Mountain West Conference Tournament: #5 San Jose State vs. #4 Nevada–Prediction, How to Watch, Odds
Spartans, Wolf Pack meet in MWC Tournament Quarterfinals
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What: Mountain West Tournament Game 5
Who: #5 San Jose State Spartans vs. #4 Nevada Wolf Pack
When: Thursday, March 9th – 2:30 PT
Where: Thomas & Mack Center; Las Vegas, NV
How To Watch: CBS Sports Network
Live stream: FuboTV — get a free trial
Odds: Nevada -5 Over/Under 131
San Jose State and Nevada will meet for the third time this season in the quarterfinals of the Mountain West Conference Tournament. The two teams are trending in opposite directions, with the Spartans winners of three straight, and the Wolf Pack coming off a disastrous week. It was one that really saw their NCAA Tournament profile take a big hit. A road loss to last place Wyoming was bad enough, but they blew a big lead late on Saturday to in-state rival UNLV and fell in overtime. The back-to-back defeats dropped Nevada from around an 8 or 9 seed according to most bracketologists, to squarely on the bubble (the last four in/first four out batch of teams). That makes this game enormous for multiple reasons for the Pack. Obviously the winner of this will move on to Friday night’s semifinal against the winner of Thursday’s first game between Colorado State and top seeded San Diego State. But a loss by Nevada is going to put them in a precarious position on Selection Sunday.
The task will not be easy here, as San Jose State is playing very good basketball and is brimming with confidence. They have the freshly named Mountain West Coach of the Year in Tim Miles, and the Player of the Year – Omari Moore. The Spartans finished the regular season with an upset over Boise State, a blowout of Colorado State, and a 20-point rally/come from behind victory at Air Force. Miles has squeezed the best out of this squad, the role players are playing their roles and Moore is performing at an extremely efficient rate, hence his POY award.
This does not seem to be a good matchup for San Jose State, as two of their worst performances of the season came against Nevada. The Wolf Pack possess an elite wing defender in Tre Coleman, who can bother Moore, and slow him down better than most in the conference. They also have a stretch big, Will Baker, who while he is great in the paint, can also pull the Spartans rim protector Ibrahima Diallo away from the basket with his threat of knocking down jump shots.
Do you go with the hot hand or do you go with the better matchup? Wolf Pack boss Steve Alford has a history of performing well in the MWCT, mostly while with New Mexico, but he’ll have his work cut out for him getting his troops to put the late collapse versus UNLV behind them. This one should be tight all the way through, but Nevada has a bit too many bullets in the chamber and should move on to Friday’s semis.
Prediction: Nevada 73 San Jose State 67
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