The Mountain West Conference was a four-bid league in each of the last two seasons, but most would say that the conference as a whole was down year-over-year in 2022-23.
San Diego State won the league title and made it all the way to the National Championship, but the other three tournament teams (Utah State Boise State, Nevada) all lost comfortably in the opening round.
Now that non-conference play has neared its conclusion, the 2023-24 version of the Mountain West looks as deep in the middle tier as ever. The conference has six teams in the top 75 of the KenPom Adjusted Efficiency metrics, just one fewer than the neighboring Pac-12.
San Diego State began the season as a +140 favorite to win the league, but Brian Dutcher's squad has had some growing pains in the non-conference. The Aztecs are 9-2, but they've won four games (UC Irvine, UC San Diego, Washington and California) on the final possession or in overtime.
Most importantly, for the MWC as a league, the resumes produced in the non-conference by the league's top six teams have been strong. Not one of them took a terrible loss that would be considered Q3 or Q4 come tournament time.
There's a handful of impressive wins too, like Colorado State's win against Creighton, Nevada's win at Washington and SDSU's demolition of Saint Mary's.
The betting markets view this conference in three tiers as conference play is almost set to get underway. Tier 1 is made up of the favorites (Colorado State, San Diego State, New Mexico), Tier 2 is the bubble squads (Utah State, Nevada, Boise State, UNLV) and Tier 3 is the long shots (Fresno State, Wyoming, San Jose State and Air Force).
Odds via FanDuel
Top Dogs
New Mexico Lobos (+250)
New Mexico played most of the non-conference slate without Jamal Mashburn Jr., who hasn't appeared since a Nov. 22 win against Rice. Mashburn is expected to return for the start of the conference play, and it'll be interesting to see how Richard Pitino makes this backcourt work.
The Lobos have relied on Mashburn and Jaelen House to run this offense, and they're two high-usage, ball-dominant guards.
The emergence of Donovan Dent and some real rim protection has led to the Lobos' defense taking a huge leap forward in Mashburn's absence.
Mashburn can score at will, but he's a clear minus on the defensive end when compared to Dent. Per Evan Miya's box plus-minus ratings, Dent is a +2.71 defensively while Mashburn is -0.49.
The defense was outside the top 200 in 2-point field goal percentage allowed last year, and while there could be some regression looming this season, New Mexico enters Wednesday top-30 in the nation in Adjusted Defensive Efficiency. The Lobos are forcing way more turnovers and they're way more well rounded.
Can Pitino make it work with Mashburn/Dent/House all in the same backcourt? That's three guards under 6-foot-2, and while House and Dent guard well, there will certainly be defensive losses if Mashburn regains his past role.
Colorado State Rams (+300)
The Rams have suffered some key injuries in their rotation towards the end of conference play that'll need to be monitored. Jalen Lake and Josiah Strong both missed the game against Saint Mary's in Moby, when the Rams lost their first game of the season by three points.
Colorado State has a tricky non-conference road trip to Loyola Marymount on Friday and then has a very difficult start to league play.
Strong was ruled out for six weeks with a broken wrist on Dec. 5, so he'll likely return in mid-January. Lake suffered a broken finger and could be back around the same time.
The Rams begin league play vs. New Mexico at home, followed by road trips to Utah State and Boise State.
Their depth will surely be tested in these games. We've likely hit the top of the market on Colorado State right now, given its defensive limitations.
Niko Medved's offense is up to sixth in efficiency and has elite shot creation through Isaiah Stevens and elite shot making in general. The Rams don't rebound or guard the rim well enough on defense to be any better than they are right now, though.
The Rams have built up a really impressive resume, with wins against Colorado, Creighton and Washington. All three look like Quadrant 1 victories right now.
There's no value in betting them right now, but if they take some early conference losses before Strong and Lake return, there could be time to buy the Rams again.
San Diego State Aztecs (+300)
Late-game variance and execution has saved Dutcher's squad from a disastrous non-conference. We've seen the Aztecs start slow before and peak towards the end of conference play, and they're a decent bet to do exactly that in 2023-24.
SDSU was +140 to win the league in preseason and now +300 seems like a decent value bet.
Not only did the Aztecs play one of the toughest non-conference schedules in the country (24th), but they had a ton of roster turnover from the group that won last year's MWC regular season and conference tournament titles.
The primary difference between this team and years past is the lacking depth.
The Aztecs had a ton of depth and physicality to throw at teams and wear them down last season. This year, it's a seven-man rotation that's bottom-70 in bench minutes played.
That could catch up with them later, but there's some real buy signals given how many questions I have about the other two top contenders in the MWC. The Aztecs run better offense this year, even if the defense will and has taken a step back since losing Nathan Mensah.
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Tier 2
Utah State Aggies (+700)
I'd argue no coach in the entire country has done a better job than Danny Sprinkle in his first year at Utah State. Ryan Odom left the Aggies after a tournament berth, and the entire roster left the program.
There are basically zero returning minutes back, and Sprinkle had to build the roster from scratch after coming in from Montana State.
It shows how effective Sprinkle is as a coach, as he has a team playing his style of basketball. Much like his Bobcats teams, the Aggies don't rely on perimeter shooting.
They're really impressive when it comes to controlling the tempo of games, but the schedule has been relatively weak to this point. Utah State is excellent at getting to the rim and running out in transition, and the Aggies are effective at defending in transition.
They play a style that could give some teams in the MWC (who have limited quick-twitch athleticism) real trouble. But that's a style that may struggle if they play up athleticism-wise.
Thus far under Sprinkle, we haven't seen the Aggies play a top-50 KenPom opponent. We will when they host Colorado State, so that'll be a fun test.
They've improved from outside the top 100 to 62nd in KenPom and have a whole new roster, so there's still room for this group to potentially grow into the first tier.
Nevada Wolf Pack (+900)
Nevada basically ran back the same team as last year, minus Will Baker. The Wolf Pack are very old, very experienced and generally well-coached.
I'm just not sure there's much of a ceiling for this group of players. They don't take many 3s, which makes them a low variance game-to-game team. The Wolf Pack overperformed their underlying ShotQuality metrics most of last season and ended up losing five of seven to close things out.
They then lost Baker to the transfer portal.
Nevada should be in the middle of the pack in the MWC, but it's unlikely that it'll make noise near the top of the league. It's a maxed-out, old roster at this point, and the shots are all being taken by the same guys as last year.
The Aggies split their two games in the non-conference against top-100 opponents, beating Washington and losing to Drake.
I'd be surprised if they made the NCAA tournament.
UNLV Rebels (+1500)
UNLV had an impressive non-conference win against Creighton and followed it up with a close double-overtime loss at Saint Mary's.
It was the two best performances of the Rebels' season in back-to-back games, but their non-conference resume was littered with too many losses to be a serious at-large contender.
Last season, the defense remained respectable because their system was focused on gambling. That resulted in the team forcing turnovers at an elite rate, while also conceding a ton of open shots.
This season, the Rebels are just above average at forcing turnovers and don't get nearly enough stops to compete with the top of the conference.
Boise State Broncos (+1500)
The Broncos still have the length to guard the perimeter better than most teams in the country, but the rest of their defensive profile has taken a real step back this season.
Boise was elite on the defensive glass over the last two years and finished in the top 20 there. That's not the case right now.
The Broncos also relied a ton on long-time point guard Marcus Shaver Jr. to create for others without having turnover issues.
The offense still has decent isolation scorers, but Max Rice has regressed as a 3-point shooter, Tyson Degenhart still isn't efficient at getting his own shot and Cam Martin is the top distributor with a 20+% turnover rate.
The Broncos used to do the little things really well to have extra possessions — they didn't turn it over and dominated the defensive glass. There's been slippage this season in those key areas, though, and the offense won't be explosive enough to overcome it.
A trip to a third-straight NCAA tournament seems unlikely for Leon Rice's squad.
Stay tuned for the next edition of "State of the Conference" where we pick out some spots to back the bottom four teams in the conference. Given the heightened home court advantage in the league as a whole, there's going to be great spots to back the bottom four in the league.
Pick: San Diego State to win the MWC (+400 at BetMGM)
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