NCAA Basketball: Butler, Gonzaga among teams under most pressure to win this week

New Mexico Lobos - 21-7 (9-6 Mountain West)

There’s some parallel between this year’s Ole Miss team and New Mexico from last year, as an unbeaten start ended with a disastrous finish to take them out of the NCAA Tournament. This year, the Lobos had another good start and got some good wins in Mountain West play to “feel” safe.

However, the Lobos recently just took as bad of a loss as possible last weekend. They lost to Air Force, the worst team in the Mountain West, and a Quad 4 setback. With two bad losses and just a 5-5 record against Quad 1/2 opponents, New Mexico sees itself squarely on the bubble heading into this week.

They have three games left in the regular season with two of them coming on the road. The first is on Saturday against Boise State, a team that’s fairly safe itself in the NCAA Tournament field. New Mexico already has a home loss to them to getting swept wouldn’t be ideal.

If the Lobos get the Quad 1 road win, they’ll put themselves back on the right side of the bubble. However, if they don’t, it likely puts them in a position where they’ll need to sweep the final week of the season, taking on Fresno State at home and needing to win at Utah State. That’ll be a tough task indeed.