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.
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