Earlier today, the Mountain West Conference announced a 20-game men’s and women’s basketball conference schedule to comply with each county, local and state COVID-19 guidelines of each university. The conference slate is expected to be played in 11 weeks.
This changes the original conference schedule that was unveiled a month ago from 18 games to 20.
In the new conference slate, MWC teams will play each other in a two-game series in the same week with a one-day break in between games in order to prevent the spread of COVID-19 during the season.
Each team will have five home and five road series in order to reduce the regular travel schedule by four weeks and lower the exposure to the coronavirus.
The revised plan allows for more flexibility to reschedule a game if a team receives any positive cases.
Like in the past couple of seasons, the conference schedule will still begin in December and will end in late February.
This announcement from the conference comes almost two weeks prior to the beginning of NCAA men’s and women’s basketball seasons starting on Nov. 25.
The conference has hinted at implementing a 20-game schedule by the 2022-2023 season, but it will be applied this season due to the ongoing pandemic.
One of the pitfalls from adding two more conference games is that there are two less chances to schedule non-conference opponents that might help a team build their at-large resume for the NCAA Tournament. That’s especially the case when a team is not in a Power 5 Conference like San Diego State.
For now, both SDSU men’s and women’s basketball teams have not released their complete schedules.
