and the Mountain West Conference has turned its gaze from perhaps earning an automatic bid to the BCS for its conference champion to simple survival.

Jimmer Fredette Won't Get a Chance to Play in the WCC, but We Savor Future BYU-Gonzaga Matchups

A look at the news from the perspective of all the major entities in this move, BYU, the WAC, the MWC and the WCC:

1. BYU – it appears all along that BYU was set on going independent in football, and just needed to find a soft landing spot for its other sports. In football, they’re working with ESPN on a deal for their television rights and they’ll make a viable schedule out of the remnants of the WAC (Utah State and Hawai’i are already on the schedule for 2011) and whoever else ESPN can convince to play them.  Regardless, they’re certainly not getting a Notre Dame-style sweetheart deal from the BCS and they’ll likely have trouble filling out a schedule decent enough to regularly put them in BCS contention. As for the move to the WCC, this is an excellent destination for a good basketball program, putting the Cougars into a spot where they should be able to compete with Gonzaga for conference supremacy immediately. Given St. Mary’s steady rise, Portland’s continued improvement, Loyola Marymount’s potential and the success of schools like Pepperdine, San Diego and Santa Clara in the past, the Cougars will definitely find some worthwhile competition there. And given that every other school in the league is a religious institution, BYU at least has something in common with its new conference mates (never mind the fact that BYU has a student body of 33,000, while the biggest school in the WCC has an enrollment of less than 9,000). But, the big key for BYU is getting away from what they found to be a limiting television package in the MWC. Now, they’ll be able to make use of their state-of-the-art media center and use it as a nice carrot to make sure that they are able to reach an agreement with ESPN. And, given that the WCC already has a television deal in place with ESPN for basketball and will reportedly retain broadcast rights for games not aired by the WWL, this is likely a big upgrade in terms of the television package for BYU.
2. WAC – goodbye. If BYU had agreed to join the WAC in its non-football sports, at least there would have been some reason for the continued existence of the conference, but now standing at six teams with schools like Hawai’i and Utah State already considering other options, this venerable conference is on its deathbed as it approaches its 50^th birthday. Right now, about the only reason for the remaining schools to stick together is in the hopes of getting the $10 million in buyout money from Fresno State and Nevada, money over which there will clearly be an epic legal battle. WAC commissioner Karl Benson insists that Fresno State and Nevada will have to remain in the conference through 2011-12, but the schools so far beg to differ. With six remaining members, the conference still holds a claim on an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament for a couple of years, but the defection of one more school (whether it be Utah State to the MWC or Hawai’i to independence) would be the final nail in the coffin.
3. MWC – saved from extinction a few weeks back by Fresno State and Nevada’s agreement to join the conference, the MWC is certainly hurt by the loss of BYU but it was going to happen sooner or later anyway. The hope of an automatic bid for its conference football champion to the BCS is now a distant memory and the conference is left with its meager television deal with Versus, CBS College Sports and its own network, The Mtn., now minus the Salt Lake City market  (the regional hub of the conference). In order for the conference to remain a viable entity for the future, it will need to fix its issues with its television contracts, but in the short term, it is still a strong league. However, given that the television contract is locked in until 2015-16, the conference may find itself having to fight off other suitors for some of its strongest members. TCU has already been mentioned as a possible target for the Big 12, and there has even been talk of a merger or some kind of alliance between the Mountain West and Conference USA (talk fueled by meetings between the two conferences in the days after the MWC added Fresno State and Nevada). Finally, there is the possibility that the MWC would be interested in adding more teams. They could certainly finish off the WAC by stealing Utah State (a move that would probably thrill Fresno State and Nevada because it would immediately end the $5 million buyout talk) and maybe even New Mexico State. There have been hopeful rumors of adding some of the western CUSA teams (Houston, Tulsa and UTEP, for example), but the MWC’s television deal probably precludes that, so it will be interesting to see what the next move is for a conference that was very recently thought to be a significant up-and-comer.
4. WCC – first, you have to wonder what Gonzaga thinks of this. They’ve been the alpha dog in the conference for years as the school casting shadows on the rest of the league, and now, they’re potentially just another tiny school bouncing about in behemoth BYU’s wake. Certainly Gonzaga basketball isn’t going anywhere, but they’re no longer the program that can be immediately penciled in as the favorite in the conference every single year. Looking at it from the Zags’ perspective, the addition of BYU adds a couple more high-quality games during the conference season to bolster its strength of schedule and maintain a high RPI -– perhaps they don’t have to go so nuts with their non-conference schedule anymore. As for the conference as a whole, BYU’s presence in basketball is nothing  but good -– more high-profile games, stronger schedules and a big new market.  The league – now at nine teams with the addition of BYU – will go to a 16-game full home-and-home round robin schedule (although they’ll need to figure out the logistics of that, since there is no longer an easy way to schedule travel partners with an odd number of teams) and they’ll need to rearrange their conference tournament (tournament semifinals have been on Sunday and BYU will not play on Sundays). And there is even the potential for further expansion. Pacific had been considered for possible conference membership in 2008, and the Tigers would be a good fit along with the existing Bay Area schools (St. Mary’s, San Francisco, Santa Clara), but Denver and Seattle have also been mentioned as possible new invitees, given that those schools would add new large markets to the conference.  Denver, in particular, would be a natural travel partner for BYU. All things considered, this is an exciting day for fans of schools all around the WCC, even if the size and particular religious affiliation of BYU may give brief pause.

What’s next?

Read the rest of this entry »