Mountain West tournament odds

The Mountain West tournament begins in Las Vegas on Wednesday with the opening round games and this league has been all over the place this year with top teams being upset and that makes this conference tournament one of the more interesting to watch.

That unpredictably shows up in predictions shows up in TeamRankings.com projections. Now, they do give conference champion Nevada a 38 percent of winning the tournament.

What is odd is that the second greatest odds is six-seeded San Diego State who is given 13.77 percent chance to win and slightly ahead of No. 3 seeded Boise State who is given a 13.11 percent chance to win.

What is even more peculiar is that the Aztecs are given the sixth-best odds to make it to the semifinal round, so in other words: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

San Diego State was without Malik Pope for six games and it took him a while to get back into playing shape, but his return did not suddenly make them better. The Aztecs went 4-4 over the past month and that includes a loss on the road to San Jose State.

So, it is interesting, and confusing, to see why the Aztecs are given the second best odds to win the conference tournament.

TeamRankings.com does not give out their exact formula but this is what they say about their formula:

Using win odds calculations derived from our sophisticated power ratings, we analyze the likelihood and expected outcome of every possible path to the Mountain West tournament championship for every team in the 2017 Mountain West bracket.

Maybe it has something to do with the Aztecs defense. While it is not an elite defense as it was the past few years, but they are 32nd in defense efficiency according to KenPom.

The other interesting piece is Colorado State who finished second in the conference yet they are given the fourth-best odds. However, underestimating the Rams is not a good idea as they overachieved this season as they were projected to finish seventh by the media.

Here are the odds per round, per TeamRankings.com.