Update: MW Board of Directors vote to keep all 11 teams in basketball tournament

 

Developing: 10 days ago, thanks to some brilliant reporting done by Tracy Ringolsby, we brought you a report saying the Presidents of Mountain West schools voted unanimously to shrink their annual men’s and women’s basketball tournament down from the total of 11 teams to only eight teams.

Update, 12:55 p.m. MT: As expected, the Mountain West Conference has decided to include all 11 teams, on both the women’s and men’s sides, in their future basketball tournaments.

The statement from the conference:

“As part of its annual meeting held today in conjunction with the Conference basketball tournaments, the Mountain West Board of Directors committed to a traditional format for the MW Basketball Championships which includes all Conference teams.  This course of action ensures the best possible decisions for the Conference as a whole, its individual member institutions, the student-athletes and their many fans across the Western United States.”

Back to the votes in December by school presidents which said the Tournament would only include the top eight teams starting in 2017.

First and foremost, Nevada was the only school, according to Chris Murray of the Reno-Gazette Journal, who has been named to vote against the decision originally.

Been reported MW presidents unanimously voted to cut league tournament to 8 teams. Not true. Nevada voted against: https://t.co/VUivWNmH2T

— Chris Murray (@ByChrisMurray) March 10, 2016

And, possibly thanks to Ringolsby shining light on the situation, those Presidents are expected to vote today to reexamine their exclusion of three teams from the tournament, according to Geoff Grammar of the Albuquerque Journal.

In May, the conference’s coaches voted to unanimously keep the annual basketball tournament at 11 teams. At the time, the conference was thinking of making a move from the Thomas & Mack Center to the MGM Grand Arena. The move was brought to the table because the Thomas & Mack is the home of the UNLV Runnin’ Rebels, and some fear it gives them a homecourt advantage on what’s supposed to be a neutral court. (The court itself is changed to a sweet, graphic style one with mountains across its length, but playing there still may help UNLV, even subconsciously.)

But, a move to the MGM Grand would have meant eliminating three teams, and keeping only the top eight, every year.

Coaches shot it down 11-0, according to San Diego State Aztecs head coach Steve Ficher, who said so in emails dug up by Ringolsby with the help of two lawyers.

“Hopefully you remember the discussion we had in May at the Arizona Biltmore where we unanimously voted for all the teams to participate in the tournament,’’ San Diego State head coach Steve Fisher wrote to his comrades.

“Commissioner Craig Thompson asked point blank if we could reduce field to eight to get us into the MGM Garden Arena,’’ wrote Fisher. “I said emphatically no, that no one was in favor of that. In that room at the time were Dave Rice, the UNLV head coach at the time; Air Force’s Dave Pilipovich; myself; and Commissioner Thompson along with the AD at Nevada, the Assistant AD at Wyoming and either the assistant or the AD from Vegas.”

But, then in December, the Mountain West presidents blindsided coaches, saying they were moving forward with the eight-team format while still staying at the Thomas & Mack.

That led to Wyoming Cowboys head coach Larry Shyatt speaking out and then getting publicly reprimanded.

“I’m very disappointed, but it is what it is,” Shyatt said. “We knew months ago, even though there is a so-called search, we knew it was all about money. We knew many, many months ago it was going to end up back at Thomas & Mack. We, simply put, do not have the money to do certain things.”

Then, through Ringolsby’s great work, we got to see how the coaches reacted in a string of emails to one another.

“I found out about the decision after the fact,” wrote Nevada coach Eric Musselman. “Was never consulted. This is a travesty for the student athlete, fans and coaches!!!”

“I never knew about it until I read about it,’’ then UNLV head coach Dave Rice wrote. “A colossal waste of time for us to go to meeting in May, debate and vote on things and have it not matter the least. I feel like we should not go to the meetings this spring. We could do our stuff on a video conference.”

Coaches clearly felt like the presidents went behind their back to make this decision, one which would hurt three programs annually, excluding them from the chance to enjoy a Cinderella run through the MW Tournament and into the Big Dance.

San Jose State coach Dave Wojcik said, “This make(s) our league look very bad and definitely not a top tier league. Also, where is the wealth of the student athletes as they are always talking about. This is not a good decision overall.”

We have to agree with the coaches. It was a terrible decision, though, it seems to be getting reversed later today.

We know now that vote wasn’t unanimous thanks to Murray’s reporting, as at least Nevada voted against the shrinking of the tournament. And the rest of the school’s presidents will vote again on the subject, though that doesn’t guarantee it will, in fact, be reversed. So, wait and see on that.

Per Grammer’s piece:

“The change of heart, should it be made official Friday, seems to be twofold: The fact that the league’s coaches were not on board with the decision, as some presidents believed they were at the time of their vote, and the realization that the logistics of such a move would prove to be extremely burdensome to fan bases, travel, existing hotel contracts in Las Vegas and other matters.”

Clearly, everything was not thought through when the presidents decided to eliminate three teams per year, likely including the story of their coaches being upset going public. Now, they need to put out fires — like a public perception that their coaches and presidents are clearly not on the same page — to bring back normalcy during that very tournament.

Later today, the women’s final takes place with Colorado State facing Fresno State at 1 p.m. MT before the semifinals of the men’s side has San Diego State and Nevada playing at 7 p.m. and then Colorado State faces Fresno State at 9:30 p.m. Interestingly, none of the lower three seeds have made it this far this, but that doesn’t mean they couldn’t in the future.