MW ANNOUNCES HOOP SCHEDULE
Aztecs will open at home against Lobos, finish it with Nevada
Four months later than usual, the Mountain West released a men’s basketball schedule of conference games that may or may not actually be played.
The conference stuck with an 18-game schedule (it plans to expand to 20 next season) but with no accommodation for postponements from positive COVID-19 tests, as some other leagues have.
Because the Mountain West has 11 members for basketball, each school has two byes during the regular season. But those byes don’t match up with anyone else, leaving little chance for make-up dates before the conference tournament March 10-13 at UNLV’s Thomas & Mack Center.
The Mountain West noted that the schedule released Friday morning is just a framework, with “significant” changes in dates likely as television partners CBS and Fox select which games they will air. They are currently slotted for Tuesdays and Saturdays (in the past it was Wednesday-Saturday), but Commissioner Craig Thompson has said the new TV deal allows games every day except Thursday instead of the previous four days per week.
In other words, games on a Tuesday-Saturday schedule can be moved forward or back one day.
The conference also emphasized that all games are “subject to approval from state, county and local officials,” given the array of coronavirus restrictions that range from Wyoming (wide open) to California and New Mexico (largely closed). Some states will allow spectators, some will not.
SDSU has not announced a nonconference schedule. Here are some key takeaways from its tentative conference slate:
The Aztecs open Dec. 29 against New Mexico at Viejas Arena, then head to UNLV on Jan. 2.
For the third straight season, their finale is at Nevada.
The two games they miss in the unbalanced schedule are at Colorado State and home against Wyoming.
• Their byes are Jan. 30 and March 2, giving them extra prep for road games at New Mexico and at Nevada.
The games against Boise State, the most likely
challenger to a defense of their Mountain West title, are Jan. 5 at home and Feb. 23 away.
They play back-to-back road games three times: Wyoming (Jan. 12) and Utah State (Jan. 16); Air Force (Jan. 26) and New Mexico (Feb. 2); and Fresno State (Feb. 20) and Boise State (Feb. 23).