The Pac-12 Conference, the Mountain West Conference, and the West Coast Conference are some of the top college basketball conferences in America, especially in the western United States. The other two are the WAC and the Big Sky. Here at UVU we’re in the WAC conference, where we play solid competition such as New Mexico State and Grand Canyon. We also play a lot of schools from the Big Sky.
The UVU men’s team recently hosted Montana State, and the women’s team recently travelled to Eastern Washington. The men’s team will play four consecutive games against Big Sky schools this season. After Montana State and Southern Utah, the Wolverines host Weber State and travel to Idaho State. While the women’s team has already played Southern Utah and Eastern Washington, they still have games against Weber State, and Idaho State.
The point of all of this is we play the Big Sky Conference a lot. There are two in-state opponents that extend across the two conferences: Seattle and Eastern Washington, Grand Canyon and Northern Arizona. Add to that fact that UVU, Southern Utah and Weber State are all in the state and you have some good matchups. With all these connections to the Big Sky, my question is, why don’t we have a basketball challenge between the Western Athletic Conference and Big Sky Conference schools?
It would be great revenue for the conferences and it would bring an exciting tournament for everyone to watch. The Big Sky has more teams than the WAC, so don’t take all the teams, just the top four or six from each conference, and have them duke it out in deciding the superior conference It would be a bracket buster type of challenge, and help the RPI in both conferences.
It would be similar to the Big Ten-ACC Challenge or the SEC-Big 12 Challenge. It is good exposure for the conferences and it will help develop quality matchups and healthy rivalries.
With benefits for everyone including the conferences, schools, and fans, this should absolutely be something to be considered.
