UNLV heading to Wichita State in renewed Mountain West-Missouri Valley Challenge

By Taylor Bern

Thursday, April 2, 2015 | 11:20 a.m.

The Rebels are heading back to the site of Dave Rice’s first career loss, and they have the Mountain West to thank for it.

The Mountain West-Missouri Valley Challenge has returned after a two-year hiatus, and the first batch of games sends UNLV to Wichita State on Wednesday, Dec. 2. Rice was 8-0 at UNLV before a trip to Wichita on Dec. 4, 2011, where the burgeoning Wichita program was in the early stages of a run that’s included the Final Four and an undefeated regular season in separate years.

“Bringing back the Mountain West-Missouri Valley Challenge is mutually beneficial for both leagues,” Mountain West Commissioner Craig Thompson said in a statement. “Improving overall non-conference schedules and providing quality opponents is important to the Mountain West. Aligning with another consistent Top-10 RPI league has proven to be successful as demonstrated during the last Challenge Series with the Missouri Valley from 2009-2013.”

The thing is, several league coaches were happy to see the challenge series disappear because they felt it really wasn’t all that helpful. Nearly half of the Missouri Valley had a sub-250 RPI last season and only one, Loyola Chicago, has something close to an easy commute without a private plane.

As far as competition goes, UNLV got the best possible opponent as the Shockers have won three of the last four regular-season MVC titles. But with a couple of Pac-12 games and the Maui Invitational already on the schedule, Rice probably won’t be sending Thompson a big thank you card.

According to the league’s release, challenge matchups will be based on “previous year’s achievements, records and RPI rankings, as well as projected rankings/strength of teams in the upcoming season, based on composite sources.” Also, teams won’t face each other two years in a row and in the future, the games will be scheduled closer together in a nine-day window starting the weekend after Thanksgiving.

Here’s a look at UNLV’s current schedule and all the matchups for the MW-MVC Challenge, which this year doesn’t include San Jose State becuase the Mountain West has one more team than the MVC:

UNLV’s 2015-16 schedule (so far)

11/23-25 — Maui Invitational*

*Field includes Kansas, Indiana, UCLA, St. John’s, Vanderbilt, Wake Forest and Chaminade

12/2 — at Wichita State

12/16 — Arizona State

12/19 — at Arizona

MW-MVC Challenge

11/13 — Illinois State at San Diego State

11/13 — Air Force at Southern Illinois

11/14 — Colorado State at UNI

11/16 — Wyoming at Indiana State

11/18 — Loyola Chicago at New Mexico

12/1 — Utah State at Missouri State

12/2 — UNLV at Wichita State

12/12 — Drake at Nevada

12/20 — Bradley at Boise State

12/20 — Evansville at Fresno State

Taylor Bern can be reached at 948-7844 or [email protected]. Follow Taylor on Twitter at twitter.com/taylorbern.