Ruling on NCAA bid delayed again

Steve Carp

Wednesday, July 28, 1999 | 9:34 a.m.

Another day, another delay.

Eventually, the Mountain West Conference will find out just when it will qualify for an automatic bid to the NCAA men's basketball tournament. Tuesday, the NCAA's management council decided to postpone a final decision until mid-October, when it can sort out some of the rapid changes on the Division I front.

Normally, a new league must wait five years before it can be considered for an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. However, a league can appeal for a waiver to the process, which the Mountain West did back in January.

In April, that request was denied. However, it was reconsidered after some members thought there was room for compromise. Both the men's Division I basketball committee and the Collegiate Commissioners Association recommended the MWC wait a year.

However, recent developments in college athletics prompted the management council to keep the issue on hold at its meetings in Hilton Head, S.C.

The Big West Conference, which currently holds an automatic bid, may be breaking up with the California schools forming their own league. The Western Athletic Conference, which recently added Nevada-Reno and is currently ineligible for an automatic to the 2000 tournament, may add more schools. Same for the Sun Belt, which is considering expansion as well in an attempt to beef up its football status.

"We're still in a holding pattern," a frustrated MWC commissioner Craig Thompson said. "It was a complex issue from the start and it's still a complex issue.

"I just never understood why it needed to be. We have said time and again that we meet the criteria they established -- six schools together for at least five years. I guess they don't see it that way."

Thompson said he still believes when all is said and done, the Mountain West will have to wait a year before it gets an automatic bid. The league plans to go ahead with staging its inaugural postseason basketball tournament at the Thomas & Mack Center March 9-11, with or without a bid riding on the outcome.

"It doesn't help us in our planning," Thompson said of the latest delay over an issue he hoped was going to be resolved in January. "But I don't know if it's a big thing between knowing now and knowing in October.

"I'm still optimistic it'll be a one-year wait. I would be floored if we got the automatic for this year."