Eight years ago, Mountain West Conference basketball reached its nadir. Fresno State won the league tournament and received a No. 14 seed in the NCAA Tournament. Nobody else, not even 25-win, regular-season champion San Diego State, earned an invite. The following season also resulted in just one NCAA Tournament bid (Nevada).
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Two presidential election cycles later, Mountain West basketball is peaking. Fresh off San Diego State’s run to the 2023 national title game, the conference has six teams in our mock field of 68 this week, which would break the league’s record of five set in 2013. The last time a conference outside the Power 6 got a half-dozen bids? The Atlantic 10 in 2014.
The Mountain West has six squads ranked in the top 55 of the NET — New Mexico (19), San Diego State (20), Utah State (25), Colorado State (30), Nevada (47) and Boise State (55) — and that group has combined for 14 Quad 1 wins. Compare that to the Pac-12, which has four teams in the top 55 (Oregon just misses at No. 56) and 12 Quad wins for its top six teams. Or the ACC, which also has six teams in the top 55 of the NET and 12 Q1 wins among that cohort.
How did the Mountain West get here? It all starts with scheduling. After those single-bid shallow years, league officials realized that power-conference teams were never going to come to Boise, Idaho, or Fort Collins, Colo., much less hostile environs like The Pit and Viejas Arena. And simply playing buy games against the dregs of Division I wasn’t going to do much good for the overall product. So they began pushing MWC teams into as many early-season multi-team events as possible, where they could face stout competition on neutral floors. They scheduled home-and-homes with other solid mid-major programs and avoided anchor games in Quad 4 as much as possible.
“Our coaches really have a high level of understanding of where their teams are going to be and how to schedule,” second-year Mountain West commissioner Gloria Nevarez says. “Our goal is to be above a 70-to-75 winning percentage coming out of the noncon, with good wins. So that when you do stub your toe, those losses aren’t going to drop you too far in the NET rankings.”
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The league posted a 73.2 winning percentage in nonconference this year, ranking fourth among the 32 conferences. (That includes a 24-7 record against the Pac-12 and an 18-6 mark against the WCC). The MWC is the only conference whose teams all finished above .500 in nonconference play.
Thus, when conference play began, Quad 1 and 2 opportunities abounded, while potential damaging losses were mitigated. The two worst teams in the league, NET-wise, are Air Force (200) and Fresno State (236). The WCC, by comparison, has three league teams ranked below 250.
“When you lose to them,” Nevarez said of the conference stragglers, “you’re not losing to sub-300 NET teams.”
San Diego State’s national runner-up finish brought great exposure to the league, as well as millions of dollars in NCAA Tournament units. The Aztecs’ success forces other schools to catch up and invest. It’s unlikely that the Mountain West will end up with six teams in the dance, as there will be losing streaks and early conference tournament bow-outs, not to mention competition from other bubble teams and bid thieves. But with the Pac-12 dissolving and the WCC limping toward a potential one-bid season, there’s little doubt where the best basketball in the West is being played.
“We hit a little slump there, but I feel like this is bringing us back to the expectation we all have of ourselves,” Nevarez said. “It’s always been our goal to be the FBS league in the West region. We certainly have some growing to do, but we’re celebrating just our 25th year this season. I think we’re tracking really well.”
Some other notes on this week’s bracket, now 51 days until Selection Sunday:
• We have a new No. 1 seed this week, as North Carolina moves ahead of Arizona for the top spot in the West Region. We had already made this change before Arizona lost a Quad 3 road game at Oregon State on Thursday night. The Wildcats, who have also dropped games to Stanford and Washington State and needed a large comeback to beat UCLA at home last weekend, will have a tough time getting back to the No. 1 line because the Pac-12 doesn’t offer many resume-building opportunities the rest of the way. As for the Tar Heels, they’re up to sixth in the NET and rank fourth in SOR and third in KPI, two results-based rankings. Arizona still gets to stay in the West as the No. 2 seed, setting up a potential Caleb Love Bowl in the Elite Eight.
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• The Big 12 remains a labyrinth for seeding and selection purposes, and fortunes can change in a matter of hours. Texas moves back into the field and onto the No. 9 line after a pair of Quad 1 wins over Baylor and at Oklahoma, while Cincinnati, which has dropped two straight and four of its past five, falls out. The Big 12 has 10 bids right now and two more teams in the first four out/next four out space. The Big 12 and Mountain West combine for nearly a quarter of the field this week. There can be no accusation of coastal bias here.
• We’re going to try something new next Friday: the first-ever mailbag edition of Bracket Watch. Be on the lookout for a mailbag link early next week and submit your questions about NCAA Tournament selection, the bubble, your team’s outlook, etc. In the meantime, we’ll answer as many questions or complaints as we can in the comments section below.
| First Four Out | Next Four Out | Last Four In | Last Four Byes |
|---|---|---|---|
Gonzaga | UCF | Boise State | Mississippi State |
Wake Forest | James Madison | TCU | Seton Hall |
Cincinnati | Georgia | Nevada | New Mexico |
Ole Miss | Washington State | Colorado | Kansas State |
| League | Bids |
|---|---|
Big 12 | 10 |
Big East | 7 |
SEC | 7 |
Big Ten | 6 |
Mountain West | 6 |
ACC | 3 |
Pac-12 | 3 |
AAC | 2 |
1 | Purdue | AQ |
2 | UConn | AQ |
3 | Houston | AQ |
4 | UNC | AQ |
5 | Tennessee | AQ |
6 | Kansas | |
7 | Arizona | AQ |
8 | Wisconsin | |
9 | Marquette | |
10 | Auburn | |
11 | Creighton | |
12 | Dayton | AQ |
13 | Illinois | |
14 | Alabama | |
15 | Kentucky | |
16 | Iowa State | |
17 | Baylor | |
18 | Duke | |
19 | BYU | |
20 | San Diego State | AQ |
21 | Colorado State | |
22 | Oklahoma | |
23 | Florida Atlantic | AQ |
24 | Utah State | |
25 | Utah | |
26 | Clemson | |
27 | St. John's | |
28 | Michigan State | |
29 | Memphis | |
30 | Villanova | |
31 | Northwestern | |
32 | Nebraska | |
33 | Texas A&M | |
34 | Texas Tech | |
35 | South Carolina | |
36 | Texas | |
37 | Providence | |
38 | Mississippi State | |
39 | Seton Hall | |
40 | New Mexico | |
41 | Saint Mary's | AQ |
42 | Princeton | AQ |
43 | Kansas State | |
44 | Boise State | |
45 | TCU | |
46 | Nevada | |
47 | Colorado | |
48 | Grand Canyon | AQ |
49 | Indiana State | AQ |
50 | McNeese | AQ |
51 | UC Irvine | AQ |
52 | Appalachian State | AQ |
53 | Samford | AQ |
54 | Akron | AQ |
55 | Louisiana Tech | AQ |
56 | Drexel | AQ |
57 | Morehead State | AQ |
58 | High Point | AQ |
59 | Eastern Washington | AQ |
60 | Vermont | AQ |
61 | Green Bay | AQ |
62 | South Dakota State | AQ |
63 | Colgate | AQ |
64 | Quinnipiac | AQ |
65 | Merrimack | AQ |
66 | Eastern Kentucky | AQ |
67 | Jackson State | AQ |
68 | NC Central | AQ |
(Top photo of San Diego State’s Darrion Trammell and New Mexico’s Donovan Dent: Eric Draper / AP)
