Mountain West Watch Mar. 11 — All-Conference picks and final rankings, standings – Cache Valley Daily

The regular season has come to a close and it’s been one of the best in recent memory. The Mountain West has seven legit teams in its ranks and most of those top seven split series with each other. It’s setting up a conference tournament that could be one for the ages. All previous matchups go out the window. The regular season crown has gone to Utah State, but there’s another one up for grabs, and it has a very desirable benefit attached — a punched ticket to the NCAA Tournament.

This will be the final week with entries regarding the standings and rankings, so my own power rankings and the average computer rankings have reached their final state. Next week’s final Mountain West Watch will be entirely about the NCAA Tournament and the matchups for all teams that end up making it (with some recap of the conference tournament).

Final Standings, AP Poll

The regular season finale brings the standings to its final state. Here’s how each of the teams finished, along with AP Poll ranks, if applicable (parenthesis for teams not in the top 25 itself, but receiving votes in the poll, the number being where they’d rank if you extended beyond 25th).

Utah State finishes the year as perhaps the most improbable outright champion in the league’s history, clinching that right with a thrilling win over New Mexico on Saturday. Nevada’s rise toward the top also feels rather improbable given how its conference schedule started. At one point, the Wolf Pack were 3-4 in conference games but won 10 of their last 11 games to nearly come away with a share of the MW crown and the No. 1 seed in the tournament.

A lot of teams in the Mountain West got attention in the AP Top 25 throughout the season, with six teams receiving votes and five making it into the top 25 at some point (sorry Boise State). This week is the final poll with Nevada barely getting in at the finish line for its first AP Ranking since the final poll in 2018-19. Utah State finishes the season in the AP Poll for the sixth time in program history, and the eight weeks the Aggies were ranked is the most for the program since the 1970-71 season (14 weeks).

Walker’s Mountain West Power Rankings

Here’s the final edition of my four-tiered power rankings for the conference as I probably won’t be breaking it out for the NCAA Tournament edition of Mountain West Watch. I’m not sure any results in the conference tournament would be so jarring as to move me from this final ranking.

Tier 1 

1. Utah State (3)

2. Nevada (4) – moved from Tier 2

3. Boise State (2)

4. San Diego State (1)

Tier 2

5. UNLV (6)

6. New Mexico (5)

7. Colorado State (7)

Tier 3

8. Wyoming (8)

9. Fresno State (9)

Tier 4

10. San Jose State (10)

11. Air Force (11)

With Utah State winning the championship and San Diego State dropping two games this week there’s no excuse to not have the Aggies at the top. I probably sat on Nevada too long in Tier 2 but with its recent success there’s no way to have the Wolf Pack any lower than two (you could even argue they’re playing the best right now and make a case for them to be first, but I’m not that bold). I debated moving UNLV into the top tier since its nearly as hot as Nevada, but I don’t want the top tier to be too crowded. Those are the four teams I’m most confident can win the tournament and so I feel that being the top tier is where things should stay.

Average Computer Ranks

Utah State apparently can’t catch a break in the computer rankings. After a week or two where it was seemingly punished for underwhelming victories against teams, when the Aggies blasted SJSU by 20 points on the road and then took down a higher rated New Mexico team, the average rank BARELY rose. Meanwhile, other teams that lost barely went down and UNLV, which went 1-1, had its average rank rise. 

Mountain West Tournament

The tournament field is set. It took up until the final seconds of the final game to sort out the seeds 1-11, but here we are.

The importance of getting the No. 1 seed is plainly evident when seeing the projected matchups for the second round. Three very good teams, NCAA Tournament-caliber teams at minimum, will be sent home by just day two of the tournament.

First Round Matchups

• (8) Wyoming vs (9) Fresno State
• (7) Colorado State vs (10) Air Force
• (6) New Mexico vs (11) San Jose State

Second Round Matchups

• (1) Utah State vs Winner of (8) Wyoming / (9) Fresno State
• (4) UNLV vs (5) San Diego State
• (2) Nevada vs Winner of (7) Colorado State / (10) Air Force
• (3) Boise State vs Winner of (6) New Mexico / (11) San Jose State

Walker’s All-Conference Ballot

I’ve been tracking my own views on each of the conference awards for the last couple months and now that the end of the regular season is here, it’s time to reveal my own selections, inconsequential as they are. These are the same choices I sent in to be part of the Utah State ballot for the media all-conference awards (it’s not the official one, which is voted on by the coaches).

The official results from the media vote have already been released. I’ll included them below but you can find the full results here. Also, the officially official awards were handed out earlier today and you can find them here.

Player of the Year — Darius Brown (Utah State)

• Media Vote – Jaedon LeDee
• Coaches Vote – Great Osobor

Call it recency bias. Call it voter intimidation from Danny Sprinkle. Call it whatever you want, but I moved off my hardline stance of Jaedon LeDee being the Player of the Year after pretty much declaring that he had it in the bag not too long ago. But Brown’s play down the stretch, including no less than four massive clutch shots to save the Aggies and help them win games, is a factor I can’t ignore. He’s not statistically ascendant like LeDee or even his own teammate in Great Osobor. But Brown’s two-way brilliance and impact on winning are a combo I was willing to vote Player of the Year to over stats.

The media voting for LeDee makes perfect sense. National media will eventually make LeDee an All-American (Sporting News already has). It’s clear who the media favors, but the coaches have never really given much credibility to what the media says about their players and teams. In the end, this will go down similarly to when Matt Mitchell was named POY in 2021 over Neemias Queta, who the media picked as its POY. Queta had a better year statistically and was better in the minds of anyone not in SDSU’s circle (or maybe Boise State fans who touted Derrick Alston for the award), but the Aztecs won the regular season title and that seemed to hold a lot of weight with the coaches.

Coach of the Year — Danny Sprinkle (Utah State)

• Media Vote – Danny Sprinkle
• Coaches Vote – Danny Sprinkle

Yea, I don’t need to explain this. You know why and you’d vote for him too. And the fact that one media ballot had Steven Alford as COY is patently ridiculous.

Defensive Player of the Year — Jaelen House (New Mexico)

• Media Vote – Jaelen House
• Coaches Vote – Lamont Butler

House being DPOY wasn’t the most popular choice from the media but I don’t think it was a bad one. It wasn’t his steals totals, granted they did help and his numbers dwarf the competition, it’s the fact that House earned his reputation defensively by making everyone work their tails off just to get breathing room. But there was also a packed DPOY field by the end so I have no issue seeing it go to any of the potential candidates and Butler was a deserving player.

Sixth Man of the Year — Josh Uduje (Utah State)

• Media Vote – Josh Uduje, Mustapha Amzil
• Coaches Vote – Josh Uduje, Mustapha Amzil

I guess this really was a two-horse race, and a close one at that since both the media and coaches produced a tie. Cam Manyawu got votes from the media and he would’ve had to in the coaches to product that tie (or someone else I suppose, I’m just guessing Manyawu got a vote or three). My pick of Uduje may just be market bias as I saw him more and saw his sixth man impact, but I know full well that Amzil and even Manyawu were deserving of votes as both had good outings in games I was present for. And in my own voting process I heavily considered both over Uduje at some point.

Newcomer of the Year — Darius Brown (Utah State)

• Media Vote – Great Osobor
• Coaches Vote – Great Osobor

Pretty simple. I had Brown as my POY so I put him at Newcomer of the Year. The rest of the media and coaches went with Osobor using the same logic.

Freshman of the Year — Dedan Thomas Jr. (UNLV)

• Media Vote – Dedan Thomas, JT Toppin
• Coaches Vote – Dedan Thomas, JT Toppin

Another co-award and I’m honestly kind of glad. I had a heck of a time picking between the two. In my awards ladder I had Thomas overtaking Toppin late in the year, and stuck with that on my ballot, but it felt unfair to seemingly diminish the spectacular freshman season by Toppin. Both deserved this award and so the tie is very fitting because it allows both to be reco

The DPOY may have the most possible candidates but this race will have the most contentious dialogue. Toppin and Thomas are two very, very good freshman and future stars in the league (assuming, you know, no transfers since we always have to qualify things that way now). There’s very good arguments for both. Toppin is a force unto himself in the paint with his rim protection, rebounding and highly efficient scoring. Thomas became the leading scorer on a team that finished above Toppin’s team in the standings, playing unbelievably well down the stretch. Over the last five games (in which UNLV went 4-1), Thomas averaged 19.2 points per game.

First Team All-Conference

• Darius Brown
• Great Osobor
• Isaiah Stevens
• Jaedon LeDee
• Tyson Degenhart

Second Team All-Conference

• Donovan Dent
• Jaelen House
• Jarod Lucas
• Kenan Blackshear
• Lamont Butler

Bracketology

Here’s the most recent update from BracketMatrix.com, from March 11.

In the Tournament

• San Diego State – 5 seed (in all 84 brackets on the database)








• Utah State – 6 seed (84/84)
• Nevada – 7 seed (84/84)






• Boise State – 8 seed (84/84)
• Colorado State – 9 seed (84/84)

Outside Looking In

• New Mexico – First Four Out (50/84)

A significant amount of movement in this week’s bracketology look-in. SDSU and Colorado State both fell down, the Aztecs from four to five and the Rams from seven to nine. New Mexico had the worst drop, falling out of the consensus projected field for the first time in weeks, putting the dream of a six-bid Mountain West in jeopardy. It wasn’t all falls for the Mountain West, though, as Utah State jumped up to a six seed and Nevada made the huge leap from a nine seed to a seven.