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NCAA Tournament Instant Reaction: Mountain West Gets Disrespected

Yes four teams made the NCAA tournament but the seeding is a bit odd specifically for BYU and San Diego State. First off here are the game schedule for the Mountain West.

6 Tennessee v. 11 San Diego State

7 BYU v. 10 Florida

3 New Mexico v. 14 Montana

8 UNLV v. 9 University of Northern Iowa

The biggest complaints comes from San Diego State and BYU who should be higher, and to a lesser extent UNLV. Nearly all year BYU was seen as a three to a five seed through all the bracketology sites but were surprised Sunday with a seven seed. Below is BYU's RPI and SOS from CBS Sports.

Strength of Schedule and RPI
Home Away Neutral SOS SOS Rank RPI RPI Rank
All Division I games games (28-5) 15-1 10-4 3-0 0.5252 116 0.6120 24
Conference games (14-4) 7-1 6-3 1-0 0.5241 129 0.5955 35
Non-conference D-I games (14-1) 8-0 4-1 2-0 0.4897 196 0.6057 25

Record vs. Teams Ranked in the CBSSports.com RPI
No. 1-25 No. 26-50 No. 51-75 No. 76-100 No. 101-200 No. 201+
2-2 2-3 2-0 2-0 10-0 10-0
H A N H A N H A N H A N H A N H A N
1-1 1-1 0-0 1-0 1-3 0-0 1-0 0-0 1-0 1-0 1-0 0-0 4-0 4-0 2-0 7-0 3-0 0-0

Their strength of schedule could have been the reason, and possibly losing against New Mexico at the end of the season -- but without a fulls strength Jimmer Fredette -- and then losing to San Diego State in the conference tournament semis. Plus I doubt seed line could make a difference with BYU only being able to play a Thursday/Saturday regional. One seeding could be the reason and the only logical spot to put BYU and keep within the rules would have been a six seed in New Orleans and taking Notre Dames spot or possibly Butler but they are even under seeded.

Now onto the Aztecs, they won the conference tournament and had an RPI in the top 20. The thing to hold back the Aztecs were to plus 100 loses against bad RPI teams, and their ability to not win against big time RPI opponents.

The chart below looks at that by only going 4-5 against top 50 RPI teams and tat they did not won only one game road game against a top 50 RPI team. The Aztecs came on strong and a seven seed would not have been out of the question.

Strength of Schedule and RPI
Home Away Neutral SOS SOS Rank RPI RPI Rank
All Division I games games (23-8) 12-1 9-7 2-0 0.5558 49 0.6158 18
Conference games (14-5) 7-1 5-4 2-0 0.5493 98 0.6061 21
Non-conference D-I games (9-3) 5-0 4-3 0-0 0.5170 124 0.5945 36
Record vs. Teams Ranked in the CBSSports.com RPI
No. 1-25 No. 26-50 No. 51-75 No. 76-100 No. 101-200 No. 201+
2-3 2-2 0-1 2-0 10-1 7-1
H A N H A N H A N H A N H A N H A N
1-1 0-2 1-0 1-0 1-2 0-0 0-0 0-1 0-0 1-0 1-0 0-0 4-0 5-1 1-0 5-0 2-1 0-0
KEY: H = Home; A = Away; N = Neutral