Mountain West Conference
March 9-12. All games at Las Vegas.
kPOY: Josh Adams, Wyoming.
The Mountain West tournament opens on Wednesday with three games at the Thomas & Mack Center.
I didn’t quite get my dream scenario where UNLV was actually the favorite in this event despite being sub-.500 in league play. The Rebels held up the second requirement. In losing by 36 in the season finale at San Diego State, UNLV finished 8-10 and received the seven-seed in the tournament. That allows the Rebels to play Air Force, rated as the weakest team in the league, in their first game and potentially avoid the Aztecs until the title game.
But even if that were to play out – and with Derrick Jones no longer with the team, the Rebels almost have no bench, so that seems unlikely – there’s the pesky issue of playing the team that just beat you by 36 a few days earlier. There’s plenty of variance form game to game, but the Rebels also lost to San Diego State by 15 at home earlier in the season. So in the end, UNLV’s chances of winning are quite a bit worse than San Diego State’s.
All of this avoids the elephant in the room that it hasn’t been the best season for the Mountain West. It’s a one-bid league in a season where there was some decent talent returning. Also sadly, this is the final year for the all-inclusive format. The conference is only inviting eight teams to Vegas next season.
Qtrs Semis Final Champ 1 San Diego St. 100 82.0 64.1 44.6 3 Boise St. 100 74.9 40.7 18.1 7 UNLV 85.5 52.7 30.4 14.1 2 Fresno St. 100 44.2 20.6 7.4 4 New Mexico 100 53.6 15.7 6.5 5 Nevada 100 46.4 12.3 4.7 6 Colorado St. 67.2 19.6 6.5 1.7 9 Utah St. 54.1 10.3 4.7 1.7 8 Wyoming 45.9 7.7 3.2 1.0 11 San Jose St. 32.8 5.5 1.1 0.2 10 Air Force 14.5 3.1 0.7 0.1
Mountain West tourney records
UNLV 25-12 San Diego St. 23-12 New Mexico 16-12 Boise St. 3- 4 Wyoming 11-15 Colorado St. 10-15 Utah St. 1- 2 Fresno St. 1- 3 Air Force 3-16 San Jose St. 0- 1 Nevada 0- 3