The Mountain West has six teams with legitimate claims for an NCAA tournament bid and it’s almost February. There are six in the league with KenPom rankings inside the top-60 nationally and six in the top 50 if you use Bart Torvik’s T-rank metrics.
The current edition of Bracket Matrix, as of Jan. 25, has five teams comfortably in the field as 10-seeds or better, with Nevada on the outside looking in.
Because the league avoided any real bad losses to its top teams in the non-conference and the home-court advantages are so strong league wide, it’s decently hard to take bad losses from this point forward.
There’s a clear bottom four teams in the Mountain West (Wyoming, San Jose State, Air Force and Fresno State), and those four teams have one combined win thus far in the league against NCAA tournament at-large contenders.
That’s another key for helping the Mountain West get more tournament bids. If the bottom-dwellers continue to lose, the top six contenders will avoid further blemishes and can stack quality wins against one another without taking bad losses.
Nevada lost at Wyoming and that will hurt its resume, but the Wolf Pack just beat Colorado State at home and now will play four of their next five against San Diego State, New Mexico and Utah State.
Here’s the current conference standings, with Bracket Matrix seed in parentheses:
- Utah State 5-1 (7)
- Boise State 5-1 (10)
- New Mexico 5-2 (9)
- San Diego State 5-2 (5)
- Colorado State 3-3 (6)
- Nevada 3-3 (Next Four Out)
- Wyoming 3-3
- UNLV 2-4
- Air Force 1-5
- San Jose State 1-5
- Fresno State 1-5
Any reasonable power rating system will tell you there’s only about four points that separate the league’s best team (San Diego State or New Mexico) and the fifth- or sixth-best team. That makes for a ton of competitive games and "upsets" like Wednesday, when nationally-ranked Colorado State lost on the road at Nevada.
Nevada was actually a four-point favorite at the close and the Wolf Pack aren’t really worse than Colorado State on a neutral court regardless of the AP Poll.
Utah State and Boise State are tied atop the conference standings heading into their clash in Boise on Saturday. The Broncos beat both Colorado State and San Diego State on their home floor and should be a small favorite to beat the Aggies as well.
Opponents are shooting just 28.1% from 3 against the Aggies this season, and 27.4% in conference play. That’s not at all sustainable
There’s defensive regression looming for Utah State, which is likely at the top of the market right now and could be a potential sell in the coming road games at Boise and San Diego State.
Nevada got whatever it wanted at the rim Wednesday against Colorado State at home, but it'll have a tough time replicating that in The Pit at New Mexico on Sunday. The Wolf Pack have the least consistent offense amongst the conference’s top teams because they’re so reliant on the free-throw line.
It’s harder to get consistent calls on the road and they don’t rebound well either.
Nevada plays quite solid defense across the board and did an excellent job blowing up the Rams' motion offense, but there’s not enough offense or rebounding to expect any consistency from Steve Alford’s squad.
Team to Buy
New Mexico Lobos (+260)
The Lobos entered conference play at +250 to win the league, and I wrote just after Christmas that the best value bet at the time was San Diego State +400. The Aztecs are the most balanced team in this conference, but Richard Pitino has made the three-guard lineup of Jaelen House, Jamal Mashburn Jr. and Donovan Dent work flawlessly.
The Lobos went on the road to both Air Force and San Jose State and smoked both teams.
The Lobos aren’t overly reliant on the 3-point shot — in fact, they don’t really shoot enough of them. It’s a problem when New Mexico wants to go up in class and try to pull an upset, but it lowers its game-to-game variance on the road in this conference.
It’s between New Mexico and San Diego State for best team in the conference, and given that Utah State has played — by far — the easiest overall schedule, this is likely to become a two-horse race at the top between the Lobos and Aztecs.
I’d bet New Mexico +260 to add to my portfolio.
Team to Sell
Colorado State Rams (+1000)
It’s been a rather rocky start for the Rams in league play, and there’s more regression looming for Niko Medved’s squad. I’m as big of a fan as any of the Medved motion offense, but the Rams have been pretty lucky to even be 3-3 in the league at this point.
They needed a last-minute comeback in regulation to beat Air Force at home in overtime. They trailed most of the game at home against UNLV, and then lost all three of their key away games in the league.
The only truly impressive result for Colorado State in conference play was the home game against New Mexico. It’s an impressive win for the Rams, but House only played 19 minutes because of foul trouble.
Similar to the 2022 NCAA tournament team, there’s little-to-no rim protection for the Rams defensively. Colorado State will run great offense and be a tough out at home, but I’ll be looking to sell the Rams, starting in the Border War at Wyoming in Laramie on Saturday.
Colorado State compiled some very impressive non-conference wins and has a solid floor because of its elite offense, but the Rams will likely end up with six or seven losses, minimum, in league play.
Spots to Consider
Colorado State visits Wyoming in the Border War on Saturday. KenPom suggests the Rams will be a nine-point favorite, which is too high for this matchup. There’s a lot of familiarity between these two head coaches, and Jeff Linder has beaten Medved at home each of the last two seasons.
The Cowboys have major backcourt turnover issues, but the Rams are a defense that won’t force too much ball pressure. I’ll be looking to bet Wyoming.
Brian Dutcher and San Diego State have had a lot of success slowing down the Medved motion offense. San Diego State travels to Moby Arena on Tuesday with extra rest after the weekend off.
Ideally, Colorado State gets a close win but fails to cover against Wyoming on Saturday and we get a decent number to back the Aztecs here. Dutcher has won five of the six meetings head-to-head in the last two seasons (two conference tournament games), and the only loss came at the buzzer to David Roddy in Fort Collins.
I’ll be looking to back San Diego State as a short road underdog.
San Jose State is going to be a high-variance underdog to back at home to pick off these top teams. While Fresno State and Air Force struggle to go up in class and compete with superior talent, San Jose State shoots a lot of 3s and has a pretty good offense under Tim Miles.
The Spartans can really shoot it, and they’ll be an ideal large ML underdog team down the stretch.
