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The Mountain West is pretty much assured to having just one representative for the NCAA Tournament and that makes this conference tournament pressured filled.
San Diego State won the conference by three games and look very dominant by scoring 92 points in their season finale win over UNLV, and are rightfully so the favorite to cut down the nets this weekend.
TeamRankings.com uses statistics and advanced numbers to predict results and they do have San Diego State as the top team, but they are not an overwhelming favorite to cut down the nets. UNLV who is the No. 7 seed and plays in the opening round games vs. Air Force, but since this tournament is at the Rebels home they get a bump, which makes sense, but they are given the second best percentage to win the tournament.
The Rebels are without Derrick Jones, Stephen Zimmerman is hobbled from an injury and playing for an interim coach in Todd Simon. The Rebels have shown to be a good team but not consistent and while home court is a bonus seeing UNLV this high up in the rankings seems to be way out there.
As for some of the rest, second-seeded Fresno State is given the fifth best odds to win the title and just a 24 percent chance to make it to the championship game. Boise State and New Mexico are given better odds, and Boise State is the only other team to have double-digit percentage points to win the tournament.
On the other end of the spectrum, Wyoming with conference player of the year, Josh Adams, are the eight seed but given the third worst odds. Not surprising that the Cowboys are in the bottom half but with the potential for Adams to have a big game is likely. One road block is that if Wyoming wins their opener against Utah State they then face conference champion San Diego State.
Here are the complete odds.
| Seed | Team | Quarter | Semi | Champ | Win |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | San Diego State | 100.00% | 78.02% | 53.61% | 29.11% |
| 7 | UNLV | 92.71% | 68.66% | 43.99% | 27.56% |
| 3 | Boise State | 100.00% | 77.40% | 37.94% | 20.58% |
| 4 | New Mexico | 100.00% | 59.01% | 24.06% | 9.47% |
| 2 | Fresno State | 100.00% | 29.72% | 11.99% | 4.69% |
| 5 | Nevada | 100.00% | 40.99% | 13.50% | 4.28% |
| 6 | Colorado State | 73.64% | 19.71% | 5.45% | 1.76% |
| 9 | Utah State | 56.86% | 13.70% | 5.83% | 1.72% |
| 8 | Wyoming | 43.14% | 8.28% | 3.01% | 0.73% |
| 11 | San Jose State | 26.36% | 2.89% | 0.36% | 0.06% |
| 10 | Air Force | 7.29% | 1.62% | 0.27% | 0.04% |