Aztecs must play at UNLV but get forfeits from canceled New Mexico series

The game neither school wants to play will be March 3 at 6 p.m. at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas, televised by CBS Sports Network.

The Mountain West released its men’s basketball schedule for next week, and San Diego State at UNLV is one of eight makeup games that were postponed earlier in the season for COVID-19 reasons. Only Air Force, which will have played a full 20-game conference schedule if it gets through this week, is exempted.

That means No. 22 SDSU (17-4, 11-3) will fly to Las Vegas next week, bus home the night after the game (arriving between 2 and 3 a.m.) and then return to Sin City less than a week later for the conference tournament.

It wasn’t all bad news for the Aztecs, though. The conference also announced it has awarded them forfeits for both New Mexico games scheduled in Lubbock, Texas, “due to the circumstances involved.” The Lobos opted out the day before despite having no reported COVID-19 cases.

SDSU will be credited with two victories and New Mexico with two losses for regular-season title consideration or seeding at the Mountain West tournament but not in their conference records, as confusing as that might sound. The Mountain West website initially showed SDSU at 13-3 after the noon announcement, then changed it to 11-3 a few hours later. The forfeits won’t count in their overall records recognized by the NCAA, either.

The Aztecs and sixth-place Rebels (10-11, 7-7) were scheduled to play Jan. 2 and 4 in Las Vegas, but a virus outbreak in the UNLV program forced a postponement. The conference left the first week of March open for makeup games, but as it grew nearer SDSU coach Brian Dutcher and several of his counterparts publicly or privately voiced their opposition to playing.

The decision was left to Mountain West Commissioner Craig Thompson, who opted to make everyone except Air Force suit up. Six teams must play twice. Eight must go on the road.

“This presented a very complex equation which included contemplating several variables,” Thompson said in a statement, “but this approach provides each institution the opportunity to control its own destiny over the final two weeks of the regular season and through the course of the Mountain West Tournament.”

The TV contract with CBS and Fox Sports was a consideration, too. A minimum threshold of conference games must be broadcast each season to receive a full payout, and it hadn’t been met with 16 games canceled or postponed. Six of the eight rescheduled games will air on CBS Sports Network or Fox Sports 1.

The danger, of course, is the damage the extra games could inflict on the four teams still in realistic contention for NCAA Tournament berths. SDSU, rated 24^th in the NCAA’s NET metric, must go on the road against a talented UNLV team that is 168^th in a game that can only hurt its résumé.

Colorado State, already with games Saturday and Monday, was given two more; when the Rams play at fifth-place Nevada on March 5, it will be their fourth in seven days. Utah State got Wyoming at home and Fresno State on the road two days apart. Boise State plays only once next week, but it will be the Broncos’ third game in six days.

There are other head-scratchers. After hosting the Aztecs, UNLV must to go to Wyoming for a 9 p.m. tip on Saturday. Fresno State is being forced to fly back to Boise State to re-play a game wiped out by a false positive test in the Broncos program. New Mexico must go to Colorado State after their Feb. 9 game was called 30 minutes before tip-off by county health officials in Fort Collins; the rematch won’t be televised but only streamed on the web. Nevada must go to San Jose State for a game shown by Stadium.

The idea was to achieve some semblance of balance by having every team play everyone else at least once. The Mountain West, however, didn’t apply the same standard to its revised women’s schedule, allowing teams to skip entire two-game series.

Beyond the NCAA Tournament ramifications for men’s teams, coaches expressed an underlying fear of injury or contracting COVID-19, especially for a program like SDSU that hasn’t had a positive case since September and has few players or staff with natural immunity.

“If we go on the road and someone gets COVID from being in an airport, from being in a hotel, from traveling together, and we’re this close to the tournament, it could be a huge setback,” Dutcher said Tuesday. “I just think the risk of exposing ourselves to one more trip doesn’t benefit anybody if our goal is the NCAA Tournament and trying to have teams healthy for that event.”

Heightening his sensitivity is having last season cut short for a 30-2 team.

“COVID cost us the NCAA Tournament last year,” Dutcher said. “That cost everybody the tournament, not just us. I don’t want it to rear its head, and all of a sudden we test positive either after our next trip (to UNLV) or the conference tournament and we don’t get to go to the NCAA Tournament again because of COVID.

“I’m not naïve enough to think it couldn’t happen to anybody, anywhere, any time. So, anything we can do to lessen our chances of contracting it is a benefit not only to us but our university.”

UNLV coach T.J. Otzelberger echoed those sentiments in recent comments to the Las Vegas Sun.

“What if a team plays that week and someone gets COVID?” Otzelberger said. “Does that hold you out of the conference tournament? At this point I want to think the conference tournament is the top priority, but I’m not sure.”

The list of rescheduled games next week:

March 2: Fresno State at Boise State.

March 3: SDSU at UNLV, Nevada at San José State, New Mexico at Colorado State.

March 4: Wyoming at Utah State.

March 5: Colorado State at Nevada.

March 6: Utah State at Fresno State, UNLV at Wyoming.