Mountain West Conference: Year in Review

This past weekend basically signaled the end of the Mountain West Conference 2017-2018 sports season. Although San Diego State baseball will still be playing in the NCAA tournament, the conference tournament concluded Saturday. Before fall sports start back up with official practices in August, now is as good of a time as any to review each sport by listing the regular season and conference champion.

(All champions based on listed info from MWC official site)

Champions

Men’s Cross Country: Colorado State (tourney)

Women’s Cross Country: New Mexico (tourney)

Women’s Soccer: San Jose State (regular season), San Diego State (tourney)

Women’s Volleyball: Colorado State (regular season)

Football: Boise State (title game)

Women’s Swimming and Diving: Boise State (tourney)

Men’s Indoor Track and Field: Air Force (tourney)

Women’s Indoor Track and Field: UNLV (tourney)

Women’s Basketball: Boise State and UNLV (regular season), Boise State (tourney)

Men’s Basketball: Nevada (regular season), San Diego State (tourney)

Women’s Golf: UNLV (tourney)

Men’s Golf: UNLV (tourney)

Men’s Tennis: Utah State (regular season), Utah State (tourney)

Women’s Tennis: UNLV (regular season), Fresno State (tourney)

Softball: Boise State (regular season)

Men’s Outdoor Track and Field: Air Force (tourney)

Women’s Outdoor Track and Field: San Diego State (tourney)

Baseball: Nevada (regular season), San Diego State (tourney)

Totals: (counting both regular season and tourney titles)

• Boise State: 5
• UNLV: 5
• San Diego State: 4
• Nevada: 2
• Air Force: 2
• Colorado State: 2
• Utah State: 2
• New Mexico: 1
• San Jose State: 1
• Fresno State: 1

Observations:

• Every full member of the conference except for Wyoming won a conference championship in some sport.
• Hawaii, the football-only member was also not represented.
• UNLV made a surprise showing tied for the top with Boise State
• San Diego State is pretty consistent in the “main 3” sports of football, basketball, and baseball when all is said and done.
• Boise State has done well with increasing the productivity of their Olympic and non-revenue sports, with women’s basketball, softball, and women’s swimming and diving all taking home a title. Plus their women’s volleyball, cross country and track&field all had strong showing this past year.
• Utah State seems to have the monopoly of the men’s tennis game.
• Ditto UNLV with both men’s and women’s golf.
• Nevada could be even better in men’s basketball next season. It would be surprising if they didn’t sweep both the regular and tournament championships.
• Ditto Boise State with football.

Unfortunately, I’m not an expert in each these sports and I didn’t follow the majority of them closely. Therefore, I’m not able to talk about them in much detail. But it was interesting to see which teams excelled in each sport. It will be interesting to see which teams repeat next season.

Your turn: For those who follow closer than I, which teams were a surprise champion in which sport? Who are some of the most dominant teams in the conference in their specific sport? Who can repeat as champions next season? Leave a comment below.