Why have the conference tournament? Every team in the conference plays each other at home and on the road. Tournaments should only exist to settle ambiguity. After the regular season we will already know who the best team in the conference will be. I hate pointless tournaments.

Why not push the regular season back one week and have every MWC team schedule 2 more games (preferably home games) each year? I'm willing to bet the revenue generated of an additional 18 regular season games can trump 7 tournament games.

To me the tournament doesn't make sense from a competitive standpoint and a financial standpoint.

There's merit in not having one, there's also merit in the regular season champ netting the Big Dance invite, but there is no fairness in the way the MWC does it now.

I know there are a lot of factors they consider, and Denver didn't work for whatever reason. It would be great if they could just send all the teams to some far off place and let them fight it out away from anyone's home. In reality, I really don't know why we can't pick the worst team each year and play at their homecourt. Just as fair, rotate through each team's home each year. I'm sure nothing will change though, so the Cougs will just have to take care of business as best they can and hope for the best. In the end, if we can't beat UNLV at home, we're probably not going very far come tourney time anyway...

Why not have the automatic bid go to the regular season champion? Right now there is TOO much value in winning the tournament and thus putting it on anyone's home court is too advantageous

How bout Reno. It can provide all of the opportunities for sin that some fans might want to exploit. BYU fans who are too cheap to fly can still drive and Ute fans who are too complacent to drive can ride with a friend who is a BYU fan. UNLV fans don't veen support there team in Las vegas. That would be hard for TCU, CSU, AFA, NM, and SDSU, but they don't travel well anyway and they need to fly in any event, even to Las Vegas.

But I have some better ideas.

Leave the bottom MWC team out of the tournament as has been done and play it on the home court of the last place team. Yes that requires last minute logistical issues due to not knowing where it will be until the last minute, but at what point does the integrity of the game weigh in against the the money to be made. Quite frankly, the schools can't be making that much money anyway although the City of Las Vegas probably rakes in a bi tof dough off it.

Play it at that little court in the Orleans Hotel where the Louisville and North Carolina games were played this year and sell individual game seats - not packages. Clear the joint out after every game to make room for the fans who care enough to buy a ticket for that particular game. I don't think the issue is that it is in Las vegas where UNLV has mediocre fan support anyway. It is becasue it is on the floor that they play 50% of their games on and practice on anytime they want to.

Similarly, the Delta Center or a new arena in Las Vegas would be neutral. And although BYU and Utah might muster better fan support than UNLV in an up season, I don't see it as a home court advantage. BYU can probably muster stronger fan support in Las Vegas in an up year when all of the marbles are at stake if the ticket prices are reasonable.

LA or the Pond at Anaheim, or someplace in Phoenix, would be OK neutral sites. But let's take the homecourt advantage away from UNLV. It ibt us hard last year, if I recall and it will certianly pose a problem this year.

Maybe we should just try to lose the rest of our games including the first round tournament game, hope for a NIT bid, and then hope we get several home games and an NIT Championship - shades of 1966 except the Utes won't be in the final 4.

You have a good point M/Rasta and the fact that unlv has home court advantage in the tournament makes your point even stronger.

On your other point, I assume you'd have to play a couple of teams 3 times. How would you pick those 2 teams?

I like your idea too Blue eyes. It could give a boost to the last place team to have it on their court but it'd look pretty bad for the last place team to be going to the NCAA with a less that .500 record. Maybe you could eliminate those under .500 teams but pick the last place to have it at their gym even though they wouldn't be in it.

I am against having it in the same schools court every year. California is too far for all but sdsu. If any of the above won't work then I would look long at going back to a rotation.

mormonrasta wrote:

Why have the conference tournament? Every team in the conference plays each other at home and on the road. Tournaments should only exist to settle ambiguity. After the regular season we will already know who the best team in the conference will be. I hate pointless tournaments.

Why not push the regular season back one week and have every MWC team schedule 2 more games (preferably home games) each year? I'm willing to be the revenue generated of an additional 18 regular season games can trump 7 tournament games.

To me the tournament doesn't make sense from a competitive standpoint and a financial standpoint.

You could just as easily say, what's the point of the regular season? Why not just have a tournament to decide who the best team is in the conference? You have to keep in mind the point of the season is to decide a team's seeding in the MWC tournament. The winner of the tournament then goes to the NCAA tournament.

If we decided not to have a MWC tournament it would take some agreeing on the NCAA committee and we might forfeit our automatic bid. By having a MWC tournament the MWC will have at least one team in the NCAA tournament every year, and which team goes is decided by the play of MWC teams, not by a selection committee. If CSU were to win the MCW tourney, they would get a NCAA tourney spot. You have to admit there is something fair about that guarantee.

L.A. would be nice but finding a venue that seats 10,000+ that is available for the whole weekend would be tough.