It has been a wild season for Mountain West Basketball. How will the conference tournament ultimately play out?
We nearly saw the conference’s first undefeated and actually did see its the second season with only one loss. We saw Utah State fall apart and then pull themselves back together just in time to keep themselves in the race for an NCAA tournament bid. We saw UNLV go from below .500 to the 4 seed in the Mountain West Basketball tournament. We saw Jalen Harris put up gaudy scoring numbers for Nevada.
Then there was the not so great. There was Fresno State underachieving. There was New Mexico’s trouble with the law and resulting implosion. There was San Jose State’s winless month to end the season. There was Wyoming’s winless January to start conference play. It all brought us to this Mountain West tournament.
Everybody will be vying to knock off the kings of the conference, San Diego State, as they look to add another trophy to their collection this season. They’ve seemed invincible for most of the year, but could there be somebody else destined to take home the trophy? Could it be the preseason favorite, Utah State? Could it be the conference’s biggest surprise, UNLV? Could New Mexico reclaim the magic they’ve enjoyed in Las Vegas in the past?
This will all go down at the Thomas and Mack from March 4th-7th in what promises to be another exciting installment of March basketball. Let’s take a look at all of the things you need to know heading into this tournament and my predictions for how this will play out.