I grew up within the footprint of this conference. I have so many great memories of coaches and players who participated and raised its profile through the years.
Maybe that is why I was hoping for better when I saw this podcast.
This is an effort of a guy on the eastern seaboard, maybe looking for notoriety or engagement - seeing the Mountain West as a conference which was underserved by media attention, maybe he figured he could jump into that abyss and generate some buzz, don’t know of a business model if he’s making a buck from it. Nothing wrong with any of that.
But, he watches all the games remotely late into the night and then offers commentary on the conference hoops action. He has a social media presence and engages the fanbases of the conference institutions, as well as the journalists doing the beat writing, and an occasional national sports commentator. Again, nothing wrong with that.
When I first came to learn of his podcast, I listened to a few episodes, saw the social media interaction. The one observation I would make is that he has positioned himself in a role of “promoter” of the conference, but not as a legitimate critic of the conference or its hoops action. He strives to be careful not to offend any fanbase representatives on their squirrelly “takes”, which tends to soften his views as he rarely takes a stand in speaking unpopular “truth”. It hurts his credibility. Reveals a lack of depth. When my team’s coach does something dumb, I want a commentator to state, clearly, authoritatively, “that was dumb” … and why. This Coach Mosser never does. He only observes the play, asserts an occasional supposition, but rarely explains the dynamics. He’s an observer, not much more, just like the rest of us.
As such this podcast becomes a pleasant survey of his telling the listener “what” is going on with Mountain West Conference basketball, but it stops far short of explaining “why” or “how”. It degenerates to an encapsulation of news headlines. It’s useful, to a degree, in getting an overview of the other games one’s not watching. For in-depth coverage of the conference, and the progression of the teams and the players within it, one needs to explore alternate sources of information. This is not that.
