Mountain West Basketball: Way-too-early 2020-21 power rankings

1. San Diego State

I felt much more confident in this prediction when I was writing San Diego State’s season review. I thought that Malachi Flynn would stick around to make the NCAA tournament run he was robbed of this year. However, he’s headed to the NBA, which leaves SDSU’s backcourt in a tough spot.

They were already losing KJ Feagin, which left them with a void to fill. Now, one of the country’s best defenses is losing two of college basketball’s best defensive guards. That doesn’t exactly sound like a recipe for success. They landed Terrell Gomez from CS Northridge to make up for the lost scoring, but SDSU has always been a program that is built on defense and they might have some trouble maintaining that identity.

The rest of the roster should be able to keep SDSU at the top of the conference. Jordan Schakel will be returning and should remain a solid contributor to this offense. Nathan Mensah should also be back after a health problem that cost him most of last season. He should give them a dominant inside presence to really round out the squad.

There is also some good draft news for Aztec fans. Matt Mitchell declared for the draft, but there are reports indicating that he intends to return to school. That keeps one of the star players who lifted them up this year on the squad and he could be even better in his senior year.

This team might stumble early in the season, especially since we have no idea when anybody will be practicing together again, but I believe that they are still the best team in the conference.