By Aidan Joly
The Mountain West Conference has always been one of those leagues that is on the outside of being looked at as an elite league, but is trying to be.
This year’s edition of the league might be as good as ever and as deep as ever.
The simple facts lay in the analytical rankings. As of Thursday, every team in the 11-team league ranks in the top 170 in KenPom, seven of them ranking in the top 100. When you look at the NET rankings, six teams rank in the top 60. Putting it frankly, this is the best the league has been in quite some time.
Most of the time, you see one or two teams in that league sticking out – whether it be San Diego State, New Mexico, Nevada or Utah State most of the time – and the rest treading water, but that’s not the case this year.
New Mexico right now is the best team in the league record-wise, sitting at 13-0 as one of the three remaining unbeaten teams in the league and found itself ranked in the AP Poll this week for the first time since the 2013-14 season. Second-year head coach Richard Pitino deserves a ton of credit for putting together a team this strong this early in his tenure, having already matched the team’s win total from last year. This is a program that hasn’t even finished above .500 in conference play since 2017-18 and has not made the NCAA tournament since 2014. Surely, both of those things will change this year.
However, two teams sit above the Lobos in KenPom, with San Diego State sitting at No. 26 and Utah State at No. 39, ahead of the No. 58 Lobos. It is worth noting that Boise State sits at 59th.
San Diego State sits at 10-3, which includes wins against Ohio State, Stanford and BYU. Meanwhile, Utah State sits at 11-2, its only losses coming by three points to Weber State and SMU. Boise State is 10-4, Nevada is 11-2 and UNLV is also 11-2 to round out most of the teams at the top of the league.
Heck, even perennial basement-dweller San Jose State is getting in on the success. The program got a bit of a shot in the arm when it hired former Nebraska and Colorado State head coach Tim Miles ahead of last season, but it’s probably fair to say nobody thought it would happen this quick. It had a lot of growing pains last year with an 8-23, 1-17 record, but has 10 wins already, already clinching the program’s first double-digit win season since 2016-17. In fact, with a 1-0 conference start, it is above .500 in conference play since it joined the Mountain West in 2013.
The last time the Spartans had an overall winning record was a 17-16 season in 2010-11. That may or may not change, but the Spartans are off to the right start. Miles’ familiarity with the league from his time with Colorado State (2007-12) certainly helps. When at CSU, his team went 0-16 in league play, then went to the NCAA tournament four years later. San Jose State has not made the NCAA tournament since 1996.
It remains to be seen how the rest of league play will go and more importantly, how the NCAA selection committee will evaluate this league come March. But right now, every night in this league will be a battle.
AJ Hoops 