MWC back at No. 2 in RPI, down to No. 6 in Sagarin

The Mountain West returned to No. 2 in the Ratings Percentage Index on Monday but fell four spots to No. 6 in USA Today's ratings by Jeff Sagarin, a shocking drop no doubt affected by a pair of losses suffered by the Wyoming Cowboys and the Boise St. Broncos' loss to Air Force last Saturday.

In the RPI (as listed Monday by realtimerpi.com), the MWC moved up from No. 3 last week back up to No. 2 overall behind the Big Ten Conference.

Rank		Conference	Avg. RPI	Avg. SOS	SOS Rank	Teams
	1	Big Ten	0.5923	0.5737	1	12
	2	Mountain West	0.5869	0.5530	6	9
	3	Big East	0.5866	0.5613	2	15
	4	Atlantic Coast	0.5762	0.5554	5	12
	5	Big 12	0.5697	0.5556	4	10
	6	Pacific-12	0.5697	0.5590	3	12
	7	Atlantic 10	0.5544	0.5431	7	16
	8	Southeastern	0.5485	0.5416	8	14
	9	Missouri Valley	0.5365	0.5318	9	10
	10	West Coast	0.5328	0.5254	10	9

The MWC's move up a spot and the Big East Conference's move down were the only major moves in the top 10.

In the individual rankings, the New Mexico Lobos, UNLV Runnin' Rebels, San Diego St. Aztecs and Fresno St. Bulldogs all made modest moves up while Wyoming and Boise St. both made double moves down.

The Air Force Falcons and Nevada Wolf Pack both made double moves up, with Air Force moving in the RPI Top 75.

RPI Rk		Mountain West	Conf	All	RPI	SOS Rk	SOS
	7	New Mexico	4-1	17-3	0.6705	6	0.6110
	17	UNLV	3-2	15-4	0.6348	19	0.5823
	23	Colorado State	3-2	14-4	0.6263	54	0.5589
	29	San Diego State	4-2	14-4	0.6160	42	0.5673
	55	Wyoming	2-4	13-4	0.5803	105	0.5248
	66	Boise State	2-3	12-5	0.5725	121	0.5144
	71	Air Force	3-2	10-6	0.5618	87	0.5333
	138	Nevada	2-3	10-8	0.5186	112	0.5203
	167	Fresno State	1-5	5-12	0.5010	48	0.5645

With losses by the Cowboys and Broncos, the MWC was left with only four teams in the RPI Top 50 after having six for most of the season.

The dramatic drop in USA Today's Sagarin ratings is also due to the dramatic drop by Wyoming and Boise St. over the last week.

The MWC fell just 2/100th of a point behind the Pac-12 in Sagarin and almost a full point behind the Atlantic Coast Conference.

The MWC's fall in Sagarin can mostly attributed to falls by Wyoming (32 to 69) and Boise St. (48 to 91) as well as New Mexico, which Sagarin dropped from 25 to 38 for a loss to SDSU, which was then ranked 33 by Sagarin - presumably because the Lobos lost by over 20 points.

Bracketology experts have had the MWC getting six teams in to the NCAA tournament for weeks now. This dramatic fall in the Sagarin rankings may be the first inkling that the MWC will get fewer teams into March Madness.