The Mountain West Conference and the Missouri Valley Conference announced an agreement that will pit the two mid-major conferences against each other starting next year. The agreement is similar to the annual ACC-Big Ten Challenge and the Pac-10/Big XII agreement. Both the Mountain West and Missouri Valley conferences are among the higher RPI conferences.The Mountain West has sought to increase its tournament resume in recent years, looking to gain more NCAA tournament bids. San Diego State and Air Force are two of the conference teams that had decent resumes for the tournament last year, but were denied. The Missouri Valley Conference, on the other hand, has been a media darling in recent years, and the mid-major conference typically receiving multiple bids.
Hopefully the NCAA selection committee will keep this effort in mind when they are handing out tournament bids. Mountain West Conference teams are at a disadvantage scheduling wise because it's hard to get games with the bigger conferences. So instead, mid-major programs are forced to knock each other off. Kind of like they do in the Bracket Buster challenge.
Mid-major programs and conferences that seek to raise its RPI should be rewarded. Maybe instead of taking seemingly every member of the Big East Conference to the tournament, an extra Mountain West or Valley member can get into the mix. They have earned that right.
And maybe some of the other mid-majors struggling for respect such as the WAC, WCC and Big West can take note of this and try to hammer out their own agreements.
