Season 36 is in the books and it’s time for a look back at the MWC’s season. The MWC sent two teams to the Big Dance and three to the little Dance. Unfortunately, four of the teams failed to make it past the first round. UNLV’s Athletic Director told me that they will be looking for a hot young dance instructor before next season to see if they can’t get their team to perform better at the big dance. Being in Vegas, they should have no problem finding a well qualified (and well endowed) instructor. Up here in Utah, we’re just looking for someone to do a makeover so that we can get invited.

Texas Southern, Denver, SDSU, and N.Texas all fired their interim coaches and will be in the market for someone to take over. If you are a coach looking to apply at one of these open positions here is the potential salary at each school: SDSU-$620,000; Denver -$475,000; Texas Southern-$225,000; and N.Texas-$85.00, (payable in hot dogs and homemade relish)…If only I didn’t have a long term contract at Utah… I forgot to mention, I went to Aspen, Colorado on vacation the other day and while I was soaking in the hot tub, I ran into a guy whose hairy back and bad breath gave him away as an Air Force booster. Anyway, he was complaining. I had to flee so he didn’t see my University of Utah tattoo which covers up my old Colorado St. tattoo, but I think they’re ready to see some improvement in Colorado Springs.

Season 36 was marked by a surprising amount of parity in the teams, the top 7 were all pretty close RPI wise, with Wyoming standing out by going 15-1 in conference before flaming out in the Conference Tournament. The bottom 5 were also pretty close. The parity of the teams probably hurt more than it helped as Utah and TCU barely missed the PI, and New Mexico barely missed the NT. It would have been nice if the MWC could have landed a few higher seeds, but instead most of our teams were the lower seed going into the postseason games.   

(1)    New Mexico 21-11* (53) (Final Four of PI)

(2)    BYU 17-13 (83) (1^st Round of PI)

(3)    Utah 16-11 (97)

(4)    TCU 18-11 (105)

(5)    Texas Southern 14-13 (166)

(6)    Denver  6-21 (251)

(1)    Wyoming 21-7 (44) (1^st Round of NT)

(2)    UNLV 20-10 (64) (1^st Round of NT)

(3)    CSU 18-13 (88) (1^st Round of PI)

(4)    SDSU 14-14 (214)

(5)    Air Force 5-22 (281)

(6)    N.Texas 3-24 (296)

At the start of the season I predicted that New Mexico, UNLV, and Wyoming would make the NT and I was right on 2 out of 3, with New Mexico barely missing out. I predicted Utah and CSU would make the PI. CSU met expectations, while Utah did not. BYU also exceeded my expectations by making the PI.

Utah-R.Oliver-He performed as well as advertised winning freshman of the year with 14.6 ppg, 6.3 rpg, and 1.3 bpg. Very well might be the best big in the MWC next season.

BYU-D.McMorrow-Made first team all-conference with 15.8 ppg, 4.5 rpg and a truckload of leadership.

Denver-E.Nichols-Scored 11.8 ppg. He’s got a lot of skill that could be utilized by a good coach. He’ll be Denver’s leader next year as well.

TCU-D.Swigart/E.Schwartz-Neither player really contributed for TCU like I thought they would. Instead, TCU was lead by super-sophomores C.Sharp and C.Long.

Texas Southern-T.Francis-The senior played the sixth man role for Texas Southern and contributed 7.9 ppg with 2.7 apg.

New Mexico-A.Moore-Moore made the MWC 2^nd team and contributed a stellar 16.8 ppg, leading the MWC in scoring.

N.Texas-I thought it might get ugly down in Denton, and it did. P.McNary led the team in scoring 10.9 shooting a paltry .375 from the field. At least the team was able to pad it’s rebounding stats.

Wyoming-Bell/Jackson/Wood. As expected Wyoming’s backcourt gave other teams fits, with each of the three mentioned here scoring over 10 ppg and accounting for a combined 8.5 apg. Too bad they couldn’t take Wyoming further. Bell was also named MWC’s defensive player of the year.

UNLV-Gates /Holland/Rogers. Gates was named the MWC player of the year as he dominated the paint all season long. Holland paired up well with Gates, and Rogers came off the bench. The rest of the MWC will be glad to see those three move on. Gates very likely will be playing somewhere next season in the NBA.

Air Force-S. Eppler. Eppler put in 14.4 ppg, but it just wasn’t enough to overcome the lack of experience on the Falcon squad.

SDSU-A.Meyers. Meyers put in 10.7 ppg on .553 shooting, with 7.9 rpg.

CSU-J.Penwell/H.Cowgill. Penwell and Cowgill combined for 32 ppg, leading CSU into the postseason for the second straight year. Cowgill leaves as CSU’s all time leading scorer.