MWC tourney going HD — for some

When you sit down to watch the Utah-at-BYU men's basketball game on Saturday night, you will turn the channel to The mtn.

And you will be watching the game in standard definition. Not high definition.

Sigh.

For the remainder of the regular season, that will remain the case for The mtn. All SD, no HD.

Sigh.

There is some good news and some better news on that front, however.

We've got high def waiting for us in the postseason. All nine games the channel is carrying from the Mountain West tournaments — five men's and four women's matchups — will be in HD.

On the men's side, The mtn. will carry the No. 8 vs. No. 9 game; and all four quarterfinals (two will be simulcast by CBS C). CBS C has the semifinals; Versus has the title game.

On the women's side, The mtn. will carry two of the quarterfinals and both semifinals. Versus has the title game.

DirecTV has already committed to air the HD signal on its Channel 616-1. If you're a cable subscriber and you don't get the games in HD, call your cable company — which is making the choice not to carry it.

The really good news on the high definition TV front will come this fall. All the details haven't been worked out yet, but a spokesman for The mtn. said the channel will offer "significantly more" football in HD than it did this past season.

Hurrah!

THE BAD NEWS: DirecTV subscribers will be able to see all but the championship games in the MWC basketball tournaments in HD because CBS C has an HD channel.

That's the good news.

The bad news is that, as of this writing, it's still entirely possible that DirecTV subscribers won't be able to see the two championship games at all. Because Versus and DirecTV still haven't worked out their differences, Versus still isn't available on the satellite provider.

There were some recent reports that the two sides might be making progress, but so far we've seen nothing.

Sigh.

A LITTLE WEIRD: CBS College Sports is airing the New Mexico-TCU game on Saturday and not the BYU-Utah game?

Seems a little odd to me.

That's not a slam at New Mexico, but it is sort of a slam at TCU. The Frogs are 10-11 and 2-4 in conference play ?and right where they were picked in the preseason poll — seventh in the MWC. (And the TV schedule was set before the season began.)

Yeah, the Utes aren't much better at 10-10 (3-3) and a three-way tie for fourth. But you've got the rivalry factor going for you in their matchup with the Cougars.

Obviously, I'm not running CBS C. I would have decided differently.

e-mail: pierce@desnews.com