Mountain West Basketball: Final power rankings for 2019-20 season

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA - MARCH 07: Sam Merrill #5 of the Utah State Aggies is names MVP after defeating the San Diego State Aztecs to win the championship game of the Mountain West Conference basketball tournament at the Thomas & Mack Center on March 7, 2020 in Las Vegas, Nevada. The Aggies defeated the Aztecs 59-56. (Photo by Joe Buglewicz/Getty Images) /

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FORT COLLINS, CO – FEBRUARY 06: Colorado State mascot, CAM the Ram, (Photo by Timothy Nwachukwu/Getty Images) ***Local Caption*** /

7. Colorado State (-2)

This season could have ended so much differently for Colorado State. They had San Diego State in trouble on the road in the second half of their game, but they couldn’t seal the deal and ended up letting the game slip through their fingers. That win would’ve been very important for them in these rankings and would’ve allowed them to jump Boise State for the last bye in the conference tournament. Instead, they were stuck playing a first-round game against Wyoming. Then they really took a downturn.

The fact that Wyoming was able to keep that game competitive wasn’t surprising and wouldn’t have been held against CSU. However, Wyoming winning that game and really controlling it from start to finish really makes you wonder just how good Colorado State actually was this season.

For most of the year, the Rams were a strong team at home, only losing to Utah State and San Diego State there in conference, but didn’t do anything particularly impressive on the road. All of their road wins came against the bottom-4 teams in the conference and had a couple of really bad results on the road against UNLV and Utah State. The fact that they went to a neutral site and looked like they were outmatched by a Wyoming team that only had two conference wins at that point makes it somewhat difficult not to believe that CSU might have just been smoke and mirrors,

It would have been interesting to see what would have happened with the Rams if the season had continued. Before the conference tournam,ent they had a decent shot at an NIT spot, but this loss very well may have completely taken them out of that conversation. Luckily for them, we’ll never know what would have happened, but we do know that it knocked them down to the bottom half of the season’s final power rankings.