The Mountain West went 2-4 in this years tournament with the only real upset was with New Mexico getting smoked by eleven seeded Washington, 82-64. BYU ended up losing to Kansas State 84-72 mainly because of allowing Jacob Pullen.
Starting with New Mexico it is safe to assume that making fun of the Pac-10 for being a bad conference is off limits. Mountain West player of the year Darrington Hobson was held to 11 points for the second straight game, and the only Lobo to show up was Dairese Gary who had a career high 25 points which is double his season average.
Washington was too much for New Mexico with their fast paced style of game as they had four players score in double figures and were lead by Quincy Pondexter with 18 points. Washington used multiple players who did a good job scoring with their uptempo pass, while New Mexico really only had Dairese Gary and then the rest of the team did not really do too much.
The Lobos made a mistake of trying to play at the pace of Washington during the first half where they trailed nearly the entire half and ended up being down 12. New Mexico was never really able to mount a comeback or use their strengths to mount a comeback. The Huskies had too many scoring options for New Mexico to stop. New Mexico really should have been a legit elite eight or possibly an outside final four team.
Then on to the BYU game which was all a big tease with BYU leading 10-0 in the first half. The biggest change in the game was when Kansas State changed defensive assignments by putting Jacob Pullen on Jimmer Fredette. Jimmer was shut down after the quick BYU start in this game. Pullen was a man for K-State as he was on fire from anywhere on the court as he hit 7-12 three pointers and ended up with 34 points.
Kansas State used a swarming defense that allowed no BYU player an inch of room and shut down the entire BYU offense. Foul trouble was an issue as well for the Cougars; a category that typically leans toward Kansas State. BYU's only big men had three fouls early in the second half which lead to a rebounding deficiency. Kansas State had eleven offensive rebounds which were resulting in points and they out rebounded BYU by nine.
Kansas State made the early adjustments will BYU was unable to counter those adjustments, and the foul trouble was an issue as well that lead to the BYU loss.