Regular Season Ends on Sour Note for CSU Men and Women.

By now you know the results.

The CSU Men lost on a last-second three to Nevada, damaging their NCAA At-Large chances, as their NET Ranking fell from 41 to 50.

The CSU Women were top of the league for the entire season but lost their two final games to New Mexico to fall out of first place.

Yes they had their chances.

But the deck was stacked against them.

Because of the luck of the draw and the playing of pandemic pairs, the CSU Men only played two home games against the other Top 5 teams. San Diego State and Utah State got 6 of their 8 at home.

Rather than trying to produce equity, the conference commissioner and school AD’s (including CSU’s Joe Parker), created an even higher level of inequity by forcing CSU to play 4 games in 7 days wit their last game on the road against a team with 5 days to prepare.

Its worse on the Womens side.

In terms of the games against the Top 6, the CSU Women played 0 home games. Thats right. They played 8 road games and 0 home games against the Top teams.

The league could easily have had the final games vs New Mexico held in Fort Collins, where they had been moved to in mid-February before a “COVID” issue kept New Mexico from playing. Or they could have played them at a neutral site in Las Vegas, where they were planning to play them until a last minute change in restrictions by the State of New Mexico.

It was a huge fail by those in charge of the Mountain West. And a huge fail by the Athletic Directors including CSU’s very own Joe Parker.  They failed to deliver a level playing field. They ignored the health and safety of the student-athletes, without whose existence they would NOT be employed.

I’m through ranting.

And I’ll close with a stanza of Tennyson’s “Charge of the Light Brigade”.

It seems so appropriate.