Season 40 is coming to the MWC and there were some significant coaching changes this year. MMT left the BYU to go and chase bigger dreams in the Bayou, while ewells left TCU to find more “green” in the Emerald City. Last season the MWC finished ahead of the Big East and right behind the SEC. The MWC managed to pull in equivalent amounts of post-season cash as the Big East and SEC, (in the $11k range) The Big 10, Pac 10, and Big 12 weren't even that far ahead because the ACC rounded up most of the post-season cash for themselves.There's a group of coaches who's parent's failed to teach the concept of sharing when they were kids. 

The pre-recruiting sRPI ratings have the MWC right on the heels of the SEC again and the MWC could easily finish as the 6^th conference again this year. But it’s still early and it’s hard to say how recruiting will go. Right now you can’t really say there is a “Big 6” in Phelan because it’s hard to put the Big East and SEC in the same ballpark as the ACC.

Speaking of the Big East and SEC, they are lucky enough to share recruiting grounds with the ACC. At least the ACC isn’t in our backyard. As a result, it wouldn’t be surprising for the MWC to have a better go at recruiting that either of those “Big 6” Conferences. The ACC is going to clean up all the good recruits in the Eastern half of the Country.

You’ll notice that Utah is really dropping down the standings. I guess that’s what Early Entries are supposed to do, maintain parity. We also have some newcomers to the top spots in Texas Southern and San Diego St. I'm sure fatchance will get his recruiting mojo on as a result. Because these are pre-recruiting standings, and several teams have a lot of players to bring in, expect major changes in the “Pre-Season sRPI” that will come out after recruiting has finished. Anyway, here are the “Pre-Recruiting” sRPI standings:
 

WEST

1.      TSU (238.04)

2.      TCU (231.76)

3.      New Mexico (225.41)

4.      Utah (215.07)

5.      BYU (213.73)

6.      Denver (186.28)
 

EAST

1.      SDSU (234.72)

2.      UNLV (232.5)

3.      Wyoming (225.88)

4.      CSU (225.11)

5.      N.Texas (219.54)

6.      Air Force (198.24)
 

 

Top 10 Players by sRPI.

1.      Von Zedian, Wyoming (296.01)

2.      H.Zhou, Utah (286.11)

3.      D.Brooks SDSU (280.64)

4.      M.Nice, CSU (275.57)

5.      J.Daw, SDSU (273.83)

6.      D.Manis, SDSU (272.24)

7.      J.Eastman, N.Texas (270.53)

8.      M.Costello, UNLV (265.47)

9.      C.Rivet, UNLV (265.05)

10.   P.Lubbers, CSU (264.01)
 

 

And finally a peek at the “Pre-Recruiting” sRPI for all of DI.

1.      ACC (249.5)-Miami (272.37)

2.      PAC 10 (239.1)-Stanford (275.62)

3.      Big Ten (231.43)-Michigan St. (259.91)

4.      Big East (229.35)-Syracuse (245.44)

5.      Big 12 (228.14)-Kansas (261.74)

6.      SEC (222.44)-Kentucky (234.8)

7.      MWC (220.52)-Tex.Southern (238.04)

8.      Big South (212.08)-High Point (229.47)

9.      WCC (211.72)-San Jose St. (232.01)

10.   Ohio Valley (208.56)-SE Missouri St. (232.19)

11.   Sun Belt (206.15)-Troy (238.06)

12.   CUSA (204.99)-Rice (228.17)

13.   Southern (204.15)-Furman (230.7)

14.   Horizon (203.35)-Wisconsin, GB (219.81)

15.   Mid-Eastern (203.04)-S.Carolina St. (216.98)

16.   MAC (202.49)-Kent St. (241.17)

17.   Big Sky (202.24)-Montana St. (230.98)

18.   Summit League (200.78)-Chicago St. (222.78)

19.   Colonial AA (200.54)—UNC, Wilmington (226.31)

20.   Northeast (200.43—C.Conneticut St. (221.23)

21.   Missouri Valley (199.92)-Missouri St. (218.01)

22.   Patriot League (199.49)-Lafayette (222.84)

23.   Metro-Atlantic (198.94)-Niagara (224.04)

24.   Big West (197.43)-UC, Irvine (227.1)

25.   A10 (197.4)-Rhode Island (223.63)

26.   Southland (195.65)-SE Louisiana St. (232.16)

27.   Ivy (192.40)-Bucknell (217.4)

once again Shqipta

Now that recruiting has finished, it’s time for the OFFICIAL MWC Conference Preview.

The MWC took a step back this year as several teams failed to sign the players they needed. The MWC was Ranked 17^th in the CollegiateInsider’s rankings, and that was even with Utah having the #11^th ranked class. The losses of mmt and ewells on the coaching front really hurt us. Hopefully we can land some new coaches next season as there are 4 teams that could really use the help.

Between the late night parties, hot tub socials, yacht trips, and everything else that this year’s recruiting season required, Utah’s coach is pretty worn out. There is a fine line between genius and madness, and shqipta’s psychiatrist is certain that it is the latter and not the former in his case, but he did get results this year. The Ute’s recruiting risks paid off big time as Utah managed to pull in the #1 Ranked SG-F.Robinson, in addition to a deep and high quality class. Local boy N.Lile committed to play at Utah, which was his favorite school growing up, but he was too dumb to stay around and play, instead choosing to play JUCO ball in Illinois. All in all the Ute’s recruiting season was not too shabby considering shqipta gave M.Duncan the boot part way through. The dude was a model citizen while sitting out as a redshirt last season, but knowing shqipta’s background, that may have been exactly why he was let go. With the money for 5 scholarships, Utah managed to sign 6 players that may have been a Top 5 class in the country if Lile would have stuck around.  

Wyoming brought in some good talent again as well, as B.Pratt, a burly Canadan from Canadia looks to contribute right away.  CSU brought in a guy called Ratko “Oil Company/Darth” Zader from the Ukraine. If he learns English fast enough look for him to be anchoring the Rams offense. He’ll have to sit his first season as he works on his ehd’jew’keah’shun.  The Laramie Boomerang received a report from an anonymous source that seventhwest said to Darth Zader when he arrived off the plane: “Use this season to learn our language and impregnate our women.” The report continued to say that Zader was extremely excited, until he saw the Wyoming cheerleaders. Apparently he tried to get back on the plane, but seventhwest was prepared and locked him in a dark shed overnight. Whether that story is true or not, the inelligible Zader will be with Colorado St. next season.  UNLV brought in S.Crosby from Tacoma, Washington to provide, athleticism, defense and low post scoring from the SF spot. SDSU brought in talented Dragan “the Dragon” Sroczynski from the Polish Junior National Team , where he threw down 26.3 PPG. He’s a terrible inside shooter, but he managed to hit 58% from 3 point land and 74.2% from the free throw line. The way he avoids fighting for rebounds and inside position made me wonder he was actually French, but his hair style confirms him as Polish. A news report quoted SDSU’s coach as saying: “i reckon i signed the best class with no top 100 players at their position.”

Apparently, tmp741128 got tired of being paid entirely with hot dogs, as he spent the entire recruiting period flying around the globe doing scouting trips. Normally head coaches just send their assistant coaches to do scouting trips, but tmp741128 convinced North Texas’s Athletic Director that new scouting coach “Candy “ needed supervision in her first season after moving from Las Vegas to Alburquerque. Tmp and “Candy” were seen in Milan, Benedetto, Rome, and Palermo while on an extended Italian tour. Later they were spotted in Canada, Mexico, South Korea, and Russia. Oddly enough for all of the globetrotting, the Mean Green only signed one international player. Maybe they just didn’t actually see any quality players.

Trobone came close to getting some kids to sign but a paperwork screw-up in administration meant they signed elsewhere. Trobone  was rightfully upset with his AD, but luckily he still has a deep team returning and he will get by without having any scholarship Freshmen this year. Chip1213 brought a Canadan to New Mexico to go along with M.Duncan who was too well behaved to make it on Utah’s team.  Seventhwest is going to have an interesting dilemma next season when he’s only got 2 scholarship players on the team. At least he’ll have a lot of money and be able to promise starts and playing time to whatever recruits he wants to look at.  

Here are the top 10 rated recruits:

1.      F.Robinson, Utah 280.67

N.Lile, Utah (INEL) 263.03 (lil’ bugger went JUCO)

2.      R.Zader,(INEL) CSU 259.26

3.      B.Pratt, Wyo 256.66

4.      E.Rainey, Utah 225.97

5.      S.Crosby, UNLV 224.92

6.      D.Sroczynski, SDSU 224.66

7.      L.Houck, Utah 220.54

8.      J.Grothe, Utah 219.7

9.      S.Rene, CSU 219.27

10.   P.Kovalcheck, Wyo. 209.45

 

 

MWC sRPI Rankings (Definitely some changes from the Pre-Recruiting sRPI) For both East and West the numbers are somewhat skewed because of the large number of walk-ons. For example, Utah would have been a 239 if Lile had shown up (even though he wasn’t going to play anyway, but with the walkon they are only 229). Essentially the East is a tie for 1-4 as less than 2 sRPI points separate them. While TCU is the highest, they almost certainly won’t finish first in the East because of their incompetent interim coach Simm Poleton. UNLV is favored to win the west, and the highest rated in the conference, we’ll see if he can coach UNLV to the NT, as it looks like the MWC might only be sending one team to the NT, but has 6 teams that could be headed to the PI. It will be interesting to see who overcomes their lack of talent or lack of depth to be the front runner in the conference. This is definitely the most wide open the conference has been in the past four seasons.   

 

East (Team/sRPI/Overall Rank)

1.      TCU (231.24) #65

2.      New Mexico (230.72) #67

3.      Utah (229.9) #69

4.      TSU (229.43) #73

5.      BYU (220.77) #116

6.      Denver (200.64) #283

 

West

1.      UNLV (237.13) #45

2.      SDSU (234.22) #51

3.      Wyoming (230.93) #66

4.      N.Texas (218.63) #127

5.      CSU (213.38) #159

6.      Air Force (202.55) #263

 

 

 

ship, care to comment on SDSU vs New Mexico? present and future? what does the sRPI think?! look into your crystal ball, if you would.

I think I did comment on SDSU v. New Mexico present, just compare their sRPI's. I don't predict the future because that would require me to be way smarter than I actually am. Besides I traded my crystal ball in for some magic beans, but so far it's just made me gassy. I guess it wasn't such a good trade.

thumbs up