username: pass:

THEMTN.TV SCOREBOARD

Knudson: MWC Hoops Looking Pretty Powerful


Facebook

Dec. 10th, 2010

by Mark Knudson

Thankfully there is no BCS system for college basketball.

Every student athlete that enrolls at a Mountain West Conference school has a legitimate opportunity to compete for a national championship in hoops.

It’s not far-fetched. UNLV owns a national title and a runner-up finish, while Utah was one win away from a national championship in 1998.

No one expects any of the MWC squads go get quite that far this season, but there’s no question that there are squads from the conference that are going to make some serious noise in the post season.

Normally a one or two bid league, last season the MWC got four bids to the NCAA tournament. Whether or not that can become the norm rather than the exception is anyone’s guess, but the bar has been set.

Now it’s up to the conference teams to live up to it.

On the men’s side, Conference favorite San Diego State is off to a blazing start after crushing Cal from the Pac 10 by 20 points to move to 9-0 on the season.

Newsflash: Kawhi Leonard is all that.

Same goes for Jimmer Fredette and BYU, which blasted Vermont to continue their own climb up the national rankings. Also on an early season roll is UNLV, nationally ranked and unbeaten. The Rebels are off to their best start since the 1990-91 season when they started 34-0 before losing to Duke in the national title game.

The other member of the Conference’s “big four”, New Mexico, got off to a 6-1 start even while reloading after losing some key members of last year’s MWC regular season title team.

Teams not considered candidates for the NCAA tourney before the season are making some early noise as well.

TCU went into Lubbock and knocked off Texas Tech, considered a middle-of-the-pack team in the Big 12.

On the same night, another mid-level MWC squad, Colorado State, took Big 12 member Colorado into overtime in Boulder before suffering a narrow loss. CU is considered a threat to make the NCAA’s.

Utah, Air Force, CSU and TCU have all had solid early season performances. Thus far, only Wyoming has a losing record as we reach the end of the second week of December.

The Conference’s overall level of play in basketball is not subject to the same type of scrutiny as football, but nonetheless, conference power rankings do come into play when it’s time to hand out the at-large post season bids.

So far so good.

Three teams unbeaten and in the Top 20 bodes well for the rest of the season.

What will happen with the new-look MWC over the next couple of years, basketball-wise?

Losing BYU and Utah will hurt.

Boise State doesn’t bring the same cache in hoops as in football.

Fresno State and Nevada are also known more as “football” schools.

That means that Conference pride (and computer rankings) will still rest largely on the shoulders of programs like New Mexico, UNLV and San Diego State.

That’s not bad news for the MWC.