Mountain West Tourney Early Preview: Who Could Win It All

Championship week is upon us, 10 teams will be heading to Vegas to compete for the chance of heading to the NCAA Tournament. The current expectations is that Colorado State, San Diego State and Boise State to be the three representative to make the tournament. However this conference tournament could come down to 5 teams winning the automatic bid. Here is an early preview to this tournament

Possible Best Quarterfinal Matchup: San Diego State vs UNLV; This will be a good matchup, the most recent matchup ended with the Aztecs winning by 2 points. The Rebels have been playing better lately and pose a huge threat with the tournament being on their home floor. The Aztecs will have to play a great game on both sides to beat the Rebels. The first to 50 will win this game.

Potential Quarterfinal Upset: New Mexico over Boise State; The Lobos hit a huge rough patch in conference play, but most of their losses were in close games. Thomas and Mack is also known as "The Pit West" because Lobo fans travel well to Vegas making it seem like a home game for the Rebels. Boise State is a great team but they live and die from Derrick Marks and from the three. New Mexico is good enough defensively to give Boise issues and the crowd will be a huge factor in this game.

Most Dangerous Team: Wyoming; They're just about a full strength, they are very good defensively, and when they get on a roll there is no stopping them. Their goal is to make games ugly and low scoring. They do a very good job of doing it, this is a team that no one wants to play because you don't know what you're going to get. Larry Nance is a match up problem for most bigs in this league, so watch out for them because they could make a run and steal a tournament bid from someone.

Player Primed to Perform: JJ Avila Colorado State; He's a match up problem because he has very deceptive athleticism. He performs when his team needs him most, and has put up some big numbers lately. If he gets hot there is no stopping him. If he has some big games CSU could win the conference title.

Tournament Final Prediction: Colorado State vs Wyoming; This will be the title game because no matter if Boise defeats New Mexico the Cowboys will be waiting and will upset the Broncos. They could also steal the automatic bid and make the committee add four teams to the tournament. This will be the Border War part 3 with Wyoming taking the first two. Despite dominating the second matchup they couldn't legitimately put the Rams away. They also shot about 30% from the field, and couldn't make a shot in the ocean. This third matchup reminds me of the San Diego State vs BYU games from 2011, where BYU dominated the first two matchups. However when they met for the title it was the Aztecs who came out on top.

Tournament Champion: Colorado State, they have been playing well lately and they're just about a lock in the tournament field. It's hard to beat a team three times in a season when it comes to football/basketball and I believe that will be the case here. This will be a classic matchup but Colorado State wins on a last second shot 60-58.

End Result: 4 bids, with several bubble teams outside playing their way out of the tournament allowing Wyoming to steal an at large to play in the First Four.

CSU 7 seed, SDSU 7 seed, Wyoming 12 seed (First Four), Boise State 11 seed (Last 4 byes).

Post what you think in the comments section

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