AUDIO: Mountain West Commissioner Craig Thompson Talking Hoops And Expansion

This is a great interview that was done during the conference tournament and it is a good listen.

The interview is a lot about the basketball being so good and the extra money the league and participating teams will get.  The real topic was expansion since at these tournaments the schools get together for informal meetings on the league.

To me it sounded like Craig Thompson was approaching expansion as a reactionary instead of a proactive approach. He said since nothing was done with teams realigning or contact being made with their schools; most specifically from the Pac-10 to Utah.  I get his point that there is no need to panic, but with all the public knowledge from the Pac-10 and Big 10 looking to expand the MWC should be looking to protect themselves. 

The biggest shocker was that any Mountain West school that wants to leave can without penalty which is odd since every league has some type of penalty such as The Big XII where any team must give two years notice and forfeit 50% of revenue.  That might be enough to keep Colorado from jumping ship, especially since they are keeping around Dan Hawkins and not buy him out.

Craig Thompson made the impression that if a team does not want to be there then fine we do not want you, and that also comes across as saying it is a privilege to be in the MWC.  The other item of interest on expansion is that the league commissioners do no the super secret BCS formula with their weight and that Thompson believes that the info will be released next month.  Also, since he knows the numbers and that will determine if they expand  **cough Boise State cough** to ten 10 teams.  Money is an issue since to expand the revenue needs to be at least equal with a 10th team as each nine teams are getting now.

I guess since he knows the formula expansion will hinge on if the MWC is above the threshold then why expand, but then again who says that the league will keep their current success of three top 25 teams and a BCS appearance. Adding Boise should guarantee a BCS invite, and I still expect it to come this summer.