This March Madness stuff has started early, or call it the trials and tribulations of the Air Force Falcons and the Mountain West Conference.
Air Force coach Jeff Bzdelik should have known it was going to be a bad weekend Saturday when his 14th-ranked Falcons lost 71-66 at TCU, a team that had lost 11 games in a row.
What followed was an unwanted two days at the Dallas-Fort Worth airport and an oral reprimand from the conference office for expressing his opinion about the basketball schedule. But even before the reprimand, Air Force’s plight got no sympathy from conference commissioner Craig Thompson.
When informed Monday morning that Air Force still was deep in the heart of Texas with a crucial game against BYU tonight at Clune Arena, Thompson asked why the Falcons still were there. He apparently never has experienced the treadmill action of being on standby after canceled flights. The Falcons made it back to the academy Monday afternoon, but not in time to practice. They managed an hour’s workout Sunday at TCU.
But Thompson knew exactly what to do when he read Bzdelik’s comment about the scheduling after the loss to TCU.
“Unfortunately from a schedule standpoint, the Mountain West Conference really stuck it up our … from the standpoint that we’ve played four teams in our last five games that had bye weeks to prepare for us,” Bzdelik said. “I don’t think the conference wanted us to finish strong. That’s no excuse. We didn’t play well.”
For the record, teams coming out of a bye have won nine times and lost six. San Diego State and TCU have beaten the Falcons after a bye in the schedule. Utah and New Mexico lost to the Falcons after a bye week.
Maybe Bzdelik had the best recommendation, saying, “Everybody’s emotional. The best is to let everyone calm down and regroup.”
Tourney bound
With the two-game losing streak by Air Force, BYU’s loss at San Diego State and Nevada-Las Vegas having a bye Saturday, the picture for the postseason among the conference teams isn’t as clear as before.
The Falcons came out of the Texas caper as the only ranked team in the AP poll, claiming the 25th and last spot. BYU and UNLV are getting votes, but not enough to be ranked. However, the conference’s top three have held up in the RPI ratings that take into consideration record, strength of schedule and opponent’s strength of schedule. UNLV is No. 12, Air Force 18th and BYU 23rd.
Even San Diego State coach Steve Fisher, whose Aztecs are making a late-season run for NCAA consideration, gave the nod to the big three.
“As we speak today, those three still are in,” Fisher said.
But UNLV coach Lon Kruger added, “Based on the whole season, that probably would be the case, but San Diego State is making a big run at either replacing one of the three or adding a fourth team.”
Thompson said none of his NCAA hopefuls would want to chance surviving with three or four straight losses to end the season.
Jason and Brandon
CSU center Jason Smith set a conference record with 22 rebounds as the Rams beat Wyoming 86-68 on Saturday. The record along with back-to-back double-doubles by the 7-foot center helped earn co-player of the week honors along with San Diego State’s Brandon Heath. Smith scored 27 points to go with his 22 rebounds against the Cowboys, and had 20 points and 11 rebounds in a 76-67 loss to BYU.
Heath had back-to-back 30-point games as the Aztecs beat New Mexico 81-74 in overtime and BYU 86-74 when the Cougars were ranked 21st in the nation.
Footnotes
A poll conducted by Sports Business Journal gave CSTV the nod over ESPNU in viewer preference by 75.7 percent to 24.3. …
Fisher gave an endorsement to New Mexico coach Ritchie McKay, who was fired last week effective at the end of the season. “He’ll resurface because he’s a good coach,” Fisher said.
Irv Moss can be reached at 303-954-1296 or imoss@denverpost.com.
