At noon today, the Mountain West announced the conference schedule for the 2018-2019 season. While there are some conferences where the schedule doesn’t matter too much because of the round-robin system they employ, the MW has a conference slate that influence who wins the conference, or even who gets first-round byes in the MW Conference Tournament. Last season, it is impossible to deny that they Lobos benefitted greatly from the schedule, as they didn’t have to travel to San Diego and didn’t have to face Nevada at home. While there could be a debate on how much impact it had on their final standing, but there was an impact. With the Conference at 11 teams and an 18 game schedule, each team will play eight teams twice (home and road) and two teams once (one home, one road). For conference standing’s sake, you want to have your bye games to be games that you could lose, and don’t want games taken away that you should win. Also within the schedule, there will be periods of rough patches, which we will look at where these could pop-up for each team.
As a quick note, the “Schedule Byes” listed refer to the dates where games are played throughout the conference. For example, the first set of games in the conference season on Jan 2 would be shown as a 1, the last set of games in the conference season on March 9 would be shown as a 20. Ideally, teams will want these to be spaced about 10 games apart.
Air Force:
Team Byes: at UNM, home Fresno State
Schedule Byes: 12, 17
The Rough Patch: UNM, at Utah State, at CSU, SDSU, UNLV, and at Nevada.
Air Force may find it difficult to find stable ground throughout the conference schedule. They do catch a break, as they will only have to face UNM and Fresno State once (both should be in the top half), so this means that they will play all the probable bottom half teams twice, which could give them some wins. The rough patch for Air Force is at the beginning of the conference slate. It is hard to envision the Falcons winning more than 2 of those games. I would venture to guess that Air Force will end up with 4 to 6 wins in conference play.
Boise State:
Team Byes: at Utah State, UNM
Schedule Byes: 3, 15
The Rough Patch: No prolonged series, but multiple sets of two hard games (at Wyoming, SDSU; Nevada, Fresno State; at Nevada, UNLV; at Fresno State, at SDSU; at UNLV, at UNM)
Boise State has a weird schedule this year in the conference. They really don’t have a stretch where you think a long winning streak can happen, and at the same time two, maybe three loses will be their longest losing streak. They don’t catch any huge favors with the byes, but they are in the top half of that regard for a middle of the road MW team, as both of their byes could have been potential losses. Should be an interesting year in Boise after the departure of Hutchison. I could see them winning anywhere from 8-11 games in conference play.
CSU:
Team Byes: SJSU, at SDSU
Schedule Bye: 5, 14
The Rough Patch: UNM, at Utah State, at Nevada, Fresno State, Boise State, at Air Force, and Nevada
We enter year one of the Niko Medved Era in Fort Collins. While I don’t expect CSU to make huge noise in the MW Standings this year, I think they will be a team that you don’t want to play in the 7-9 range in the standings. They have a couple of rough stretches of games, including the one that is listed. If they want to approach the 5-6 range they will need to go at least 3-4 in those 7 games. It is hard to get a feel where this CSU team will finish in terms of conference wins, I think 7 to 9 wins is reasonable to expect.
Fresno State:
Team Byes: UNLV, at Air Force
Schedule Byes: 5, 18
The Rough Patch: Nevada, at Boise, SDSU. (Also have 3 road games against UNM, Nevada, SDSU sandwiched between 2 winnable home games)
Potential Winning Streak: at SJSU, CSU, at Utah State (Host Nevada after these 3 games to start their MW Schedule)
Coach Hutson takes over at Fresno State after Coach Terry took the UTEP job in the offseason. They have one of the MW most talented players in DeShon Taylor and have a few transfers and returning players that could make things interesting in Fresno this year. Taylor can win a few games by himself if he gets hot. The key for Fresno State, if they want to finish in the Top 3, is to win at least 3 of their games against Nevada, UNM, and SDSU. They are more likely to drop road games and experience growing pains than the other 3. I would have Fresno State in the 4/5 range right now, and realistic expectations should be 10-12 wins.
Nevada:
Team Byes: Wyoming, at SJSU
Schedule Byes: 8, 13
The Rough Patch: UNM, at Wyoming, at SDSU, Fresno State
The returning Regular Season Champ and Sweet 16 team is back and is the clear favorite to win the Regular Season Title for the third straight year. With the Martin twins and Caroline back in the fold and a whole group of talented players, they should see a lot of wins on their MW Schedule. It is hard to envision them dropping games against a non-UNM, SDSU, Fresno State, and UNLV team in conference play. Depending on how they do in the road games against those 4 teams a 16-2 or 17-1 season is not out of the question, worst case would be 14-4.
New Mexico:
Team Byes: at Boise State, Air Force
Schedule Byes: 9, 16
The Rough Patch: at Fresno State, SDSU, at Nevada
After finishing 3rd in the Regular Season and Tournament Title Game, the Lobos enter year two of the Coach Weir Era with more talent in the fold. The Lobos should be viewed as the most likely team that could challenge Nevada for the Regular Season Title. While the Lobos don’t catch the huge breaks with the teams they only play once this year, they do benefit by having their byes at 9 and 16. The Lobos first bye is right before their stretch against Fresno State, SDSU, and Nevada, which could play a factor in those games. It should be a fun year in Albuquerque. Plus, the fans also win as they get all the top teams in The PIT after missing out on Nevada last year. I think it is realistic to expect 12-14 wins in Conference play.
SDSU:
Team Byes: at Wyoming, CSU
Schedule Byes: 1, 6
The Rough Patch: UNM, at Fresno State, UNLV or Nevada, at UNLV, at Utah State
After struggling for a good stretch in the conference regular season last year, SDSU rallied to earn a bye in the tournament and ended up winning it to earn the auto-bid for the NCAA Tournament. SDSU does catch the best breaks out of the probable top half teams, but in return get the worst possible schedule byes, as they have byes in dates 1 and 6. SDSU returns Jalen McDaniels, Devon Watson, and Matt Mitchell, which should allow them to make noise in year two of the Coach Dutcher Era. They will have to make adjustments without Kell, Pope, and others, but they should be in the 2-4 range at the end of the day. It is realistic to see 11-14 wins out of SDSU in conference play with 12 or 13 being the most likely outcome.
SJSU:
Team Byes: Nevada, at CSU
Schedule Byes: 2, 11
The Rough Patch: All 18 conference games.
Another year where SJSU lose their top players as transfers. It will be another rough year at SJSU, as people will look for possible wins in MW Play. It isn’t out of the question that SJSU could go 0-18 this year. They could win a game or two, but the odds are pretty high for a 0-18 record. Yikes.
UNLV:
Team Byes: Utah State, at Fresno State
Schedule Byes: 4, 19
The Rough Patch: UNM, at SDSU, Nevada, at Utah State, at Boise State, Fresno State
The most disappointing team in the conference last year, as they were in the 8-9 play-in game in the MW Tournament. UNLV is always going to be a difficult team to figure where they will slot in the MW Standings, but it is hard to see them move ahead of Nevada, New Mexico and SDSU in the standings, which would put their likely ceiling at 4. I could see UNLV finishing anywhere from 4 to 8, and any of those outcomes would not surprise me. Also, I hope they bring back their classic uniforms and court.
Utah State:
Team Byes: at UNLV, Boise State
Schedule Byes: 7, 20
The Rough Patch: UNM, at Boise State, SDSU, Nevada, at CSU
Utah State lost McEwen during the off season, but still have Sam Merrill and a new Head Coach in Craig Smith. Smith has made a point since he was hired to make The Spectrum what it is at its peak, which should make the trip to Logan more difficult this year. While I don’t expect them to challenge for the top half of the league, they could help decide the pecking order at the top, with their 3 home games against New Mexico, SDSU and Nevada in a 2 week stretch. I could see Utah State winning between 6-9 games in conference play.
Wyoming:
Team Byes: at Nevada, SDSU
Schedule Byes: 5, 10
The Rough Patch: at UNLV, at SDSU, Utah State, at UNM
Wyoming lose Dalton and Herdon, but did catch a break when Justin James decided to come back for his senior season. There could be a lot of similarities with this Wyoming team to the Reuben Douglas team in McKay’s first year. I would venture to guess that James will be the leading scorer in the conference and could be very high up on the list in the NCAA. Wyoming will have difficulties on the road, but as always could be the spoiler for the top half of the conference with the games in AA. Wyoming does catch huge breaks as they only have to play Nevada and SDSU once, which could help their Tournament Seeding. I could see Wyoming winning between 6-9 games in conference play.
Final Thought:
While there are some things to nitpick with the schedule every year, I am glad that this year we get the probable top 4 teams all playing each other twice, which is very exciting to see. MW and college basketball fans win when we get the match ups between Nevada, New Mexico, SDSU, and Fresno State twice during the regular season. The four Nevada games between New Mexico and SDSU could be the game of the night in college basketball, which could help in the quest for multiple at-large bids.