Mountain West basketball preseason rankings: San Diego State is overwhelming favorite

The media will release its preseason Mountain West basketball polls that will consist of not only the order of finish but also all-league team, player of the year, freshman and newcomers. Here at Mountain West Connection we stuck with the easy portion by providing our preseason power poll.

It should come to no shock that San Diego State enters the season as the top team, but it was New Mexico who snagged the one vote to keep this from making the Aztecs an unanimous choice.

UNLV was a reasonably solid second place team but after that the votes were all over the board. New Mexico had that one first place vote but two voters pegged the Lobos to finish sixth in the league. Colorado State and Boise State were neck-and-neck for the fourth and fifth spots.

It is somewhat surprising that Fresno State and Nevada finished about Utah State, but then again it is not. The Aggies under Stew Morrill have struggled a bit as they are one decade removed from dominating the Big West, and yet during the time through the WAC the Aggies still won 20-plus games. It was not only until its first year in the much more difficult Mountain West that Utah State failed to win 20 games since Morrill first took over the Aggies all the way back in 1998-99 season. However, Morrill lost all five starters and 10 newcomes.

The Mountain West basketball race has not always gone as expected over the past few years, so it would come as no shock if New Mexico, Boise State or Colorado State.

Here is our preseason poll, and first-place votes are in parenthesis.

1. San Diego State 153 points (14)
2. UNLV 135
3. New Mexico 121 (1)
4. Boise State 99
5. Colorado State 95
6. Wyoming 76
7. Fresno State 64
8. Nevada 63
9. Utah State 58
10. Air Force 29
11. San Jose State 15