Joe Lunardi not seeing the MWC as "Mid Major"?

Saw this blog from him and thought it was pretty interesting. Not earth shattering but interesting nonetheless.



Luke (Illinois)

If the field were set today and you had to pick one mid-major that you felt could make a deep run in the tournament, who would it be?



Joe Lunardi (4:32 PM)

Saint Mary's, Utah State and George Mason can all win a game or two. Same for the top of the Valley (I'm just not sure who's best!).



No mention of BYU or SDSU (which he stated earlier in the blog were "legit"). He even defended them in the last post.



DJ (Cuse)

How can you reward teams like BYU and SD St who play noone out of conference but beat up on a a lower level conference?



Joe Lunardi (4:45 PM)

DJ, you're smarter than that. BYU has faced tourney-level teams Utah State, Saint Mary's, Arizona, UCLA, UNLV and San Diego State (winning all but UCLA). SDSU has beaten Gonzaga, Saint Mary's, Wichita State, Cal and UNLV (losing only at BYU). Teams like Syracuse would never play so many games away from home, much less against NCAA-level competition.



http://espn.go.com/sportsnation/chat/_/id/36836

I've noticed that on ESPN's "Mid-Major Reports" as well. No MWC teams are included in those reports.



I think with over 300 D-I teams, the term "mid-major" is reserved for smaller schools with smaller arenas. The vast majority of mid-major bball schools don't even have football teams. at least no D-I

BYU and SDSU were included on the early-season "mid-major" reports. But when SDSU and BYU kept winning and rising in the polls they took them off.



I did like how Lunardi called out the fan who was trying to claim that BYU and SDSU played no one either in or out of conference.

It's actually been this way for a while, if not a couple years. Mid-major is an insult to these programs and ESPN has seen it that way, rightfully, for a lengthy period of time.

mizzoucoug wrote:
It's actually been this way for a while, if not a couple years. Mid-major is an insult to these programs and ESPN has seen it that way, rightfully, for a lengthy period of time.

I'm pretty sure I've seen ESPN include everyone outside of Memphis as a mid-major until very recently. As was mentioned, BYU was under the "mid-major review" earlier this year. Stupid term and even stupider to try and make a distinction with all the great "mids" out there that would absolutely destroy the bottom half of every "power" conference.

Can we lobby to have the SEC deemed a mid-major. They're an awful bball conference. They're as good as the WCC - one good team at the top, a few decent teams and a bunch of dogs.