C-USA, WAC basketball ‘scheduling alliance’ rumored to be in works

Two mid-major conferences, the WAC and C-USA, appear to be planning for a joint scheduling venture for years to come, according to Stadium’s Jeff Goodman.

The Western Athletic Conference and Conference USA are on the verge of a basketball scheduling alliance “for the next few years,” according to Stadium’s Jeff Goodman who first reported the news.

FanSided is working to independently confirm Goodman’s report.

According to Goodman, the matchups between mid-major leagues will be “success-based,” with the primary goal being to increase quality in the respective leagues’ non-conference schedules.

This news comes as little surprise, with mid-major leagues around the country constantly looking for ways to raise their profiles in hopes of shaking the ‘one-bid league’ moniker.

For example, the Sun Belt and Mid-American Conference announced in late-2022 the creation of the ‘SBC/MAC Challenge’ in both men’s and women’s basketball, featuring 12 teams from each league. That scheduling alliance, set to begin next season, will utilize NET rankings to determine the matchups.

This isn’t the first time C-USA has attempted to bolster the conference’s hopes of becoming a multi-bid league. In 2018, the league instituted what they called ‘bonus play.’

After the first 14 games of the conference schedule, the league group split its member schools into three ‘pods.’ The top five teams in the league standings were placed in pod one, the following five in pod two and the remaining four into pod three. The teams in each pod played one another across the final four games of the regular season.

Will the C-USA, WAC alliance help either conference in the NCAA Tournament?

‘Pod play,’ as it was often called, was met with mixed reviews, with many of its detractors pointing to the conference’s large geographic footprint as the main drawback. With both this new alliance and the conference’s new look following realignment, those concerns still remain. Starting next season, C-USA’s footprint will extend from Virginia all the way to Las Cruces, home of current WAC member New Mexico State.

However, the positives are also plenty. The WAC is currently ranked as KenPom’s 11th-best conference and has three schools currently ranked inside the NET top 110. Sam Houston, the WAC’s highest NET ranked team currently, boasts wins at Oklahoma and Utah this year, while Utah Valley holds road wins at Oregon and BYU.
Even if an alliance such as this isn’t enough to put multiple teams from either league in the Big Dance, it should improve each conference’s seeding in the tournament. C-USA schools have been seeded 13th or lower in five of the last six NCAA Tournaments. Meanwhile, the WAC has only had one team seeded as high as 12th – New Mexico State, last season.