Mile High Mids

WAC numbers game update: UTPA on Line 1?

Now that Denver is leaving the WAC for the Summit League, the WAC’s future is no longer such a direct concern of this blog. However, because I’ve posted extensively before about the WAC’s numbers game, and because there is a lot of confusion on this point, a brief update seems appropriate.

A lot of news stories say the WAC is adding Grand Canyon University to “replace” Denver, but in terms of the numbers game that will determine the WAC’s immediate future, that’s not really correct. Jeff Evans of the Bakersfield Californian confirms what I understood to be true:

Denver’s departure threatens the WAC’s AQ status for the future unless it can get its membership numbers up.

The NCAA requires seven basketball-playing members for a conference to be eligible for an AQ into the NCAA Tournament.

That rule is for both men and women’s basketball. Grand Canyon won’t count in that number until it is a full Division I member.

The WAC has been granted a two-year waiver that allows it to have six members for AQ purposes once it drops below seven.

With Denver’s departure, at least one more Division I program must be added for the WAC to get to six NCAA Tournament-eligible teams.

Complicating things further, Idaho has already announced it will leave the WAC to join the Big Sky Conference in all sports except football starting with the 2014-15 academic year. That means the WAC will need to add another institution at that time to replace the Vandals.

It will take four years — starting, I presume, with 2013-14 — for Grand Canyon to complete the “reclassification” process and become a full Division I member. The big question in my mind yesterday, when I learned that GCU-to-the-WAC was really happening, was whether the NCAA had agreed to grant the WAC some sort of waiver to either shorten this process, or “count” GCU right away. As of now, according to Evans, the answer appears to be no.

So, the WAC can’t count Grand Canyon, or any other Division II school it might invite, until 2017-18.

That leaves the forthcoming lineup of “schools that count” looking like this:

2013-14: (need 6 members; presently have 5)
CSU-Bakersfield
Idaho
New Mexico State
Seattle
Utah Valley

2014-15: (need 6 members; presently have 4)
CSU-Bakersfield
New Mexico State
Seattle
Utah Valley

2015-16: (need 7 members; presently have 4)
CSU-Bakersfield
New Mexico State
Seattle
Utah Valley

2016-17: (need 7 members; presently have 4)
CSU-Bakersfield
New Mexico State
Seattle
Utah Valley

2017-18: (need 7 members; presently have 5)
CSU-Bakersfield
Grand Canyon University
New Mexico State
Seattle
Utah Valley
[plus other Division II schools to be named later??]

Adding to the WAC’s woes, New Mexico State is now being mentioned as a possible addition to Conference USA, in the wake of Tulane and East Carolina bolting that league for the Big East. C-USA has reportedly decided to add Middle Tennessee, and NMSU could be next:

The addition of Middle Tennessee leaves C-USA with 13 members, with a 14th likely to be added in the next few weeks, sources said. Potential expansion candidates include Florida Atlantic of the Sun Belt and New Mexico State of the Western Athletic Conference.

Even if C-USA opts for Florida Atlantic instead of NMSU, you’d have to think the Sun Belt’s Karl Benson would look long and hard at reconsidering his lack of interest in the Red Aggies, given that he will presumably want to replace MTSU and FAU in the Sun Belt, and New Mexico State is desperate for a football home. (They’re currently slated to compete as an independent starting next year.)

If either Conference USA or the Sun Belt invites New Mexico State, you can be sure they’ll accept in a heartbeat, reducing the WAC’s ranks yet again — perhaps, at long last, fatally.

But for now, let’s assume NMSU stays. Even in that best-case scenario, the WAC needs to add 1 team in 2013-14, another team in 2014-15, and another team in 2015-16.

And, as I’ve written before, there are really only three options, all of them from the crumbling, non-auto-bid-holding Great West Conference: Texas-Pan American, Chicago State, and the New Jersey Institute of Technology.

UTPA is the most attractive — okay, least unattractive — of the trio, and seems like they’d be the WAC’s obvious choice for a 2013-14 invite.

Chicago State is a deeply troubled athletic program — so much so that they were kicked out of Denver’s new conference, the Summit League, in 2006 — and they’re not exactly within the WAC’s “footprint.” But desperate times call for desperate measures, and a WAC invite for 2014-15 seems likely. What other choice does WAC interim commissioner Jeff Hurd have?

Well, the other choice would be NJIT, located more than 2,000 miles away from the nearest current WAC member. But really, they aren’t an “other” choice — it appears the WAC will need UTPA and Chicago State and NJIT for 2015-16 and 2016-17, unless there’s some way to really speed up that DII-to-DI reclassification process.

Inviting that trio of schools seems crazy. It is crazy. This whole realignment fiasco is crazy. But as far as I can tell, the WAC has no other options. It’s inconceivable that any Division I school currently in a conference with an auto-bid is going to consider joining the #ZombieWAC. Lower-division schools aren’t allowed to join until 2016-17. That leaves only UTPA, Chicago State and NJIT. And the WAC needs three schools. Voila.

I wonder if the WAC would invite NJIT (and perhaps Chicago State as well) for a limited-time-only membership, expiring after the 2016-17 season? I can’t imagine Hurd wants to be burdened with these out-of-region schools forever. But they’re looking like a necessary evil in the short term. Then again, if such an invite were offered, I wonder if those schools would even accept it.

And what if New Mexico State leaves? Or if any one of UTPA, Chicago State or NJIT says no — perhaps they have a better offer from, say, the Southland or SWAC in UTPA’s case, or the Summit or Horizon in Chicago State’s case, or, hell, the Big East in NJIT’s case (okay, I’m kidding there…I think) — what then?

If any of those things happen — if even one additional domino falls — the sheer numbers dictate that the WAC would have to get an NCAA waiver on the Division II reclassification issue… or fold up its tent and go home.