College Basketball’s Rejuvenated Western Flank

A college basketball scheduling quirk that exists is that the most significant conferences which play games on Thursday nights are the Western ones. The Pac-12 plays on Thursdays. The Mountain West plays on Thursdays. The WCC plays on Thursdays. Other conferences might sprinkle in a game or two—the Big Ten tries to play every night, as I believe the Big East does as well—but by and large, Thursday night belongs to the West.

I have a theory for why this is, and it might be disprovable by a quick Google search, but I’m not going to the trouble to look it up. The theory is that people are more willing to stay up late on Thursdays, so Western leagues feel they have a better chance of getting folks to watch their games, which tip later (for attendance purposes) than those of their counterparts back East, who play more often on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays.

This is mostly beside the point. The only reason I bring it up is because there are three great college basketball games scheduled for tonight, and they’re all happening in the West. In Tucson, Arizona’s hosting UCLA. In Laramie, Wyoming’s hosting Boise State. In Provo, BYU’s hosting San Francisco. All six teams are currently projected to make the NCAA Tournament, and few other expected at-large bid recipients are in action, with—thanks to snow in the Rust Belt—all other teams which fit that category also coming from, generally speaking, the West.

It’s a great year for Western teams in college basketball. The Mountain West is looking to find a way to sneak five teams into the dance. The WCC is still looking at being a four-bid league. The Pac-12’s muddling as a whole, but its top teams are the best they’ve been, collectively, in years. Overall, teams in the Mountain and Pacific Time Zones make up 13 of the top 50 KenPom teams and 16 of the top 75, the former the highest portion since 2009 and the latter the highest since 2013. The three Western teams in the top ten match highs posted last year and in 2015. The seven in the top thirty are bested only by last year and 2009.

The Mountain West is the key here. Those five top-50 teams (none of which is Wyoming, oddly enough, they’re 53^rd) are an historic count for a league that even just last year was rated by KenPom as only college basketball’s eleventh-best (this year, they’re rated seventh, ahead of even the AAC). The league isn’t as good, top to bottom, as it was during that 2013 year, when it did receive five at-large bids and even put New Mexico on the 3-line (and UNLV on the 5-line). But it’s a good, good league, especially in its top half. The WCC isn’t bad either, on track for what I believe would be its first four-bid year ever, with only San Francisco’s tournament hopes significantly in doubt. And the Pac-12, struggling as it is below the waterline, is strong at the top, with Arizona and UCLA both legitimate national championship possibilities, should they be able to get past Gonzaga, of the WCC.

To be fair, we’re comparing present numbers to end-of-season numbers when we look back at past years. Fewer than 13 Western teams may finish in KenPom’s top 50. Fewer than 16 might finish in the top 75. But at the same time…more might get in there, too. Wyoming’s knocking on the top-50 door. Stanford and Colorado and even New Mexico State are each between 76^th and 100^th. In all likelihood, tonight’s the West’s high-water mark in terms of national relevance. But it might not be. And in the happiest news of all for those living west of the 103^rd meridian, that high-water mark could come in March.

A graph and a table: