近距离内射合集

Mountain West basketball coaches and athletic directors and other administrators gathered at a resort in Scottsdale, Arizona, this weekend and the early part of the week for their annual meetings to, among many other things, figure out how to be fiscally responsible.

Just kidding. In college athletics, leaders love traveling places to talk about making money, not so much about how to save it.

But these Mountain West spring meetings do provide an opportunity to make decisions that could benefit basketball in a league that was one of, if not the best non-power conference hoops league of the past 20 years. (The Big East is a power league in hoops, and is not counted in this statement.)

But I鈥檓 not holding my breath.

There still seems to be an unwillingness at the top to accept this ain鈥檛 the old Mountain West, where depth in men鈥檚 basketball went six or seven teams and playing a traditional conference tournament format wasn鈥檛 as detrimental to NCAA Tournament chances.

This new Mountain West, however, isn鈥檛 nearly as loaded with good teams. It may still be top-heavy, but the overall roster makes the league a few notches lower, which in turn hurts the chances of those few teams at the top from making the NCAA Tournament, unless the league acts.

Moving forward, the MW isn鈥檛 getting 18 teams in the NCAA Tournament over a four-year span like it did from 2022 to 2025. To have a shot at a two-bid league every now and then, or to give your top team its best shot at a decent seed in the Big Dance, it鈥檚 time to shift from a traditional bracket format to the stepladder, power-protected (and regular-season rewarded) format for the conference tournament.

However, the MW is desperate to make money from its conference tournament, not do what鈥檚 best for the teams. A format that might be good for a winning UNM basketball team (fewer games) would drop the number of days New Mexico fans spend in Las Vegas, so that probably won鈥檛 fly.

10-team stepladder bracket

Day 1

• No. 7 seed vs. No. 10

• No. 8 seed vs. No. 9

Day 2

• 7/10 vs. No. 6

• 8/9 vs. No. 5

Day 3 (quarterfinals)

• 6/7/10 vs. No. 3

• 5/8/9 vs. No. 4

Day 4 (semifinals)

• 3/6/7/10 vs. No. 2

• 4/5/8/9 vs. No. 1

Day 5

• Championship

This is the format that has helped the West Coast Conference, despite being significantly lower in every metric than the Mountain West, protect seeding and help its top teams 鈥� Gonzaga and Saint Mary鈥檚 most years 鈥� maintain unblemished r茅sum茅s. It also helps stack the odds in favor of a championship game between the two top teams, which helps the NET rankings tremendously.

(Side note: This format would also allow the men鈥檚 and women鈥檚 tournaments to be played simultaneously 鈥� two women鈥檚 games in afternoon, two men鈥檚 games at night instead of the asinine format of women鈥檚 tournament then men鈥檚 tournament, preventing fans from going for eight-nine days to see both).

Here is what the format could look like for the UNM Lobos based on a stepladder, power-protected format with the new league鈥檚 teams (this is based on this past season鈥檚 final NET rankings, listed in parentheses):

Current, traditional format:

• Game 1 (quarterfinals): UNM vs. either San Jose State (243 NET) or UTEP (268 NET). Both would be a Quad 4 game for UNM that could only hurt the Lobos, not help.

• Game 2 (semifinals): Likely vs. Wyoming (97 NET), a Quad 2 game, or Hawaii (107 NET), a Quad 3 game.

• Game 3 (championship): Could be vs. No. 2 seed Nevada (67 NET).

New stepladder format:

• Game 1 (semifinal): First game of conference tournament likely vs. No. 4 Wyoming (97 NET), a Quad 2 game.

• Game 2 (championship): Best chance of the league getting a No. 1 vs. No. 2, championship, which would help both teams鈥� chances.

Does any of this fix the reality of the new Mountain West being a step down from what it鈥檚 been in recent years? No. But it does mitigate the potential damage the conference tournament can have on a special season for the league鈥檚 top two or three teams 鈥� UNM Lobos or not.

So, here鈥檚 hoping the league does the reasonable thing in the face of the harsh reality of its new circumstances.

Reach Geoff Grammer at ggrammer@abqjournal.com or follow him on Twitter (X) .