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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ALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO – FEBRUARY 29: Corey Manigault #1 of the New Mexico Lobos (Photo by Sam Wasson/Getty Images) /

6. New Mexico (+2)

This certainly wasn’t the season Lobo fans were hoping for, but New Mexico seemed to finally get their act together in the last four games of the season. Their game at Air Force was the first road game in months where they actually looked like a cohesive unit for most of the game and looked like they were on their way to a win before a couple of miscues caused them to fall just short. Then they put in their most impressive performance of the conference season when they took down Utah State at The Pit.

In the Mountain West tournament, they easily took out San Jose State, dominating start to finish. Then they played a rematch against Utah State in round 2 and nearly dealt the conference’s 2nd best team their 2nd loss in 6 days.

The ending certainly didn’t make up for everything this team put their fans through during the conference schedule, but it at least allowed them to climb a couple of spots in these final power rankings. It really makes me wish we had gotten to see this team healthy all season long because they might have actually been able to compete with Vance Jackson and JaQuan Lyle healthy even in spite of their other issues.

The team we saw over the last two weeks leads me to believe that the Lobos could have made a decent run in this conference even without Carlton Bragg and JJ Caldwell. Still, the limited exposure we got to them at their best to close the season is enough for them to climb into the middle of the conference rankings.