NCAA Tournament Bubble Watch: Five Mountain West Teams In The Mix

by Jeremy Mauss on Feb 3, 2012 5:19 PM PST in Mountain West Basketball

Selection Sunday is about five weeks away and the Mountain West is having one of their better seasons in a long time (and I apologize for the lack of hoops coverage) and is better than the Pac-12. Over at SB Nation Chris Dobbertean (also the proprietor of Blogging the Bracket) put together a Bubble Watch, and it includes the UNLV as a lock and a No. 3 seed as well as the San Diego State with a No. 5 seed.

The locks:

1 seeds	1. Syracuse	2. Kentucky	3. Baylor	4. Ohio State
2 seeds	8. North Carolina	7. Missouri	6. Kansas	5. Duke
3 seeds	9. Michigan State	10. UNLV	11. Georgetown	12. Marquette
4 seeds	16. Murray State*	15. Florida	14. Wisconsin	13. Creighton
5 seeds	17. Michigan	18. San Diego State	19. Virginia	20. St. Mary's
6 seeds		23. Vanderbilt	22. Florida State	21. Mississippi State

New Mexico Lobos is slotted as a No. 10 seed and are listed as a bubble team:

9 seeds	33. Wichita State	34. Memphis	35. Purdue	36. Seton Hall
10 seeds	40. New Mexico	39. Harvard	38. Iowa State	37. Washington
11 seeds	41. Minnesota

Colorado State is in the 'Next Four Out' category meaning they have some work to do:

Last 4 Out	69. BYU	70. Texas	71. Northwestern	72. Mississippi
Next 4 Out	73. Colorado State	74. N.C. State	75. UCF	76. Stanford

The Wyoming Cowboys also make an appearance as a bubble watch but they have a long way to go.

There is a potential for four Mountain West teams to make the tournament, but for that to happen Colorado State needs more quality wins. As of now they are getting credit for good loses against teams with winning records in Duke, Stanford, UNLV, Wyoming, New Mexico, Southern Miss and Northern Iowa. Colorado State has a win over San Diego State, but they need to win their next two games against New Mexico and Wyoming to earn some quality wins, this time around those two games will be at home. Colorado State hosts UNLV, but that might be asking too much, and they probably will need to get to the conference title game to safely earn an at-large bid.

As for Wyoming being that fourth team will require a lot more than what Colorado State needs. Wyoming needs to win at least two against New Mexico, San Diego State and UNLV, plus another win over Colorado State would go a long way in getting an at-large bid.