This is the sign of life that we have been waiting for from Jim Christian's recruiting efforts.  6'9'' 240 lb power forward Ryan Rhoomes from Queens, NY has committed to play for the Frogs next season and bring a much needed physical presence to the front court.  Rhoomes chose TCU over his other finalists Oklahoma State, Seton Hall & Providence.  Interestingly enough Rhoomes listed having to play one year in the MWC before heading to the Big East as a selling point.   Rhoomes will now go from recruit to recruiter as he looks for other top talent to join him in Fort Worth and priority #1 is Brooklyn point guard Shaquille Stokes.

San Diego State Aztecs head coach Steve Fisher receives his second Coach of the Year award announced tonight garnering the coveted NABC Coach of the Year award which is voted on by all of the countries coaches. He also received the Adolph F. Rupp Cup named for the famous University of Kentucky head coach.

Steve Fisher said this award carries special significance because it is voted on by his coaching peers around the nation who are the best to be able to say what it takes to be a basketball coach. Fisher received this award at a ceremony at the Final Four in Houston where he is attending the ceremonies and watching the games. Fisher led the Aztecs to a school record 34-3 and gaining the program's first two NCAA tournament wins and first Sweet 16 appearance.

Mike Brey of Notre Dame won the other two major coaching awards, the AP's and USBWA Coach of the Year awards. The Naismith award is the last major award to be given and is scheduled to be announced tonight.

UPDATE: Steve Fisher was named Naismith Division I National Coach of the Year.

Throughout the College Basketball season, debates always seem to happen about which conference is the best and toughest to play in for College Basketball. Among the discussion most of the time is the Big East, Big Ten, ACC, and just recently the Big 12. Where most arguments come in is how to measure which conference has better depth and who has more of the elite teams. Since the power changes from year to year due to the process each team goes through in peaking, then rebuilding, then peaking, then rebuilding, and so on, it seems only fair that you should look back after the season has ended and rank the conferences then.

The reason I am writing this now and not after the National Championship is because we already know who the best of the best are. Once you get to the Sweet Sixteen, you have those elite teams since now is when they begin to play eachother. Think about it, during the regular season when two Top 16 teams meet up, you know both are worthy material to be in that rank, but you also know one of them will have to go down even though both are elite. The only difference is that the only remaining matchups are between Top 16 teams and there are no more seperations to be made when categorizing each team.

I have given each team in each conference a rating, based on this rubric.

(Note: When I say "In the NCAA Tournament," I mean they got into the NCAA Tournament, but did not make it to the second weekend)

Using this rubric to assign ratings to each team in each conference, here is the process that I follow in finding the grade for each conference: 1) I add the rating of each team in the conference. 2) I take that number and divide it by the number of teams in that conference to get the average rating.

Now that you understand the process, let's take a look at each conference and then the rankings.

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While most of the College Basketball world will have their attention turned to the First Four beginning tonight, us MWC fans actually have some good games to watch. The NIT, CIT, and CBI tournaments all begin play tonight and the Mountain West has two teams in the NIT and one in the CIT. New Mexico renews its rivalry with UTEP and Colorado State hosts Fairfield in the first round of the NIT. Both teams are playing at home, and both are expected to be sell-outs. Air Force also plays North Dakota, but that won't be on television as the CIT isn't exactly the tournament to watch.

All games start at 7:00 P.M. Mountain time, so the games should be pretty easy to keep track of. UTEP @ New Mexico is going to be on ESPN2, so that one we should be able to see in HD. Fairfield @ Colorado State is only on ESPN3.com and North Dakota @ Air Force isn't anywhere except for GameCast or GameTracker.

An interesting note is that North Dakota got into the CIT by hitting a buzzer beater to beat South Dakota in the Great West championship. Since the Great West was only formed a few years ago, it hasn't yet accumulated enough years to get an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.

Speaking of the Great West, anyone notice that the conference spans from Coast-to-Coast? Their members are Texas Pan-American, Chicago State, Cal Poly, Houston Baptist, North Dakota State, South Dakota State, NJIT (New Jersey Institute of Technology, Southern Utah, UC Davis, and Utah Valley. That's 2 schools in California, 2 in Utah, 2 in Texas, 1 in Illinois, 1 in each Dakota, and one in New Jersey. Travel must be an absolute nightmare for those AD's.

Anyway, go ahead and talk about tonight's Mountain West games as well as the First Four which kicks off on TruTV tonight.

Let's hear what you think. Register for a free account here on the site so you can leave your comments and predictions.

In the 2 previous matchups between BYU and San Diego State, the whole country was watching. The question this time is whether or not it will happen again, as the Big East championship among others will be going on at the same time.

Let's hear what you think. Register for a free account here on the site so you can leave your comments and predictions.

After the regular season concluded last night, the Mountain West Tournament bracket was set. BYU and San Diego State shared the Regular Season Conference Championship, but BYU held the tiebreaker and receives the #1 seed. UNLV checks in at the #3 seed after their road throttling of Utah. Colorado State and New Mexico are the 3 and 5 seeds, respectively. Air Force owns the 6 seed, Utah owns the 7 seed, and Wyoming will play TCU in the play-in game as the 8 and 9 seeds, respectively.

To see the bracket picture released by the Mountain West, click here.

If you don't want to go to another page, or can't, then I'll explain the process here, after the jump.

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This Saturday after Wisconsin had knocked off the #1 ranked Ohio State Buckeyes the twitter-sphere was all abuzz after Buckeye's freshman center Jared Sullinger tweeted that Badger fans had spit in his face:

"Buckeye Nation if you ever decide to rush the court. Don't ever spit on the opponents. Just a lil tip from me to you."

"To be spit on is just nasty. On top of that in my Face. Before and after the game. Smh (shake my head). I just kept walking."

All I can say about this is that spitting in someone's face is disgusting, classless, lewd, and I told you so when it comes to Badger fans.

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The latest college basketball polls are out and in the AP poll both BYU and San Diego State moved up a spot due to Villanova losing one game last week. Also in the AP poll, both Colorado State and UNLV both received votes.

The number one spot overall goes to Kansas, but by no means are they the consensus as Texas actually received more first place votes and are ranked third. All of the first place votes are split among the top four teams.

Here are the complete AP rankings.

OTHERS RECEIVING VOTES: West Virginia(16-8) 58; St. Mary's(22-4) 52; Coastal Carolina(24-2) 32; UCLA(18-7) 32; George Mason(21-5) 28; St. John's(15-9) 26; Washington(17-7) 23; Alabama(16-8) 13; Florida State(18-7) 11; Marquette(15-10) 6; Baylor(16-8) 5; Belmont(23-4) 5; Colorado State(17-7) 5; Minnesota(17-8) 4; UNLV(18-7) 3

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