The MWC-Season 37 Topic

shqipta
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Season 37 is about to begin so it’s time to take a look at the teams in the MWC. The Athletic Directors at Texas Southern, N. Texas and SDSU finally earned their paychecks this season by picking up some quality coaches. All three new coaches are going to have their work cut out for them this season, as they are all going to have to work through complete overhauls of their respective programs. After recruiting is finished I’ll give out the pre-season power rankings and players to watch for.  
Preview:

Utah: Utah returns 10 players from last season, including He-ping Zhou an extremely athletic player from Korea who sat out last year with academic issues. Sophomore R.Oliver is quickly becoming one of the top players in the MWC. With his talent, there’s no question some NBA coaches are beginning to become interested. Utah will only have 1 senior, but has a solid junior and sophomore class. It might be tough for any freshman coming in to play a big role. Biggest Need:  Perimeter defense.

New Mexico: New Mexico needs to replace all five starters from last season’s PI Final Four team. In chip’s four years at the program he’s brought much needed respectability and consistency to the program, and the Lobos are starting to attract the attention of recruits across the nation. In fact, New Mexico only had one player from New Mexico last season. The Lobos have to show that last season’s PI run wasn’t just a fluke. It’s been twenty years since New Mexico last got invited to the big dance, and it will be a very tall order for chip to take a bunch of youngsters into the post-season. If he can do it he’ll likely earn coach of the year from me. Biggest need: Perimeter Scoring.

BYU: Like Utah, BYU returns 10 players from last season, unfortunately the two they lost, were 1 and 2 on the team in minutes played. BYU does have a couple of skilled seniors to go with a monster sophomore class, so there are some definite possibilities. BYU has been in the post-season for three years in a row now. Will mmt restore what BYU fans believe is BYU’s divine position as THE elite school of the MWC? Biggest Need: Someone to replace McMorrow’s defensive tenacity.

TCU: TCU loses two starters, but returns its top three scorers from last season, as well as a number of good players off of last seasons bench. C.Sharp is a scoring machine and looks to only get better in his junior year. TCU looks to have very solid guard play this year, but with three bigs graduating, TCU is now very thin inside. On the bright-side TCU’s players seem to have some stellar GPAs, so even if those guys don’t make it in basketball, at least they’ll be prepared for the real world, and that’s what college sports is all about, right? Biggest Need: Interior defense.

Texas Southern: The new coach has six scholarships this year and six more next year, with five of the six juniors lacking in DI level skills. Translation: It’s gonna be ugly in Houston for a while before it gets better. On the bright side, Texas Southern’s Athletic Director has committed a ton of funding for trombone to use in filling those scholarships. The one bright spot on the team is Santos Leon. He’s a hard working bruiser who can play with the best in the MWC down low, he lacks versatility, but as a center he’s top notch. Luckily for trombone, expectations are pretty low for Texas Southern, they haven’t been to the Big Dance in 26 years and the crowds at their ball games have been mediocre at best. Trobone’s a young coach, but he’s show the ability to find good talent and coach it well at DII, we’ll have to see how that translates to DI, but I think he can do it. Biggest Need: Everything.

Denver: It seems like Denver has been running on auto-pilot since psuarva left and the Athletic Director chose to replace him with an interim coach. Denver should be much improved from last season as they return all 12 players. Paul Olsen and Ezra Nichols would be two of the best players in the MWC, if only they had a quality coach to lead them. Unfortunately, it appears that the string of low quality interim coaches has affected their ability to effect the court. Biggest Need: Not Applicable. 

Wyoming:  fatchance has been building Wyoming into one of the premier programs in the MWC for six seasons now. Last season was a big disappointment however, as Wyoming failed to make it out of the first round of the National Tournament. Now fatchance is facing a bit of a rebuilding year as he has to replace 4 starters, which happened to be his 4 leading scorers. On the bright side, fatchance can build his team around D.Palacio, who is quickly becoming one of the MWC’s top big men, and he’s versatile enough to play multiple positions depending on what fatchance needs. Biggest Need: Interior Depth

UNLV: UNLV returns only one starter from last years NT team, and also loses 6th man big guy J.Rogers. The outgoing seniors accounted for nearly 80% of UNLV’s scoring last season and 75% of UNLV’s rebounding. Like Wyoming and New Mexico it looks like UNLV will be rebuilding after last year’s post-season invite. The real question is-how does mpate manage to stay out of the casinos? I know I couldn’t do it if I lived in Vegas. Biggest Need: Interior scoring.

Colorado St.: Colorado St. returns only one starter as well from last year’s PI team, although seventhwest does have a couple of sophomores who started a few games and played big roles last season. With no seniors this season, but a lot of young talent, it looks like CSU might be one year away from becoming a dominant team. Seventhwest’s charismatic coaching style is really helping the fans of Fort Collins forget my little stint as the coach of CSU, hopefully the threatening emails and text messages will start to die down soon. Biggest Need: Interior Depth.
 
N.Texas: Tmp741128 must have really been tempted by the hot dogs and relish that they give to the coaches down in Denton, because there can't really be any other legitimate reason to jump into this mess. The Mean Green roster has only one DI player on it, and he's not even that good. If tmp can pull 10 (maybe even 5) wins out of this team, he'll easily win my vote for conference coach of the year. The good news is that just the other day I was checking out some online pictures of N.Texas cheerleaders and those girls really have potential. Biggest Need: More hot dogs.
 
San Diego St.: SDSU’s athletic director told me he was going to pull out all the stops to try to land an experienced coach who had shown the ability to take a program to the NT on a consistent basis. SDSU’s coach delivered in a big way bringing wedcrasher into the conference. He’s coached in the National Tournament 10 times, including the last three with Illinois-Chicago. Wedcrasher’s got his work cut out for him as he’s got to overhaul much of the team, and do it with USC and UCLA as neighbors. There will be a few talented pieces to work with, but it will take a lot to mold this group into a team capable of competing. Luckily for wedcrasher, San Deigo St. built up a decent enough brand name that he won’t have as much trouble as the other new coaches getting quality recruits to take a look at the campus. Plus he’s got the beaches and tons of hot chicks in bikini’s to help land some quality talent. Biggest Need: Athleticism
 

Air Force: Air Force loses an important player in S. Eppler, but the rest of the youngsters grow up a season, to hopefully make Air Force much better as a team overall. After some initial brightness in pnedwek’s first season, the Falcons have taken two steps back. This is going to be an important year for Air Force as they try to raise their prestige and convince some fans to come back to the games. There probably isn’t an easier place to play a road game in the MWC right now, the fans are just not
5/10/2011 12:27 PM (edited)
trobone
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very nice - good to know my expectations are that low. this is going to be tough to get this team working before i get fired
5/11/2011 2:18 AM
espn1213
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New Mexico will have a hard time filling the role of the 5 starters we lost.  I got some good recruits and will be back in a few seasons. 
5/14/2011 2:15 PM
shqipta
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With an infusion of new coaches and talent, the MWC will continue to contend and looks to send 3-6 teams to the National Tournament this season. This year is going to be tough to predict as BYU, Utah, and Colorado St. all have very young teams, and Texas Southern, N.Texas, and San Diego St. are all trying to overcome the problems inherent with a team that lacked a quality coach. I’m maybe looking ahead too much, but I see seasons 38-39 as a time when the MWC will truly make college basketball the Big Seven. Now if Denver’s Athletic Director could get off his a** and find a coach, we’d be set.

This year in recruiting the MWC came in 7th, but right on the tails of the Big East and the SEC. Colorado St.’s class was the most impressive overall, earning a 19th ranking right behind their Big 12 neighbor Colorado. Wyoming’s coach spent several weeks drinking kvas and vodka in Siberia to get a guy known as the “Siberian Devil” to play in Laramie. Apparently V. Zedian likes the concept of living in a cold-barren wasteland, and I’m sure that was a major selling point for fatchance on the recruiting trail.

There were several big recruiting battles in conference, including the annual BYU v. Utah recruiting battle, which was narrowly won this year by Utah. Despite losing out on P.Bell, BYU still managed to pull in Gary Kinlaw, a quality big from shqipta’s backyard. Mpate10 either managed to leave the casinos long enough to recruit, or at least got several guys into the “Player’s Club” at the Bellagio, as he was able to bring several quality recruits to Las Vegas. Wedcrasher came into the conference with his guns unholstered and ready for a fight. He got one against New Mexico. Unfortunately for SDSU, lawman chip1213 had both barrels blazing and B.Pate left California for Albuquerque. Wedcrasher didn’t leave empty handed, he still managed to bring in several quality pieces from all over the country. Chip also landed impressive guard S.Graves from the heart of Texas.

Texas Southern’s new coach brought in a huge class of 8 players, many of which will likely spend a lot of time on the floor this season. While none of trobone’s players will dominate this year, they will form a solid base for Texas Southern to build upon. Ewells pulled in three top quality recruits, including G.Propes from Tennessee, who looks like he could be challenging for defensive player of the year by next season. No one will dispute that tmp741128 had the hardest job this recruiting season, and while the “Mean Green” will have three walk-ons this year, at least the support for Texas Legislative Bill 303-“Change N.Texas Mascot to ‘Unpleasant Green’” has died down, and rumor is that it might not even make the ballot anymore.

CONFERENCE POWER RATINGS:

East
(1)    Utah (620)
(2)    TCU (600)
(3)    BYU (600)
(4)    New Mexico (599)
(5)    Denver (579)
(6)    T.S.U. (575)

West
(1)    Wyoming (620)
(2)    CSU (617)
(3)    UNLV (590)
(4)    SDSU (581)
(5)    AF (575)
(6)    N.Tex (566)

POTENTIAL PLAYER OF THE YEAR (In no particular order)
(1)    Santos Leon-Texas Southern. Could see 20+ppg, and 10+rpg, even with constant double teams.
(2)    R.Oliver-Utah. Could also see 20+ppg and 10+rpg, difference between Oliver and Leon is the depth around R.Oliver, it may be hard for him to get enough touches.
(3)    C.Ewing-Utah. Prototypical Point Guard who always makes those around him better.
(4)    J.Nees-BYU. Very talented guard, if BYU makes the NT, it will be because of Nees.
(5)    E.Nichols-Denver
(6)    B.Hardin-TCU-Great guard in the crowded TCU backcourt.
(7)    R.Aybar-New Mexico-Dominating big, anchor’s New Mexico’s young bunch.
(8)    D.Palacio-Wyoming-All Around Leader.
(9)    D.Hash-CSU-Showed a lot of promise last year, now he’s one of the veterans on a young team.

FRESHMEN TO WATCH
(1)    V.Zedian-Wyoming-The Siberian Devil, might be one of the top defenders in the conference this year.
(2)    S.Scroggins-UNLV-Will be fun to see his offensive skills matched up against Zedian.
(3)    M.Nice-CSU-Like Zedian, he’s a defensive force. Will be interesting to see if he can stand out among all of CSU’s other quality freshmen.
(4)    G.Propes-TCU-Another defensive force. I see a trend among the top coaches in the MWC. Athletic guards who know how to play defense.
(5)    J.Contreras-BYU-After a redshirt season, and a 2 year mormon mission, BYU is finally ready to unleash the Puerto Rican devil, Julio Contreras. I wonder though if it is a violation of the BYU honor code to have a “666” rating at BYU?
(6)    P.Bell-Utah. In the pre-season practices I’ve been to, I haven’t seen anyone work harder than P.Bell. He’s always the first one there and the last to leave, usually by several hours. Rumor has it that the new car he’s been driving around campus also came with a promised start. Guess we’ll see.
5/16/2011 2:34 PM (edited)
wedcrasher
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cool writeup, break up that wall of text into paragraphs 
5/16/2011 2:29 PM
chip1213
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Sounds about right for New Mexico.  We may be another year or two away from contending again.
5/16/2011 2:37 PM
ewells54
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Nice job!
5/16/2011 5:11 PM
seventhwest
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My freshman to watch is an academic non qualifier, Is it possible to dominate study hall?
5/16/2011 9:35 PM
shqipta
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seventhwest- I put him as a freshman to watch more because I expect him to be in the news for criminal activity.
5/16/2011 10:06 PM
trobone
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I simply have freshmen to watch because out of 200 minutes a game i best freshmen get135 of them... they might all suck while doing it, but they'll be out there trying to put up numbers.

I'm just happy i got one to RS, meaning it'll be that much easier to balance the classes, next year the goal is 4 freshmen, one to RS and 1 ineligible.
5/17/2011 3:04 AM
tmp741128
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i'm with you, trobone.  all three true freshman (not redshirts and walkons) i have this season will start and play most of the game, and if you think your guys are going to suck, you should watch mine.  my freshman pg couldn't hit the broad side of a barn with the way he was shooting in that first exhibition game.     
5/17/2011 9:58 AM
shqipta
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at the end of non-conference games, I'll put up a revised edition that will be more stats based than ratings based and I would guess both of you guys will have some freshmen on that list.
5/17/2011 10:09 AM
shqipta
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Conference Power Rankings After Non-Conference Games (Based on RPI), number in parenthesis denotes change from pre-season power rankings.
 
East
 
(1)    BYU (+2)
(2)    Texas Southern (+5)
(3)    Denver (+2)
(4)    TCU (-2)
(5)    New Mexico (-1)
(6)    Utah (-6)
 
West
(1)    Wyoming (0)
(2)    CSU (0)
(3)    SDSU (+1)
(4)    UNLV (-1)
(5)    Air Force (0)
(6)    N.Texas (0)
 
Preseason predictions were pretty close for the West, but I don’t know what I was drinking when I put together the East predictions. Biggest surprise so far is clearly Texas Southern, with BYU also impressing. Biggest disappointment is Utah.

Top Players In Non-Conference

(1)    D.Palacio, Wyoming. 16.3 Ppg, 7.8 rpg, 1.2 bpg, 1.2 spg.
(2)    D.Hash, CSU 15.0 ppg, 7.8 rpg, 1.6 bpg, 58.6% fg
(3)    S.Leon, Tex.Southern. 11.4 ppg, 8.0 rpg, 1.2 bpg.

Top Freshman In Non-Conference

(1)    G.Bates, N.Texas. 11.2 ppg, 5.0 rpg, 1.1 bpg, 54.9% fg
(2)    J.Contreras, BYU. 9.3 ppg, 5.9 rpg, 1.3 bpg, 51.6% fg
(3)    J.Eastman, N.Texas 30.2 min, 10.4 ppg, 3.1 apg
5/23/2011 11:35 PM
trobone
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thanks for the +.... but my SOS was the reason i was winning, but my talent or coaching.
5/24/2011 9:25 AM
shqipta
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trobone-you moved up based on your stellar RPI.
5/24/2011 11:49 AM
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