The next MWC tournament

The format of the next Mountain West Conference tournament is still to be determined but Eric Angevine has details of the formats being considered.

Andy Katz offers more:

The Mountain West Conference met last week in Phoenix to go over an 18-game schedule for next season with an 11-team league they weren't expecting to originally have a year ago. Boise State and San Diego State returned to the league, or rather never left, instead of going to the Big East. The league was already planning on adding Utah State and San Jose State. And with the league coming off a record percentage of five out of nine teams making the NCAA tournament field, the conference had to take advantage of the momentum. The San Diego Union-Tribune first put out what will be the new scheduling format for this league -- ensuring the top teams play each other twice in an unbalanced schedule. This is what the Big East did for years to satisfy television partners CBS and ESPN. And with the same television partners, that's exactly what is going to happen in the MWC, too. The Tribune reported the vote was 8-3 by the coaches to do a random schedule. But the athletic directors overruled the coaches and with good reason. The networks want/need the top teams to play twice. That means you're almost guaranteed to see San Diego State, UNLV and New Mexico playing twice so that CBS, which picks first, and ESPN each get one of the matchups. While this means lesser-profile teams in the league, like Utah State, may not have as hard of a schedule, the aforementioned teams will ultimately have a stronger power rating. Schools will play eight teams twice and two teams once. The MWC had the perfect model with a nine-team, 16-game round-robin schedule. A 10-team, 18-game round-robin is even more perfect like the Big 12. But an 11-team, 18-game schedule where the projected top teams play twice for television is the best scenario for a league that wants to continue to be relevant.