Which conference race is the most interesting, most compelling, most up in the air, and most important?
It's not the Big Twelve. They might be the best conference (ok they are), but Houston pretty much has that one wrapped up—not from a conference standings standpoint, where things are pretty tight, but from a "who is the best team in the conference?" standpoint. And from "who is going to be the top seed from this conference?" standpoint.
Because while there are many tight conference races by wins and losses, the teams overall tend to fall into groups, with one rising above the rest over all games of the season.
Take the Big Ten. Purdue is only a few games ahead of Illinois, and there's a tight race in the rest of the pack. But Purdue looks like a 1-seed, and no other teams looks much better than a 5-seed right now.
So cross off the Big Ten. Big East? UConn has just 1 conference loss, and Marquette 3. Everyone else has 5 losses. Next!
ACC? North Carolina, Duke, and Virginia are the competitors right now. Really? Who cares. North Carolina is gunning for a 1-seed, the rest look like also-rans. The Cavs look like a 9-seed to us, Duke a common 4-seed. No big race there.
Pac-12? You've gotta be kidding. Arizona is a likely 1-seed and that might be the conference's only bid. (We project three teams from the Pac-12, and right now we show three teams in: 1-seed Arizona, 10-seed Washington State, and 12-seed play-in Utah as the Last Team In. The Pac-12 also has the First Team Out, Colorado, so there could easily be 4 teams in...or just 2).
Anyway it's not the Pac-12.
How about the SEC? That's the first good answer yet. Seven teams have 2, 3, or 4 conference losses. More importantly, they have three teams—Alabama, Auburn, and Tennessee—neck and neck gunning for a 2-seed. Add in 20-3 South Carolina and you have a great conference race. But it's not the best.
No, the best is the Mountain West. Six teams are in the running for the Big Dance. And no one knows who the best team in the conference is, nor who will win the regular season or who should be favored in the conference tournament.
Right now we project New Mexico, Utah State, and Colorado State as 5-seeds; San Diego State as a 6-seed; Nevada an 8-seed; and Boise State (last week a 7-seed) as an 11-seed.
Dance Chance for games through Sunday, February 11
[ Record || Dance Chance || Seed 2/11 2/04] Rank Team Conf Curr Proj %Odds %Chg 1-seed Now Proj Proj 18. New Mexico MWC 19-5 24-7 93.2 -2.5 <0.1 7 5 4 19. Colorado St. MWC 19-5 24-7 89.8 +6.3 -- 6 5 6 20. Utah St. MWC 20-4 27-6 89.5 -0.5 -- 5 5 5 23. San Diego St. MWC 18-6 23-8 87.6 +0.8 <0.1 5 6 5 30. Nevada MWC 19-5 24-8 75.6 +19.1 -- 7 8 11 41. Boise St. MWC 16-8 21-10 62.8 -13.6 -- 12p 11 7
Though we show six teams projected to get in, when you add up the odds it comes out to an expectation for five teams to make it from the MWC.
The conference race is super-close, too:
Team Rec Conf Utah St. 20-4 8-3 San Diego St. 18-6 7-4 New Mexico 19-5 7-4 Colorado St. 19-5 7-4 Boise St. 16-8 7-4 Nevada 19-5 6-4 UNLV 13-9 6-4
Utah State has 3 losses, and six other teams have 4 losses. It's almost a fool's errand to try to pick the regular-season winner.
So who is going to win the conference tournament? Let's look at their Strength ratings:
# Team Record Rating
18. New Mexico 19-5 18.55
27. Colorado St. 19-5 16.49
29. San Diego St. 18-6 16.40
35. Utah St. 20-4 16.10
47. Nevada 19-5 14.27
49. Boise St. 16-8 14.18
New Mexico has the edge, and after that a cluster of three teams (Colorado State, SDSU, and Utah State) are too close to call as 2nd best. Nevada and Boise lag behind.
But the venue is Las Vegas, which might give Nevada a boost, and maybe even UNLV. Regardless, most probably favor San Diego State after last year's NCAA tournament run, and they rank best in Pomeroy of the six contenders by a whisker over New Mexico.
So I'd say New Mexico and SDSU are co-favorites, with Colorado State and Utah State both viable. Nevada and especially Boise would be longer shots, with UNLV a very long shot as home favorite.
Regardless, this is the most interesting conference race of the year. The Mountain West is a legit Major conference in 2024 and should have more teams (5) than the Pac-12 (3) and probably the same as the ACC (5). The Big Ten and Big East might only have five teams each. Only the Big Twelve (8-9 teams) and SEC (7-ish) look certain to have more teams than the Mountain West, who could even end up #3 with six teams in.
That's why every game from here on out is important, and if you want to scout the Big Dance properly you have to pay attention to the Mountain West—as much as almost any other conference.
Comments