One bid wonders

Steve Addy

Thursday, Dec. 6, 2001 | 10:32 a.m.

Three months before Mountain West basketball teams gather in Las Vegas for the conference tournament, it's already clear what the men will be fighting for.

One bid to the NCAA Tournament -- and one bid only.

Like last season, the MWC's terrible record against quality nonconference teams has made it fairly certain that the league's automatic qualifier will be its lone representative in the 65-team NCAA field.

The league office has urged teams to bolster their non-conference schedules, hoping to make them more alluring to the NCAA tournament committee, but the eight MWC clubs have absorbed so many lumps, they might've been better off pounding patsies.

Three weeks into the season, the MWC is 26-21 against Division I competition and 0-5 against teams in the AP Top 25, losing by an average of 17 points.

"You want other teams in your league to do well out of conference, but it's been a bit of a struggle so far," UNLV coach Charlie Spoonhour said.

Furthermore, MWC teams are an abysmal 3-17 on the road, with two wins against meager RPI teams like the University of San Diego (219) and University of Denver (272).

Last Wednesday was particularly galling, as the MWC went 0-4 on the road, with UNLV losing at Washington by 13, Wyoming losing at Detroit-Mercy by 16, New Mexico losing at California by nine and BYU falling to UC-Santa Barbara by 10. No Top 25 opponents in that crowd, but losses all the same.

The next night produced a worse result, as Colorado State lost 56-54 at Gardner-Webb, a Division II team in the midst of a four-year transition to Division I.

MWC VS. THE TOP 25

The Mountain West is 26-21 in non-conference basketball games against Division I teams, and 0-5 against AP Top 25 teams. Here are those Top 25 results and upcoming games with ranked teams (x-no longer ranked; y-Las Vegas Showdown):

Grading on a curve, who'd have thought the Rebels' opening victory over Wisconsin would be one of the MWC's best so far? In 11 games against 2001 NCAA qualifiers, MWC teams have beaten only Wisconsin, Pepperdine, Cal State Northridge and Hawaii.

There have been two losses to Utah State and one each to Missouri, Cincinnati, Fresno State, Stanford and USC. When San Diego State visits Duke on Dec. 29, the top-ranked Blue Devils will likely join the list.

Things are so bad for the conference at the moment, preseason favorite Wyoming (4-2) had a 207 RPI ranking heading into Wednesday, lowest in the league. Only BYU (74), Colorado State (75) and Utah (92) were in the top 100. UNLV was 146th.

League commissioner Craig Thompson rightfully discounts early RPI figures, but he is also well-versed in what criteria the NCAA tournament committee holds dear. He was the chairman in 2000, when UNLV and Utah qualified. Only BYU got in last season, winning the automatic bid at the Thomas & Mack Center.

Thompson concedes the league's poor record so far, but says tougher scheduling is the only way to go.

"When it all shakes down, we're doing the right thing," he said. "We have gone around and around about this in football, too. Look at BYU. Are you better off going 8-3, or losing no games with a poor strength of schedule?

"At least in football, three teams get to a bowl. In basketball, we have one automatic bid and that's it. Everything else, you have to earn. If you don't make an effort (with tough scheduling), you're dead in the water."

But Spoonhour said it's not always easy to schedule marquee opponents.

"We've told (ESPN) we would welcome a game at UCLA, Missouri or Indiana," he said. "But those teams may have different thoughts about their schedules.

"It's like Christmas. You can put a wish list together, but it doesn't always mean you'll get it. And sometimes you get what you don't want."

The Mountain West's case might also be hurt by parity. In the first two seasons, no team had fewer than four league losses. In 1999-00, Utah and UNLV split the regular-season title at 10-4. Last season, BYU, Utah and Wyoming shared it at 10-4.

"A 10-4 record puts you in the 16-17 win range, which is no-man's land," Thompson said. "When teams beat on each other for 14 games and everyone takes one step forward and a half-step back, you don't get marquee teams to put forward."

Based on early returns, the Mountain West marquee will feature only one name again this spring. Everyone else can wait for the NIT to call.

No UNLV player has a double-double this season. Every other MWC team has at least one. ...

The Dec. 30 men's and women's doubleheader has been moved up a half-hour. UNLV's women will host UC Santa Barbara at 4:30 p.m. and the men will play Old Dominion at 7:05.