We’re merely a few weeks into the 2025 offseason for college basketball but it’s already time to start ranking teams and players in the Mountain West for the upcoming 2025-26 season in…7 months. Even in such a short space of time since the last Mountain West teams have been in action, we’ve seen a lot change. The league’s Player of the Year, along with 14 of the 15 All-Mountain West team selections are gone through a combination of the transfer portal and graduation. And yet the conference is slowly building back toward what it has been the past few seasons — easily the best non-power league in college basketball.
So let’s go over the latest in offseason dealings for the entire Mountain West, starting with a summary of attrition and the transfer portal before moving to the tier list and transfer recruit rankings.
Transfer Portal and Returning Production Summary
The Mountain West, much like with recent years, has been hit hard by the transfer portal. The league is growing in its NIL salary capabilities, but
These numbers are as of the end of working hours on April 21
- Portal Entries from Mountain West — 72
- Committed to new school — 31
- Division I transfers — 29
- Non-D1 transfers — 3
Portal Commitments to Mountain West — 31
In addition to transfer numbers, here is a summary of returning production which will reflect the total attrition of all the teams in the conference. The teams are in order of highest percentage of returning points, with ranks in all categories noted in parenthesis.
Returning Precentage of Production for Mountain West MBB Teams
| Team | % of Pts | % of Reb | % of Ast | % of 3PM |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Utah State | 47.5 (1) | 52.8 (1) | 63.8 (1) | 46.3 (2) |
| Air Force | 46.9 (2) | 37.6 (4) | 28.5 (3) | 38.2 (3) |
| San Diego State | 43.1 (3) | 51.2 (2) | 35.4 (2) | 34.3 (4) |
| Boise State | 42.3 (4) | 45.9 (3) | 28.1 (4) | 51.6 (1) |
| Colorado State | 15.4 (5) | 18.6 (5) | 10.9 (6) | 5.8 (7) |
| Wyoming | 15.2 (6) | 18.4 (6) | 6.7 (8) | 4.1 (9) |
| Nevada | 13.1 (7) | 13.6 (7) | 15.3 (5) | 13.2 (6) |
| San Jose State | 10.3 (8) | 8.9 (8) | 10.0 (7) | 16.9 (5) |
| Fresno State | 1.7 (9) | 0.6 (11) | 0.9 (9) | 4.2 (8) |
| UNLV | 1.4 (10) | 3.5 (9) | 0.5 (10) | 0.5 (10) |
| New Mexico | 0.8 (11) | 1.8 (10) | 0.4 (11) | 0.4 (11) |
Way-too-early 2025-26 Mountain West MBB Tier List
In lieu of a traditional 1-11 rankings, it seems a little more fitting to use a tier system to group programs as opposed to splitting hairs that potentially haven’t even materialized since the transfer cycle has only really reached its mid-way point. We’re only just about done with the entries into the portal with most of the commitments and signings yet to be finalized.
Tier 1 – Easily set up to be contenders
- Boise State
- San Diego State
- Utah State
These teams all finished next to each other in the standings, three through five, this past season but could very well be poised to be the one through three finishers this upcoming season. For one, all three ought to have at least one preseason All-Mountain West selection. San Diego State will have Magoon Gwath, Utah State has Mason Falslev and Boise State has the underrated but up-and-coming Andrew Meadow.
Utah State and San Diego State both have very strong cases by virtue of both recent history. This year was just the second time since 2017 in which neither USU or SDSU got their hands on either (or both) the regular season or conference tournament titles. And in every year since 2017, either (or usually both) of the Aggies and Aztecs have made it to the NCAA Tournament. Combine all that recent and historical success with these two teams ranking first and second in returning production and you have the easiest 1-2 for an offseason ranking that you can get.
You could maybe make a sub tier between this one and tier two, but it’d only be Boise State with USU and SDSU sitting a little more alone in the top tier. Not only would that go against my view of a tier list (needing at least two or three teams to make an actual “tier”), but I also feel like the Broncos are being overlooked as a team that’s gearing up to be right up there with the Aggies and Aztecs. They may not get a similar number of first-place preseason poll votes, but they should still be considered a preseason contender.
Tier 2 – Recent Contenders, but concern over attrition
- Colorado State
- Nevada
- New Mexico
The Rams, Wolf Pack and Lobos have been consistently in the upper echelons of the standings for at least the last several years (this season’s Nevada team quietly excepted from that designation) but there’s a lot of work these teams need to do. Colorado State and New Mexico must both replace head coaches and multiple star players. Three of the Mountain West’s First Team All-Conference players were on one of those two teams. Nevada won’t be looking for a new head coach, but is still losing quite a bit itself. Despite so far only having three players enter the portal, the Wolf Pack are still losing 10 players this offseason, it’s just the majority are leaving what used to be the traditional way: graduation.
As noted above, Colorado Stats is fifth in the Mountain West in returning production with Nevada sixth and New Mexico dead last at 11th. Is it a death blow to be mediocre or even in the depths of returning production ranks? Hardly. Mountain West fans will know that full well with how Utah State has bounced back multiple years in a row despite losing coaches and star players on an annual basis. This is also why the Rams, Wolf Pack and Lobos are getting their own tier. Sure, they’ve lost a lot, but good programs can reload quickly in the NIL era.
Tier 3 – Not cellar-dwelling teams, but work to be done to reach relevant status
- San Jose State
- UNLV
- Wyoming
All three of these teams find themselves in the middle of the pack for the Mountain West, with varying degrees of disappointment over that fact. UNLV want to be a flagship program in the Mountain West, but are stuck finishing sixth or seventh every year with San Jose State and Wyoming struggling to keep up with programs that have higher budgets and better historical success.
The Spartans and Cowboys are essentially stuck in the same boat, trying to reel in diamond-in-the-rough transfers, either through D1 or lower divisions, to reach the upper echelon of the conference which can create a self-perpetuating positive cycle of success by attracting higher potential talent on a more consistent basis. Until Tim Miles or Sundance Wicks pull off that kind of transformation, we’ll be witnesses to the exact same cycle we saw this past offseason with high turnover, high hopes, but still more 12-20 seasons and quarterfinal exits from the conference tournament.
UNLV is at serious risk of joining SJSU and Wyoming in that losing season cycle. The Rebels’ attrition, including both head coach and nearly all of its roster, is very similar to New Mexico.
Tier 4 – In desperate need of rebuild
There, well, a lot these to programs have to figure out if they’re going to bounce back close to anything they’ve accomplished before. The Falcons have gone from being mired in mediocrity (zero winning seasons since 2012-13) to being a complete doormat in the conference, with just three wins against MW foes in the last two seasons. This last year marked the fewest wins ever by Air Force (4-28). Fresno State hit the same low, likewise having its worst-ever season by win total (6-26) in program history.
A one-year rebuild seems unlikely for both squads. Air Force has to live in the modern age of recruiting but being stuck using the old ways as it can’t add transfers, only lose them. Fresno State, with all of its mid-season issues involving gambling allegations and players being kicked off the team, has had 12 players enter the transfer portal so far with only one returning athlete that recorded any stats (David Douglass, who played in six games, recording 38 points, six rebounds and three assists). Such dire straits for both teams indicate a need for longer term rebuilds or same dang good luck in terms of finding under-the-radar additions for this upcoming season.
Top Players added via the portal so far
A lot can and will be said of the incoming transfers. For now, I’ll rank them using EvanMiya.com‘s projections for 2025-26 (the players national rank per the site being in parenthesis).
- Dylan Andrews (84th) — to Boise State from UCLA
- Elijah Price (145th) — to Nevada from Fresno State
- Sean Newman (189th) — to San Diego State from Louisiana Tech
- Garry Clark (222nd) — to Utah State from Texas A&M-Corpus Christi
- Colby Garland (231st) — to San Jose State from Longwood
EvanMiya’s rankings do not include junior college players, so it’s worth noting those. There’s only a few JUCO commits so far, but here they are based on rankings from JUCO Recruiting.
- Antonio Chol (5th) — New Mexico from Garden City CC
- Vaughn Weems (7th) — Nevada from North Idaho College
- Buddy Hammer (29th) — Wyoming from Northeastern Oklahoma A&M
There’s a pretty good spread in location for these recruits, as all five of those top Division I recruits are going to different schools and the JUCO recruits follow the same trend (with minor overlap between the lists given Nevada currently has the second-best D1 and second-best JUCO recruit from those lists). Ultimately, things could easily change, but there’s simply not one team dominating the portal to a degree that no other programs have any sort of answer to.
Best Player for every MW team (so far) going into 2025-26
Now I’m going subjective in naming who I believe will be the best player for each team this upcoming season, including any transfers and, obviously, all returning players.
Air Force — Wesley Celichowski
Celichowski has rare height for an Air Force athlete but also combines it by being a capable scorer. As a sophomore last year, Celichowski was inconsistent but occasionally an inside threat with the best examples being his 22 points against San Diego State and a pair of solid outings against Wyoming (19 and 16 points in the two matchups). Another year should give Celichowski some time to bulk up a big more and become a more reliable rebounder and perhaps even rim protector.
Boise State — Andrew Meadow
This spot could ultimately be taken by an incoming transfer, Dylan Andrews and Dre Fielder being to pretty solid adds for the Broncos, but Meadow is poised to take a big jump from being a nearly 13 PPG starter as a sophomore to being a potentially 15-16 PPG go-to guy as a junior. He’s shown solid shot-making ability, making nearly 46 percent overall and 35 percent from three, both of which were improvements (on more volume) from his freshman numbers. Continued improvement will yield star capability for Meadow.
Colorado State — Brandon Rechsteiner (transfer from Marist)
There are a lot of incoming names for the Rams, which makes this fairly difficult. One could reasonably put Augustinas Kiudulas at the top of the heap for CSU’s 2025-26 transfer class, though a bias toward guards and offensive impact is giving Rechsteiner the edge. The 6-foot-3 guard should be the top scorer, able to match most of the 15.9 points and potentially more than the 2.3 assists he averaged a year ago at Marist.
Fresno State — To be determined
Considering the Bulldogs have not landed a single recruit while simultaneously having 12 players enter the transfer portal means we’re going to have to wait just to have anything close to an idea as to which player will be the top dog for Fresno State.
Nevada — Tayshawn Comer (transfer from Evansville)
EvanMiya is very high on Elijah Price, and perhaps with good reason. But Comer is going to get a lot of usage this next season on offense. Nevada is bringing in quite a few great scorers, especially from the JUCO/NAIA ranks, with Comer himself having average 16.2 points last season at Evansville. Comer will be the facilitator for the new offense, having already proved his mettle by averaging 4.1 assists per game last year.
New Mexico — Antonio Chol (transfer from Garden City College)
Chol marks the only incoming JUCO transfer in my rankings to be tabbed as the top player for next season, but that’s hardly meant as an insult. He ranks top five among all JUCO recruits and should be a force for the Lobos this coming season under first-year head coach Eric Olen.
San Diego State — Magoon Gwath
The reigning MW Defensive Player of the Year should only add to his arsenal of impact on the basketball court. He’ll continue to terrorize opponents at the rim on defense, but an improving offensive toolbag will go a long way in giving Gwath a path to not just being DPOY, but the outright POY.
San Jose State — Colby Garland
The Spartans don’t have a lot of recruits at this point, with Garland being the only reported incoming transfer, though that isn’t to say Garland won’t retain his title of best incoming player even when others arrive. He’s a four-star transfer recruit according to EvanMiya and, as noted above, ranks among the best incoming transfers of any Mountain West team. Garland will likely feature as the top scorer and assist man on the team next year.
UNLV — Howie Fleming Jr. (transfer from Texas-Rio Grande Valley)
Fleming will have a lot of expectations place upon him, mainly from replacing Dedan Thomas Jr. as the star player in Las Vegas. Can Fleming carry the hopes of the city’s college basketball fans? That’s going to be a lot to ask. However, Fleming is a capable wing that should be able to provide plenty of production for the Rebels. And if he makes a senior-season leap, he’ll even likely be All-Mountain West.
Utah State — Mason Falslev
Along with Gwath of SDSU, Falslev is going to be a favorite to be the Player of the Year in the preseason poll. He’s the lone returning All-MW team selection (unless Byrd pulls out of the draft) and still has a lot of room to grow. We saw Donovan Dent make a massive jump from sophomore to junior season in 2024-25 and become the POY. Perhaps it’s Falslev’s turn to do the same.
Wyoming — Buddy Hammer Jr.
The Cowboys are going to struggle to get top-end recruits for a bit, but Hammer should be able to live up to his name and be a solid interior presence. Coach Wicks wants his teams to be physical and play with a chip on their shoulder and Hammer will be the perfect embodiment of that next season.
