What If The Mountain West Tournament Started Today?
Who gets the byes and who is favored?
Contact/Follow @JeremyMauss & @MWCwire
Early look at the bracket.
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The Mountain West basketball tournament is less than one month away beginning on March 9 with the opening round games, and the championship on Saturday late afternoon.
The league this year has been very competitive with a potential four-bid Mountain West in the cards with six teams in the top 60 of the NET rating.
Normally I post this on Monday but with 4 weeks until Selection Sunday Here are the MW Net Rankings.
25. Wyoming
34. Boise St.
35. Colorado St.
52. San Diego St.
57. Fresno St.
58. Utah St.
107. UNLV
132. Nevada
150. New Mexico
238. Air Force
292. San Jose St.— Andrew Bangerter (@bangle94) February 13, 2022
At the top of the league is a tie between Wyoming and Boise State who each have a single loss and which happened to come against each other.
There is going to be an uneven number of games played and currently, at the top of the conference, Wyoming, Boise State, and Colorado State all have 10 wins in league play.
The top five teams. get a bye so the last team to avoid the opening round game at this point is Fresno State by being a half-game ahead of UNLV, which will be hosting the tournament.
A bye is going to be huge in this tournament to just avoid an extra game and a pesky opponent.
Not getting a bye as of now includes spoiler makers Utah State and UNLV. The Rebels playing on their home court and having Bryce Hamilton who has the ability to go off and score a ton of points is dangerous. Utah State will be a tough out despite their record as their problem has been inconsistent play; the Aggies do have a win over San Diego State and a few close losses to Boise State and Wyoming.
Early Tournament Projections
With the Mountain West being so close with quality teams. TeamRankings.com has its conference tournament projections out and it is a bit surprising to see San Diego State as the favorite to win it all despite being at 7-3. However, their schedule will have fewer games and there was the controversial ending vs. Colorado State.
Speaking of the Rams, they are nearly tied for the best odds with the Aztecs. Five teams have at least a 10% chance to win it all from these projections. This explains even more why getting a bye is huge, and especially so for Utah State is pegged in the opening round game and neck-to-neck with current No. 1 Wyoming.
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