Hey everyone, I hope all is well. Thanks for checking in on the weekly post!

This week, we started conference play on the road on Thursday at Westminster in Salt Lake City and at Gunnison to play Western Colorado. We got TWO road wins, which, in the RMAC, isn’t always easy to do.

In the RMAC, a demanding travel schedule, home court advantage, and sleeping in your bed without endless hours on the bus have been enormous advantages in the past.

This week, I want to focus on the travel schedule this year and the changes the RMAC has made to how conference games will typically be played.

This week, we spent over 18 hours on the bus, traveling over 1,200 miles for games in Salt Lake City and Gunnison.  But we did it in over four days instead of three.

In the past, everything has been on Friday and Saturday with a back-to-back schedule setup. Everyone has a travel partner except for the previous few years when there have been 15 teams, which leaves one school as the odd man out.

The “lone wolf” would have a different schedule and sometimes play Thursday and Saturday or Friday and Sunday at times. With a travel partner, for example, CSU Pueblo would be a travel partner with UCCS, and two other partners would play each school on a Friday and Saturday.

I remember my freshman year at South Dakota Mines having Adams State as partners with Fort Lewis, and it was brutal, especially when you’re driving from Rapid City. We would have to make the long drive out and, after the first game, drive through the mountain pass, get in late, sometimes even 1 or 2 a.m., and get ready to play the same day.

The overall change will improve the Saturday games by giving all athletes more time to recover. Instead of playing within 24 hours of the previous game, the time in between will be closer to 48 hours, allowing for more sleep and traveling to the next school the following day if it is a farther drive.

I know some schools have mixed feelings about it as it costs more for food, hotels, and buses and causes athletes to miss more school. With schools like Colorado Mines and South Dakota Mines, missing more schools is a significant factor and adds a lot more stress on the athletes throughout the season. I am excited about the change and think it will improve our bodies and sleep patterns.

I hope the RMAC decides to keep this schedule moving forward unless some schools are unhappy about the added costs. If it gets hard for them to afford it, a possible suggestion would be a blended old and new style.

For shorter trips, they could go back to the original Friday/Saturday, but for trips over a certain time of travel, they could make it mandatory for Thursday/Saturday games. That way, it is a set standard, and it can be uniform for teams across the league with no complaints.