Mountain West Men’s Basketball To Move To 20-Game Conference Schedule

The Mountain West men’s basketball will shift to a 20-game conference, the conference announced Thursday.

The Mountain West men’s basketball schedule has been an 18-game slate since the MW inherited both Utah State and San Jose State to begin the 2013-14 season. Every team would play every other team twice (one road, one home), with the exception of two programs.

Now, with a more simplified slate, each program will play each other twice—one on the road and one at home. As a result, conference play will inevitably start earlier than it usually does, but a balanced schedule rewards every team the opportunity to play the conference’s best more than once as opposed to, say, a measly Quad 4 non-con opponent at the end of December.

Here’s the list of MW opponents each program played just once in 2023-24:

• Air Force: Nevada, San Diego State
• Boise State: UNLV, Wyoming
• Colorado State: Fresno State, San Jose State
• Fresno State: Colorado State, New Mexico
• Nevada: Air Force, Utah State
• UNLV: Boise State, Utah State
• New Mexico: Fresno State, SJSU
• San Diego State: Air Force, Wyoming
• San Jose State: Colorado State, New Mexico
• Utah State: Nevada, UNLV
• Wyoming: Boise State, SDSU

There are four teams currently eligible for at least a share of the 2023-24 Mountain West regular season. Utah State clinched its share Wednesday with a 20-point win over San Jose State. Though, coincidentally enough, Utah State played two of the others—Nevada (in Logan) and UNLV (in Vegas)—just once. UNLV also played just Boise State—the other team eligible—just once.

We don’t know how it’ll shape out. But perhaps the order of the top-5 would shape differently with a balanced slate. Now, with this new and improved schedule, that can no longer be possible. And it would provide these three programs, in this isolated example, an extra Quad 1-2 game to potentially pad their at-large resume and seeding entering the postseason.

What do you think of this change? Let us know in the comments!

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This is a breaking news story. Stay tuned for updates.