Mountain West ADs vote for 20-game basketball schedule
The Mountain West athletic directors voted 7-4 to institute a 20-game men’s and women’s basketball schedule beginning in two years, a league source said Monday.
The source did not say which schools voted against the measure, confirming only that UNLV was one of them. UNR, San Diego State and Air Force were the other three schools, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune.
A UNLV spokesman declined to comment.
Though the measure was passed, the conference Board of Directors that is made up of the presidents must pass the measure when it meets in June.
Even if the measure were to pass, the new schedule would not take effect until the 2022-23 season because of the Mountain West-Atlantic 10 Challenge that will take place over the next two years. That challenge could be renewed for an additional two years, which would complicate whether the conference would then go to a schedule in which all 11 teams play each other twice.
UNLV and San Diego State, which typically play the most difficult nonconference schedules to bolster their NCAA Tournament resumes, have been the staunchest opponents of a 20-game schedule.
Rebels athletic director Desiree Reed-Francois said before last season that “18 games maximizes a basketball program’s scheduling freedom, and until we study it further, it likely best positions the highest number of Mountain West conference teams in the postseason.”
Contact reporter Mark Anderson at manderson@reviewjournal.com. Follow @markanderson65 on Twitter.
