What tournament seed is each team eligible for with one weekend left in regular season?

It’s March! We’re one weekend away from the conclusion of the 2022-23 Mountain West regular season, with the Mountain West Tournament beginning next week.

There’s plenty of movement that could happen, with only one team’s seeding locked up in San Diego State, who will earn a share of yet another Mountain West regular season title, at minimum. But let’s go through some of the different scenarios to determine which teams could be seeded where! But first, he’s a reminder of the tiebreakers, per the Mountain West:

Tiebreaker between two teams:

“If two teams tie for a position, and one holds a win-loss advantage during regular season play, that team receives the higher seed. If the two teams split their games during the regular season, each tied team’s record shall be compared against the team occupying the highest position in the standings, continuing down through the standings until one team gains the advantage, thereby gaining the higher seed. If two teams remain tied after all other tie-breakers have been exhausted, the last tie-breaker to determine an advantage shall be team NET rankings, as determined by the most updated official NCAA NET.”

Tiebreaker between three teams or more:

“If three or more teams tie for a position, the combined record of each of the tied teams against the other teams involved in the tie shall be compared. If at any time during this analysis, any team(s) should gain an advantage over the other team(s) tied at that position, the team(s) holding the advantage shall continue the tiebreaking procedures. If it is reduced to a two-team tie at any point, the process shall then revert to the beginning of the tie-breaking procedures and shall be applied (in order) until the two-team tie is broken. If all three teams remain tied following the initial comparison, each tied team’s record shall be compared against the team occupying the highest position in the standings, continuing down through the standings. If at any time during this process, any team(s) should have an advantage over the other team(s) tied at that position, the team(s) holding the advantage shall assume a position higher than the other team(s). If any analysis reduces it to a two-team tie, the procedure shall revert to the two-way tie-breaker language. When comparing tied teams against positions lower in the standings that are also tied, those lower-tied positions shall be considered a single position for the purposes of comparison.”

Air Force:

This weekend’s matchup: v. SJSU

Air Force earns the No. 9 seed if...

Air Force isn’t in position to move up in the standings, but will maintain the No. 9 seed if it wins AND Colorado State loses their respective matchup.

Air Force earns the No. 10 seed if...

It’s a headache thinking about all the tiebreaking scenarios, but in the case that Air Force loses or Colorado State wins, they will automatically be the No. 10 seed.

Boise State:

This weekend’s matchup: @ Utah State

Boise State earns the No. 2-seed if...

The Broncos, who can fall no further than a No. 3 seed, will cap off their regular season on the road against the Utah State Aggies. Boise State will earn the No. 2 seed with either a win or a Nevada loss to UNLV.

Boise State earns the No. 3 seed if...

If Boise loses to Utah State and Nevada beats UNLV, then Boise drops to a No. 3 seed since Nevada has the head-to-head advantage over Boise against both New Mexico and San Jose State (Nevada swept both, Boise lost to both; seeding between SJSU/UNM not decided yet.)

Colorado State:

This weekend’s matchup: v. New Mexico

Colorado State earns the No. 7 seed if...

If Colorado State beats New Mexico and UNLV loses to Nevada, it would secure the No. 7 seed.

Colorado State earns the No. 8 seed if...

At worst, Colorado State earns the No. 8 seed with a win, regardless of the results of UNLV and Air Force, respectively. Colorado State owns the head-to-head tiebreaker over Fresno State and would own the three-way tiebreaker if all three teams finished the conference slate 6-12.

Thus, a win over UNM and a loss by Air Force would slot CSU as the No. 8 seed.

Colorado State earns the No. 10 seed if...

Mathematically, CSU cannot finish as the No. 9 seed. But if CSU loses to New Mexico and San Diego State beats Wyoming, it would be the No. 10 seed.

Colorado State earns the No. 11 seed if...

In the unlikely scenario that CSU loses to New Mexico, Wyoming beats SDSU and Air Force beats SJSU, the Pokes would leapfrog the Rams for the No. 10 seed in a tiebreaking scenario because of their win over Nevada on Monday.

Fresno State:

This weekend’s matchup: N/A

Fresno State earns the No. 7 seed if...

Fresno State is the only team in the Mountain West who have played their full 18-game conference slate, so they are going to need help to move up this weekend.

If UNLV loses to Nevada AND CSU is downed by New Mexico, then Fresno State would secure the No. 7 seed.

Fresno State earns the No. 8 seed if...

If UNLV wins, Fresno State wouldn’t be able to secure a seed greater than the No. 8 seed.

• If UNLV wins and Colorado State loses, then it stay in the No. 8 seed, regardless of Air Force’s result.
• If UNLV loses, then all it would need is a Colorado State win to be the No. 8 seed.

Fresno State earns the No. 9 seed if...

If UNLV and Colorado State both win and Air Force loses, it would drop to the No. 9 seed because it does not have the head-to-head tiebreaker over Colorado State.

Fresno State earns the No. 10 seed if...

If UNLV, Air Force and Colorado State all win, by virtue of the three-way tiebreaker between Fresno/AFA/CSU, the Bulldogs would be the No. 10 seed. They went a combined 1-3 against AFA and CSU this season.

New Mexico:

This weekend’s matchup: @ Colorado State

New Mexico earns the No. 5 seed if...

If the Lobos can beat Colorado State with a San Jose State loss to Air Force, New Mexico will backdoor themselves into a first-round bye, going up against one of Nevada or Utah State in the quarterfinal round.

New Mexico earns the No. 6 seed if...

A loss or an Air Force win will put them as the No. 6 seed, which will likely pin them against Wyoming in the first round, should they lose to SDSU. The winner would face the 3-seed, which could be Nevada, Utah State or Boise State.

Nevada:

This weekend’s matchup: v. UNLV

Nevada earns the No. 2 seed if...

For Nevada, currently the No. 3 seed, to earn a top-2 seed, it would need to beat UNLV on Saturday in addition to a Boise State loss.

Nevada earns the No. 3 seed if...

A Boise win would automatically make the Wolf Pack the No. 3 seed, regardless if beat UNLV or not. To essentially keep its at-large bid alive, it’d obviously rather win Saturday instead of picking up their second Quad 2 loss of the season.

Nevada earns the No. 4 seed if...

If both Nevada and Boise lose, the Wolf Pack would become a No. 4 seed under the three-way tiebreaker scenario.

San Diego State:

This weekend’s matchup: v. Wyoming

San Diego State is the only team in the conference with their seeding locked up ahead of next week’s Mountain West Tournament, receiving at least a share of the MWC Regular season title and heading in as the conference’s No. 1 seed. They will face the winner between of the 8v9 game on March 9.

San Jose State:

This weekend’s matchup: @ Air Force

San Jose State earns the No. 5 seed if...

All San Jose State has to do to earn the No. 5 seed is beat Air Force. It’s doable, but SJSU has struggled away from home in Mountain West play, going 1-7 with its losses coming by an average of 11.3 points. It’s difficult to win on the road in the conference, but the Spartans must if they want to earn the No. 5 seed.

San Jose State earns the No. 6 seed if...

If they lose to Air Force and New Mexico beats Colorado State, then SJSU would be the No. 6 seed.

UNLV:

This weekend’s matchup: @ Nevada

UNLV earns the No. 7 seed if...

A win over Nevada on Saturday would lock UNLV as the No. 7 seed, regardless of the results in the other games.

UNLV earns the No. 8 seed if...

The only way the Runnin’ Rebels earn the No. 8 seed is if loses to Nevada, Air Force wins and Colorado State loses. UNLV would then be in a three-way tie with AFA/Fresno, with Fresno gaining the edge since they went a combined 3-1 against each squad, bumping UNLV to second (since it went 2-2).

UNLV earns the No. 9 seed if...

If UNLV loses and Colorado State wins, then UNLV would automatically be the No. 9 seed.

Utah State:

This weekend’s matchup:

Utah State earns the No. 2 seed if...

If UNLV beats Nevada and Utah State beats Boise State, then Utah State would blow past both Nevada and Boise to the No. 2 seed with the edge in the three-way tiebreaker between the three programs.

Utah State earns the No. 4 seed if...

A Utah State loss or a Nevada win would place Utah State as the No. 4 seed against either SJSU or UNM.

Wyoming:

This weekend’s matchup: @ San Diego State

Wyoming earns the No. 10 seed if...

If Wyoming beats San Diego State AND Colorado State loses to New Mexico AND Air Force beats SJSU, then it would be the No. 10 seed with CSU falling to No. 11.

Wyoming earns the No. 11 seed if...

Literally anything else happens.