Monday Night Live

Steve Addy

Friday, Feb. 8, 2002 | 10:30 a.m.

The Mountain West has put on a good show on ESPN Big Monday this season. The first four games were decided by five points or less, with two going into overt ime, and the fifth was by eight points. Here is a recap, with the MWC's remaini ng Big Monday schedule:

Jan. 7 -- x-Gonzaga 95,@New Mexico 90 (OT)

Jan. 14 -- @New Mexico 50, Air Force 47

Jan. 21 -- Wyoming 88,@San Diego St. 85 (OT)

Jan. 28 -- @Utah 71, BYU 66

Feb. 4 -- Wyoming 54,@Utah 46

Monday -- Utah at UNLV, 9 p.m.

Feb. 18 -- New Mexico at Utah, 9 p.m.

Feb. 25 -- Wyoming at New Mexico, 9 p.m.

(x-nonconference)

College basketball fans in New York or Chicago might have no clue how to get to Laramie, Wyo., or Provo, Utah, or Albuquerque, N.M. But they know exactly where to find those places on TV.

Where: ESPN. When: every Monday night. Time: depends on where you live, but the Mountain West game is always late, always last and always live.

ESPN calls it Big Monday, a seven-hour hoops tripleheader that starts with a Big East game, continues with a Big 12 game two hours later and closes with a Mountain West game at the five-hour mark. Monday's nightcap will be Utah at UNLV, the Rebels' only Big Monday appearance of the season.

For Eastern viewers eschewing Letterman or Leno, it means a midnight tipoff -- technically the first game of a new day, but really the last game of a long night. For fans in Las Vegas and the Pacific time zone, it's a 9 p.m. start, and the town is still getting revved up.

No matter where the viewers are tuning in, they're always a captive audience. When the MWC game is on, there are no college basketball alternatives. It's the last and only game on -- a weekly two-hour commercial for the three-year-old conference, airing coast to coast.

Since eight schools broke away from the Western Athletic Conference in 1999 to form the Mountain West, nothing has provided the new league with as much notoriety as Big Monday. The telecasts gave it instant relevance and a national identity, faster than 1,000 newspaper stories ever could.

"It's our equivalent of 'Monday Night Football,' " said commissioner Craig Thompson, who signed the conference to a seven-year ESPN contract through 2006. "We've got an exclusive time slot every week, and ESPN promotes the games during the weekend and in the early games on Monday night. The exposure we get in the Big Monday window is crucial.

"I know that most of our basketball coaches call their (recruits) on Tuesdays, because they know they were watching ESPN the night before."

The Rebels were Big Monday participants four times last season and twice in 1999-00, but this season's multiple appearances went to Utah and New Mexico (four each) and Wyoming (three). Colorado State is the only MWC team without a Big Monday game.

Captivated audience

Having a captive audience is crucial to the league, but captivating that audience has been just as important. Of five MWC Big Monday games this season, the first four were decided by five points or less, including two overtime beauties. Even Air Force, in its first Big Monday game ever on Jan. 14, gave New Mexico a great battle in Albuquerque before losing 50-47.

"Locking up this deal with ESPN was probably the most important thing the Mountain West could've done," said color analyst Jimmy Dykes, who has worked every MWC Big Monday game with play-by-play announcer Bob Carpenter.

"It is a great slot for this league. Anytime you can be the only game on the air, you grab it. I'd much rather be playing the Monday late game than Saturday at noon (eastern) like the Atlantic-10. There are too many other games at that time.

"I'm constantly amazed how many people from New York, North Carolina and back east talk to me the next day and say they watched the game. It's amazing how many coaches watch it, too, so people are very aware of the Mountain West."

The ratings bear that out. ESPN's average viewership for college basketball last season was a .45 rating, the rough equivalent of 350,000 homes. The individual Big Monday ratings for MWC games were .45, .45, .43, .44, .52, .44 and .44. UNLV-Cincinnati drew a .57, but on a Saturday night.

"We are right on the national average," Thompson said. "Our numbers are pretty static. No matter which teams we have playing, our numbers are going to be pretty much the same.

"Our contract with ESPN calls for at least three Big Mondays a year, but so far we've had eight every year. They wouldn't show them if nobody was watching."

No shilling allowed

Though the ESPN twosome of Carpenter and Dykes also works the weekly Conference USA game on Big Wednesday, they have become the public face and voice of the Mountain West. They have telecast MWC games from the start, every week, whether in Salt Lake City, Laramie or Las Vegas, and they know the league as well as anyone.

Both men are careful not to serve as shills for the conference. At the same time, they don't hesitate to inform uninitiated viewers that there are talented players and no easy road games in the Mountain West.

"I would hope that we've been good messengers for the conference," said Carpenter, 48, whose wife of 22 years, the former Debbie Mayberry, is a Las Vegas native and Western High grad. "I think we've let people know the Mountain West has a good product. We've gotten the word out that it's not just the Pac-10 in that area of the country."

Dykes, 38, is a former Arkansas player under Eddie Sutton who also served six seasons as an assistant coach at schools including Kentucky and Oklahoma State from 1986-92.

"I don't think we have ever been cheerleaders for the league. We have spoken the truth about the league, and there's a big difference," Dykes said. "I feel very strongly about the talent -- guys like Josh Davis, Britton Johnsen and Randy Holcomb -- and players who have come through the league in the past.

"I think the fans appreciate our enthusiasm for the league. I don't think you'll ever see us doing a Mountain West game where the fans are thinking, 'I bet those guys wish they were doing Kansas-Oklahoma tonight.' "

'A late-night thing'

Thompson says Carpenter and Dykes properly stride the line between informing, entertaining and promoting.

"They're fun guys, and they do a good job," he said. "They have to be impartial, but they also bring color to the telecast and they have some fun with it."

The Mountain West's unique time slot also lends itself to a lighter mood and informal style, such as the duo's almost-weekly advisory to "wake the neighbors back east, because we've got an upset brewing out west."

"We probably pull a few stunts that we couldn't do on the 7 p.m. game back east," Carpenter said. "But we have a different audience watching our game. We do all the nuts and bolts, but you had better not bore people at 11 p.m. or midnight. It's a late-night thing. You're not trying to be Jay Leno or David Letterman, but you can have fun within the context of the game. We strike a balance."

Dykes said, "We know when it's time to buckle down and talk X's and O's. But it's still college kids doing what they've loved to do all of their life -- the players, the band, the cheerleaders. We just try to capture that and have fun with it."

The duo's wacky style has also made them popular among student sections around the league. At Wyoming last year, fans chanted "Jim-my Dykes! Jim-my Dykes!" and cheerleaders crowded around him for photos. People Magazine named him one of its 35 Most Eligible Bachelors of 2001.

"I'm convinced he paid every one of those fans $5 to yell his name, just to make me jealous, but it didn't work," Carpenter quipped.

Dykes issued this rebuttal: "As many meals as I haven't paid for on the road, Bob knows I'm not going to pay anybody for anything. He's bought all my meals. That's what a good play-by-play man does. That's the protocol."