Since some brackets have ISU playing New Mexico St. first round, I went and checked the WAC standings and RPI and all, and I was shocked to see how bad that conf. is...Holy Cow! That conference must have got raided. It used to be somewhat respectable. Remember when Conference USA was respectable as well? It is def. a Power 5 NCAA these days. The have's and the have not's.
Wacky WAC Conference
- Thread starter mcdrier
- Start date
Re-alignment definitely did a number on both those conferences. The Mountain West basically sucked up any of the good teams left in the WAC after they lost Utah, BYU, and TCU. The respectable part of C-USA basically added Cincy and UConn to become the American. C-USA now is more or less the worst part of the old C-USA and the best part of the old Sunbelt.
I'd call it more of a Power 6 in college basketball. The Big East is just as good, if not better, than the SEC and Pac-12. Then conferences like the American, A-10, and MWC provide a middle tier before you get down into the "have nots."
I think so. If I recall, I think they were initially going to put all their other sports in the WAC along with Boise State and SDSU, but the whole Big East collapse/Mountain West expansion changed things in a hurry and they kind of got left out in the cold.
BYU is legit. Didn't their point guard Collinsworth break the NCAA record this year for most triple doubles in a season? That is a team I do not want to face in the tournament.
Yeah. Now it's New Mexico State and a bunch of teams who suck. NMSU will be in the NCAA tournament for many years to come.
WAC should have just been disbanded or rebranded. It's one of the more ugly orphans of conference realignment.
MWC is the late 80s to mid 90s WAC now minus BYU and Utah.
MWC is the late 80s to mid 90s WAC now minus BYU and Utah.
It's weird that they are still using that name, NMSU is literally the only team that has any ties to the league. It clearly is turning into a group of bball only schools trying to transition to the D1 ranks. That's all well and good, its just strange that they are sticking with the WAC name. Also...isn't NMSU a sunbelt team in football?
They're trying to salvage a brand that had some decent football recognition as purely bball, it's just weird.
Idaho was caught up the same as NMSU.
Cincy and UConn got shafted most at the highest levels. NMSU and Idaho the most at the next tier down.
I believe in the long term strength of the MWC though in both sports, especially if the Pac 12 sticks with it's current thoughts on what type of schools they want. The mountain region is a huge part of the country with one NFL team and only 2 big 5 football teams. I'm not sure BYU should have left, if they never get a B12 invite leaving instead of strengthening the MWC was a mistake.
I know this is a joke but there are a handful of tiers of conferences, at least in my mind.
Elite tier: Big 12, ACC
Power tier: Big Ten, Big East, Pac-12, SEC (could drop the Pac-12 and SEC down to their own tier too)
Mid-power (for lack of a better term): American, Atlantic-10, Mountain West
Top mid-majors: MVC, WCC, maybe the MAC but they're a 1-bid league
There are more tiers within the mid-majors as well. This is just how I think of it now off the top of my head.
This is exactly right. The term mid-major is overused and applied to low majors that have nothing in common with the Valley, MWC, A10, WCC.
I don't often agree with Bilas, but he is exactly right when he says the best thing you could do for college basketball is to reduce DI to the top 13 leagues (151 teams). How good would the tournament be when a team like Illinois State is a 16 seed with a mid-60s RPI rather than a team in the 250s. You'd have 67 fantastic games that would up the profile of the tournament even more.
Then we wouldn't have Florida Gulf Coast or the 14 and 15 seeds now that occasionally win. One of the best parts of March!
