As promised, here is a link to my Air Force-Wyoming game story and a link to the notebook written by Lindsey Korsick.
For the view from the other side, the Casper Star-Tribune’s game story is here.
Also, here’s a report from Utah’s overtime victory over BYU from the Salt Lake Tribune. I don’t believe, as some do, that this is the best the Mountain West Conference ever has been. But I do think there’s parity like never before, and we might be in for a heck of a league race and conference tournament.
Jake,
I’m not arguing your parity point, but when do you think the conference was stronger?
My follow-up question is how many MWC teams do you see in the big dance this year or is it too early?
Stats –
First of all, let me say that only in incredibly obvious situations do I think one can say with certainty that a league is “the best it’s ever been.” This year definitely has an argument. But is the league really obviously better than 06-07 when (again, arguably) AF’s most talented team finished tied for third in the league; BYU and UNLV went to the tournament and finished the season ranked in at least one of the two polls; and four teams had between 22 and 30 wins? Or how about 03-04 when three teams made the NCAA Tournament and Danny Granger, Andrew Bogut and Rafael Araujo played in the league?
It probably gets back to how you rank the strength of a league. Those years there were probably more “great” teams (but also some poor teams), where this year there are lots of “really good teams” but maybe no great team. Does that make any sense?
Anyway, that kind of leads into your question about the NCAA. Right now, I think the league is beating itself up pretty good. I think I see it as a two-bid league unless one or two teams make clear cases and then a third off-the-radar team wins the MWC Tournament. But we’ll see. No teams are ranked in the Top 25 right now.