Bracketology 2024: Analyzing resumes of the 6 current Mountain West at-large contenders

Boise State

Fresh off back-to-back trips to the Big Dance, the Broncos’ play to this point in the season is indicative of a team that wants to make it three straight NCAA Tournaments. They’re a hair behind where they were sitting these last two seasons, though the MWC as a whole is a stronger league. Boise State has the lowest NET among these six schools, currently sitting down at 49, but it’s their 5 Quad 1 wins that has attention on them.

Boise State dropped several tough games early in the season alongside Quad 2 wins over San Francisco and VCU. Their first Quad 1 victory came against Saint Mary’s on the first day of December and they’ve added to that total since conference play began. They got off to a 3-0 start with Quad 1 wins over Colorado State and at Nevada. Impressively, they won as heavy underdogs at New Mexico a few weeks later, though their most recent outings were tough road losses against Colorado State and Utah State.

Losing those two games by double-digits was not ideal and hurt this resume, but Boise State still has potential. They have seven Quad 1 or 2 wins but also have a rough home loss to UNLV weighing them down as a Quad 3 defeat. What really stings for the Broncos is a lack of opportunities in the coming weeks. Their last three games will be against these top squads in the MWC, but the next four are against the bottom feeders, meaning four straight wins is necessary.