Mountain West Basketball Power Rankings: Lobos tumble, Rams climb

Mountain West Basketball power rankings: Lobos tumble, Rams climb

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA - JANUARY 22: Head coach Paul Weir of the New Mexico Lobos reacts during his team's game against the UNLV Rebels at the Thomas & Mack Center on January 22, 2019 in Las Vegas, Nevada. The Rebels defeated the Lobos 74-58. (Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images) /

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COLUMBUS, OHIO – MARCH 22: Big Blue, mascot for the Utah State Aggies, (Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images) /

8. Utah State

I really don’t understand what has happened to Utah State since the start of the new year. At the end of 2019, they were 13-2 with wins over LSU and Florida. Their only losses were to Saint Mary’s and BYU, two teams who could both end up in the NCAA tournament this season. They returned last season’s Mountain West Player of the Year and Mountain West Defensive Player of the Year but hasn’t seemed to matter this month.

Since January 1st, they are 1-4 in the conference and have been absolutely miserable on the road. It started with them getting losing by 17 in Vegas in their first game in 2020. They had a chance to turn things around when they welcomed San Diego State to Logan, but the Aztecs controlled that game from start to finish and let Utah State know the best they’d be this season is second best. Then even that became far-fetched. They were demolished in the second half against Air Force last week after leading by three at halftime.

They gave themselves some hope when they beat Nevada at home earlier this week, but the week couldn’t have ended in a worse way for the Aggies. Everything was going great for Utah State. They were cruising to a big road win against Boise State. All they had to was not blow it. Then they had one of the worst collapses of the year. They were up by 18 points with under 4 and a half minutes left and up by five with eight seconds left, but ended up allowing Boise State to send the game into overtime. They ended up losing in overtime to complete the disaster.

If they can turn things around against Air Force and Colorado State this week then Utah State will quickly work their way back up this list, but the Aggies haven’t shown me anything since the start of 2020 to make me think they deserve to be higher than 8th.