Mark Few finally opens up on the Rec League with both barrels, and it’s ABOUT TIME!!!: http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2016/mar/13/blanchette-chilling-lesson-for-wcc/ . He knows this league is a joke. He is tired of doing all the work and sharing all the money with people who don’t care about his sport. I love the way he says the rest are all “dragging the big three down.” This is how BYU felt when it left the MWC. Dave Rose and Mark Few are very good friends and I can tell you that those at the top of the BYU BB program and Ath Dept count Few as a BYU’s only true ally in this minor league called the WCC. This league has pandered to Gonzaga, because the WCC in its small-mindedness is satisfied with Gonzaga bringing home several million from the Dance each year. Shame on the WCC’s patronizing attitude, thinking GU is satisfied to be the big dog in a “kennel” full of runts. However, you can see Mark Few is the one who REALLY wants the league to be better. Good for him!
Rose’s response to Few’s Fewsillade on the WCC: “I would say that Mark’s been in the league long enough and has been successful enough that he can have an opinion on that,” Rose said. “If that’s his opinion, then we probably should listen to him and see what we can do to change it.” Good for Mark Few. Good for Dave Rose.
I will weigh in before some of the other posters here who see things differently. You know the one, who seems to think we find safety in numbers and agree with each other because that is how we justify our position…
First off, I need to say that I like Few. Anything I have said in the past regarding Gonzaga, the players, coach, etc. is directed more at the situation I see them being in and that is one that I have angrily spoken out against, sometimes related to jealousy but more often related to the fact that they absolutely are treated differently than the other teams in the wcc. It has become a bad habit over the years. But treating the cash cow/golden goose differently, like the wcc does Gonzaga, is wrong in my opinion. We know why they do it, I just wish they wouldn’t feel the need to have to do it. But it is what it is.
I am glad that Few has spoken out. I wonder what he would be saying if he were in BYU’s position, that of having to work your tail off just to dig out of the 10 point hole every game (or overcoming the way GU was Jimmered 5 years ago) in order to give yourself a chance to win the conference or league tournament… something BYU has yet to do. So while I am glad he said something and also glad he respects Dave Rose and the BYU program, I hope it goes to the next step with some objective officiating, wcc disassociative influence and a REAL opportunity for somebody other than “america’s team” to win a league or tournament title.
That remains to be seen.
And you do a great job at that 
I don’t know if you understood who Few was calling out? It doesn’t seem like it. I wasn’t calling out the WCC refs or the chairperson. He was calling out the other schools and what they do with the money that is dispersed when the big 3 get in the Dance.
While I at least understand what he’s saying, it’s been something long known for football and basketball that they carry the other sports at their schools. I’m sure this year men’s volleyball is paying for itself. But we are one of the 3 Few is talking about.
So, this has nothing to do with your conspiracy which only a few others in here agree with you 
Seriously? you really don’t know if I know who Few was talking about? Is this an attempt to justify your own inability to understand anything that I post? By trying to make some inane claim that I don’t understand what Few is saying? Nice try… but when you confuse yourself with the head coach of Gonzaga, in your own post I might add, how can you excpect anybody to take you seriously?
If Few has a problem with none of the other teams stepping up (and sorry, but that includes BYU and St. Mary’s to a certain degree) perhaps he should look in the mirror to start with. Maybe he doesn’t realize that the favoritism Gonzaga gets, for being the perennial ncaa attendee, is a big part of the problem. Like I have said, it happens to every team, not just BYU. It happened to St. Mary’s and BYU this year, I saw it happen to Santa Clara a year or two ago and I’m sure if somebody took a close look at the past 17 years it has happened to others. A lot of the time it is simply because Gonzaga is better… but not every time and that is where the problem starts. So if Mr. Few wants the other wcc teams to step up, those teams need to believe they actually have a chance, instead of knowing that EVERY time they get close, Gonzaga and the wcc are waiting to close the door on them. It goes both ways and there are many reasons for why it isn’t working right now, unlike it seems to and actually does in every other conference in the country…
I can’t help it if you can’t see it…
Well, I don’t need the help. I’m not the one pushing space aliens causing GU to win every year 
Few is able to recruit good big men. The other teams don’t do well in that area. It shows.
I think you are right, he is taking the other schools to task on how they spend their money, This league will never change until the other schools get rid of those high school Gyms and upgrade their programs. One of the schools has plans and is in the process of building a basketball center. I don’t remember which school. You watch, once it is in place the dominos will begin to fall. But it will take a decade before there is any big improvement. Unfortunately.
Jeff
I took his comments to be both about how money is spent and also about not scheduling to take advantage of the RPI game. Losing to top 100 teams does more for the whole league’s RPI than does winning against bottom 100 teams, and he is concerned that everyone but the top three WCC schools are not smart in their scheduling. For all of its faults, the old MWC BB teams did take advantage of the RPI formula. Sending 2 or more teams to the tournament brings in a lot more tournament money for all the teams.
Right on Hawks. Mark Few complaining about the lower seven in the WCC/Gonzaga league is like the pot painting the kettle black. He sounds like a Republican politician complaining over another loss in the Presidential election. Losers are sometimes created by elites and insiders who know where their bread is buttered.
Mark Few has every right to complain. The lower level teams choose to play garbage schedules. Gonzaga got good by ignoring the rest of their conference and playing the best schedules they could. SMC is in the NIT right now because they played a garbage schedule. Gonzaga’s win and BYU’s win over them were devalued because SMC had no legit wins.
Most of the teams Few was complaining about could even use the money from richer schools who would pay them to show up and get beat. They don’t even bother to do that.
Few’s teams win usually out of conference, this year not so much, that is what has kept them nationally relevant for most of Few’s tenure. The rest of the WCC including to a certain extent Rose could improve the OOC scheduling and help themselves, Gonzaga, SMC and BYU…that they haven’t now for the 5 years BYU has been in the conference, which essentially doubled their take from the NCAA tournament, is not Few’s or BYU’s or SMC’s fault. They have chosen rotten schedules…they need a talking to by a lot more than Few…they need to change for their own good.
All most of the lower teams have to do to get better bread is to raise their hands and accept it from the teams in the richer conferences who will play them precisely because they are both cheap to bring in and bring BYU, SMC, and Gonzaga’s wins into their own RPI calculations.
SMC had no legit wins? I guess the two against Gonzaga weren’t real. They barely lost to Cal at Cal… the only thing they didn’t do was travel. How many decent teams want to play SMC in their high school gym? Do you know, factually speaking, how much a P5 team will pay a team like Pacific, LMU or San Diego to travel to wherever they are and get smashed? I would be interested to know, because if it is as you say it is, there is no reason they wouldn’t already be trying to do that.
My question is why hasn’t Few said something about this before? Why now? because the wcc only got one bid this year? Because Gonzaga is getting greedy and believes they should get all the money? I guess I’m having a hard time figuring out why he is talking about it, especially considering the fact that his team is privileged. Does he think it will bring about the “parity” that the wcc commish falsely believes exists?
However, the league has won 3 first round games over excellent talented teams. And that GU is really average beating Seton Hall. Jim isn’t right on about his observations. As I said, the league is better that what he and others think
in case you didn’t notice Gonzaga was so highly thought of this year they got a double digit seed the same seed as some of the first four teams. If they hadn’t won the tournament they would not be dancing.
So while the wins against Gonzaga were “real” they were against a considerably weaker team than Gonzaga usually has. so they did not and do not mean much. Losing to a lacklustery Cal team is hardly something to crow about. (Cal had a strength of schedule in the mid 200s if they had played in a non-P5 conference they wouldn’t be dancing with a 23-10 record.) The only thing any team has to do to lose to Cal is show up and not win.
If Gonzaga, and to a lesser extent BYU, only played good teams in their own gym than many of the good teams they’ve played over the years would never be on their schedule. SMC had a cruddy schedule, very much on their own home court this year because, unusually, their coach scheduled a weaker schedule than normal. He thought he would have a rebuilding year. Just like most of the conference coaches and press thought. The team was surprisingly good but nobody knows how good because the only teams close to legit they played, ie teams with an rpi that came close to the top 50 RPI, Cal, BYU, and Gonzaga beat them 3 of 6 games.
I cannot find a specific study that answers your question as to how many p5 teams will pay for the likes of LMU, Pacific and San Diego. On the other hand.all three of the teams you list, have RPIs well above 200. They are exactly the kind of teams the P5 conference do pay to have come get a beat down. The difference between the lower tier WCC teams and most of the sub 200 RPI teams is that most sub 200 RPI teams play in conferences without teams like BYU, Gonzaga, and SMC that commonly have RPIs in the top 50. Ie most teams with sub 200 RPIs play in conferences with considerably below average conference RPIs. This year was the first year in nearly a decade that WCC wasn’t in the upper third of conference RPI.
The sub par conference RPI is what caused much of the disdain for the WCC this year. Conference RPI tends to be more accurate than team RPI because it has a much larger sample of games. just off the top of my head 10 WCC teams playing 12-15 OOC games means 120-150 games. And nary a win that proved to be really good this year…the WCC earned its poor reputation this year. By LOSING. and LOSING and then LOSING some more. Even Gonzaga couldn’t manage their normal portfolio of reasonably good wins this year.
BYU, I suspect for much of the same reason as SMC, didn’t have their normal quality of OOC schedule either. So when two of the top three teams have weaker than normal OOC schedules and then do not shine against them. and the third doesn’t manage to get its normal set of wins against legit teams and the rest of the conference continues to rely on the work of the upper echelon, bad years like this one happen more often than would be the case, if every school was trying to pull its own weight.
They aren’t: Few pointed it out. Rose concurred. If you don’t agree with two of the best experts on the conference, you probably need to figure out what you are missing instead of figuring that the professionals are just wrong.
Seton Hall may be an excellent talented team.
But most people would not use those words to describe New Mexico State or UAB.
First round games in the NIT don’t usually prove much except that some teams who thought they should be dancing didn’t really deserve to be dancing.
That is the case for UAB this year.
But if you look at the bracketologists NMSU was hardly a popular dance ticket.
Seton Hall is the only one of the teams remotely close to an excellent talented team. This is their first dance ticket in a decade. So once again doesn’t improve reputation much if at all–especially as they are dancing for the same reason Gonzaga was. They won a tournament…
You might be right about NMS. But not about UAB. And Seton Hall was seeded much higher than GU. Which proves my point that the WCC is underrated. The WCC should have had more than one team in the NCAA.
If you would connect your own statements.
The WCC should have spent their money more wisely over time.
They should have scheduled more wisely.
They should have actually won more on the court.
If these shoulds had actually occurred, then your desired outcome could have occurred.
The lower tier WCC did not do what they should have with the money.
SMC and BYU and Gonzaga did not win enough on the court against quality teams.
The lower tier WCC teams did not win enough on the court to prop up the conference RPI.
So the shoulds didn’t happen.
and your desired outcome didn’t happen.
I acknowledge that you may be right, but do you understand why they didn’t? I suggested it was because they were weak overall and the teams were down this year but maybe I was wrong and needed to did a little deeper. You need to dig a little deeper too… both Reed (ARO) and I have pointed out some of the possibilities and reasons and then try to explain why those reasons exist and how they are carried out. You have to figure it out yourself.
UAB beat up on a weak conference.
The only other team in their conference with a top 100 RPI is actually dancing and is expected to be another double digit loss.
Excellent and talented are not usually words used for teams who’ve performed on the court like UAB has.
To say that because GU beat the higher seeded Seton Hall proves anything about what should have happened. …or how underrated the WCC is…just flabbergasting.
The WCC had way over a hundred non conference games to prove themselves–they didn’t. The one game sample does not prove that the larger body of work by the conference and the committee were somehow inadequate.
So what are your thoughts on some of the things that Reed (ARO) has said? Do you believe there is any influence from the P5 conferences as it relates to the number of teams from P5 conferences invited to the ncaa tournament?
Do you believe it is all clean and fair and that there is no influence involved whatsoever?
Just curious what your position on those topics is.