So my last post discussed the rescheduled games for the CSU Men.
Today, the Mountain West announced that the Nevada game scheduled for March 3rd was being canceled due to a COVID outbreak at San Jose State.
Which gives the Nevada team two extra days to prepare for the CSU game on Friday, March 5th. Which means they never have to get on a plane or bus to San Jose and spend those 4 days at home practicing in Reno.
CSU is still scheduled to play New Mexico on Wednesday, after playing two games against Air Force on Saturday and Monday.
So CSU plays games on Saturday, Monday, Wednesday, hops on an airplane to Reno, plays a game at Nevada on Friday.
Four games over 7 days!
If one of the goals of the rescheduling was to protect teams that had at-large NCAA hopes, that just went out the window with the latest news. Clearly that is not anywhere near a level playing field for a CSU team that currently shows up in many of the NCAA At-Large prognostications.
Simple solution.
Even the playing field.
Get rid of either the CSU-UNM game or the CSU-Nevada game.
Or both.
Spot on Mountaindude
Before I start ranting, I hope the driving factor behind this ridiculous scheduling non-sense is some backstage TV dealing that forces the conference’s hand in scheduling these games.
If not, this is some of the most incredibly short-sighted, inept, ignorant posturing to maintain an aura of relevance for the meaningless “regular season championship” while jeopardizing much higher exposure and that would come from getting teams into the NCAA tournament. In this COVID season, there is absolutely NO REASON to adhere to historic norms. The conference should be pulling every single lever that benefits the Top 4 teams that have CLEARLY elevated themselves above the rest of the conference and put themselves solidly on the bubble.
The outcome of this rescheduling and adherence to having an unnecessary conference tournament will be getting two teams in the NCAA tourney vs. the almost guaranteed three and possibly four that we are currently at.