It seems the Mountain West Conference wants to extend the idea of rivalries beyond team vs. team and make it more about conference vs. conference.
The MWC and the Missouri Valley Conference announced an agreement Tuesday that would pit nine of their respective basketball men’s teams against one another in an annual battle royal. The competition is aptly being called the MWC/MVC Challenge series.
“This is a very good match-up between two competitive leagues,” said MWC Commissioner Craig Thompson. “Our coaches and fans have been looking for quality non-conference opponents, and this annual competition between two Top 10 RPI (Rating Percentage Index) leagues will afford us that.”
The RPI helps determine which teams are invited to the highly popular NCAA Tournament in March.
The MVC has been around since 1907, and is currently home to 10 Division-I basketball teams. Teams include Bradley, Creighton, Drake, Evansville, Illinois State, Indiana State, Missouri State, Northern Iowa, Southern Illinois and Wichita State.
Since the inception of the MWC in 1998, the Mountain West enjoys a 17-15 edge against teams from the MVC.
While the fine print of the deal between the two conferences is still being hammered out, both conferences look to be settling on a four-year commitment, beginning as early as November 2009, according to an MWC press release.
“The Challenge series is a positive step for both conferences,” said MVC commissioner Doug Elgin. “Tough non-conference scheduling has always been paramount in improving our league’s stature on the national scene.”
The announcement follows suit of what other conferences have done in men’s basketball in the past. Since 1999, the Big Ten and the Atlantic Coast Conference have been matching their teams against one another in a similar series as the one the MWC and MVC just announced.
With the MWC at just nine teams currently, one Missouri Valley team would be excluded from competition every year.
Utah and Wyoming are the only two teams from the MWC to face a MVC team in the past two years. Utah beat Missouri State last season, while Wyoming was swept in a home-and-home series that started in the 2006-2007 season.