by John Coon Deseret News , Deseret Morning News

A small number of other formerly independent schools joined with UVU in the Great West after the conference decided to expand from football-only to all sports. Besides the Wolverines, NJIT, Chicago State, Houston Baptist, Texas-Pan American, North Dakota and South Dakota will take part in the new league. Many of their new conference opponents got into the habit of playing home-and-home series with UVU when they were all searching for a league to join. "We're making those same trips now," Wolverines athletic director Michael Jacobsen said. "These are the same independents we've been playing with all along, so we've been making those same trips for the last five years. So, really, nothing is going to change." In an ideal world, UVU probably would like some changes. Lengthy road trips will be a norm for the Wolverines in conference games. Playing their closest conference opponent, South Dakota, requires a 783-mile trip from Orem to Vermillion, S.D. Utah Valley will make at least four conference road trips of more than 1,000 miles each ? with the longest being to Newark, N.J., where NJIT plays. The distance between Orem and Newark: 1,957 miles. Geographical placement doesn't concern Wolverines coach Dick Hunsaker. He admitted that trekking through multiple time zones can be challenging. But he said travel-related challenges can be found in just about any conference. "What's the difference between a four- or five-hour flight and a four- or five-hour bus ride?" Hunsaker said. "When I coached at Ball State in the MAC, many bus rides were three or four hours. You just travel and play the game. If you want to make up some type of excuse or reason you can't play well, then you can do that." While the conference alignment Utah Valley is part of offers an extreme example, it is far from an anomaly in the NCAA Division I basketball landscape. Saint Louis bolted Conference USA for the Atlantic-10 shortly after the Big East raided C-USA to expand a few seasons ago. Denver, a school that once competed with BYU, Utah and Utah State in the Skyline Conference, joined the Sun Belt for the majority of its sports upon returning to Division I a decade ago. Louisiana Tech is separated by the state of Texas and is a time zone away from its closest WAC opponent. Locally, Southern Utah has competed in the Summit League ? known as the Mid-Continent Conference when the T-Birds joined ? since 1997 despite being separated by hundreds of miles from other conference members. Dealing with such long distances presents plenty of challenges for SUU. Travel expenses alone account for roughly one-third of the total athletic budget each year. There are also added concerns of preventing lengthy road trips from becoming too draining mentally and physically for student-athletes or causing them to miss too much class time. Even with the geographical challenges they face, the T-Birds still find ways to make it work and stay competitive in the Summit League. "We have been doing it for so long here at Southern Utah that it's a way of life," SUU athletic director Ken Beazer said. "We really don't think of the traveling any more. People tell us, 'The travel has got to be terrible.' But they've been doing it for so long, the student-athletes know it's a way of life." For Utah Valley, Jacobsen estimates that playing in the Great West will actually help the bottom line on the athletic budget. Travel expenses might be a little less because some schools will be paired up on the same road swing in conference play ? a factor that wouldn't happen as an independent. Another travel-related item that's now easier for UVU is filling out a schedule. With a conference slate to build around, the Wolverines have struggled a lot less to fill in the gaps. "It's all been done for a month now ? where in the past we would still have been scheduling in August ? because we've got 12 games already scheduled," Jacobsen said. "We're all done. Our schedule is complete. So it's made a big difference." One question likely to hound Utah Valley as long as it remains in its current conference alignment is how soon the Wolverines can move to a conference that is a better geographic fit. It is a question that has dogged SUU throughout the school's stay in the Summit League. T-Birds men's basketball coach Roger Reid understands it would be ideal for his team or a team like Utah Valley to be in a regional midmajor conference like the Big Sky or the Big West. But he is not too quick to think the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. Reid can point to multiple advantages SUU enjoys in the Summit League. The T-Birds regularly play in cities such as Indianapolis, Detroit and Kansas City that are traditionally hotbeds for basketball talent. And they are part of a league that has improved its RPI strength in recent years with successful programs emerging at Oral Roberts and North Dakota State. "I look at everything in a positive way," said SUU head coach Roger Reid. "It's great to be in our league. A lot of teams would like to be in this league. There are teams in this state that probably would like to be in this league." Putting up with a little wacky geography might turn out to be a small price to pay for UVU as well. The Wolverines know what it is like to play without a conference to call home and they are pleased to put that experience behind them. Now trips to New Jersey and Chicago mean something besides being just another faraway road game on the schedule. "It's exciting for our athletes, our players and our institution to have a chance to play for a championship," Hunsaker said. "That's greatest reward of it all." E-mail: jcoon@desnews.com

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