The Mountain West is gearing up for what should be a fantastic final leg of the regular season, featuring a tight title race between its two best programs of the last decade and a host of capable teams hot on their heels should either (or both) slip up. Several teams that are trying to ramp up for this final stretch in hopes of a regular season title or conference tournament run are having a bye sometime this week, so it’s a good time to take a step back and see how things are shaping up with some power rankings, bracketology and a closer look at the title race itself.
Utah State and San Diego State title race
The Aztecs and Aggies battling for the Mountain West regular season and conference tournament titles has been an ongoing classic for the last seven seasons. They have finished 1-2 in the Mountain West standings three separate times — 2019-20, 2020-21, 2022-23 — and have faced each other three times in the conference tournament title game (and one other time in the MW tournament). With these two so often battling each other for the title, it’s no surprise when you add things up and see that USU and SDSU account for nine of the last 14 regular season and conference tournament crowns.
Although there were some challengers in the early and middle parts of conference play — New Mexico, Grand Canyon, Nevada (and even Boise State at the very early stage of MW play) — those have died down for the moment. Utah State and San Diego State are at least two games ahead of anyone else in the conference race. The question is whether or not they will stay ahead. Both teams have quite the gauntlet ahead of them.
Here are the remaining schedules for both teams (MW games only).
- Utah State — vs Boise State / @ Nevada / @ San Diego State / vs Grand Canyon / @ UNLV / vs New Mexico
- San Diego State — vs Nevada / vs Grand Canyon / @ Colorado State / vs Utah State / @ New Mexico / @ Boise State / vs UNLV
That’s a really rough stretch for both, and each team will have to face squads they lost to earlier in the season. The real money-maker will be the Feb. 25 matchup between these two very teams in Viejas Arena. The winner of that game will put themselves pretty firmly in the driver’s seat, provided neither have taken a loss before that game happens.
For Utah State, the battle could be even more rough. San Diego State is currently on its bye, not having to play in this week’s Tuesday/Wednesday slate. The Aggies have their “bye” so to speak, but filled that slot with a game against Memphis. Consequently, they won’t have any notable break the rest of the way. It sounds small, but having that wear-and-tear does make a difference come March.
Walker’s MW Power Rankings
I’ve had a roughly twice-weekly release of my own power rankings over on social media, here’s the latest edition with all of the teams grouped into tiers that reflect something of my thoughts on their ability to hang with the best teams
Contender’s Club
1. Utah State (21-3, 12-2)
2. San Diego State (17-6, 11-2)
As detailed above, these are the teams that have separated themselves from the rest. They’ve each picked up losses to teams in the second tier, but have overall showed the consistency necessary to be at the top of the league.
Run the table and contending is still in the cards
3. New Mexico (19-6, 10-4)
4. Nevada (17-7, 9-4)
Last night’s win by the Lobos at Grand Canyon was a step in the right direction after a pretty rough couple of games last week. New Mexico took itself out of the contender’s club with home losses to Utah State and Boise State but could get back in. They’ve got games against both USU and SDSU coming up, so can chip in on losses for both teams. New Mexico still need some help from the Aggies and Aztecs, though, since they’re both two games up on the Lobos. Nevada is in pretty much the same boat. Only two losses back of the leaders with games against both Utah State and San Diego State.
Conference Tournament or Bust
5. Boise State (15-9, 7-6)
6. Grand Canyon (15-9, 8-5)
7. UNLV (12-12, 7-6)
The Broncos are making quite the resurgence with six wins over their last seven games. Although they’ve made up some ground, there’s a long way yet and not nearly enough time to get back into the regular season title or at-large NCAA Tournament bid territory. Grand Canyon and UNLV are in a similar position in that both conference title and the Big Dance are unreachable within the regular season. But all three have shown the ability to beat some of the best the conference has to offer and the conference tournament offers the prize of a ticket to the NCAA Tournament. That’s what these three teams will be ramping up toward in the final month of the regular season.
Can beat Tier 2/3 teams, but apparently not the contenders
8. Fresno State (11-13, 5-8)
9. Wyoming (13-11, 4-9)
10. Colorado State (14-10, 5-8)
Sweeping these teams is pretty much a requirement to contend, and most of the first/second tier teams have, though Grand Canyon took an awkward home loss to Colorado State. All three have a win over UNLV (which maybe suggests the Rebels should be in this tier, but there’s a lot of contradictory data points in UNLV’s resume). A loss to one of these teams isn’t the worst thing that will happen to you, but it will just about end your regular season title hopes. And the main issue is that each of these three teams is capable of being dangerous on the right night.
Winless against everyone but each other
11. San Jose State (6-18, 1-12)
12. Air Force (3-21, 0-13)
As the tier title suggests, these two teams are 0-25 in league games, save for the one time they played each other which resulted in SJSU’s lone MW win. There’s some hope that the Spartans can have the game of their season to beat someone other than Air Force, but they’re roughly 150 spots, in KenPom ranking, below the team I have ranked 10th and around 120 spots below the next-closest teams in KenPom generally (Fresno State and UNLV). Those gaps are bigger than the ones between the league leaders and everyone in the 3-10 range.
Bracketology
The Mountain West has produced at least three at-large bid teams in each of the last four seasons and have sent 18 teams to the NCAA Tournament overall in that span. That’s barely behind the Big East (19), and if you narrowed it to the last three seasons, the Mountain West has actually sent more teams (14-13) to the Big Dance. But this year that at-large volume is at significant risk. With basically no one in the MW having an impressive performance in their non-conference, either through not beating enough quality teams (Utah State, New Mexico) or losing to all the tough teams they played (San Diego State, Boise State), that’s put the league in a tough spot.
As of right now, Utah State is the only team that is safely in. And the only teams that appear to be close enough to make the bubble are San Diego State and New Mexico. The Aztecs and Lobos have gone back and forth between being just in or just out of the tournament according to the consensus of bracketologists collected on BracketMatrix.com.
CURRENT IN/OUT PROJECTIONS FROM BRACKET MATRIX
- Utah State – 8 seed (in all 111 brackets analyzed)
- San Diego State – 11 seed (67 of 111)
- New Mexico – First Four Out (18 of 111)
Looking at some other sources of resume quality, Evan Miyakawa has Utah State relatively safe with its record but has both San Diego State and New Mexico below the at-large cut line. Though, interestingly, Nevada makes an appearance on the bubble in Miyakawa’s graph despite not being included on or near the bubble in most projections.
RESUME QUALITYHere is every team’s Win Quality (Y axis) compared to their Loss Quality (X axis), using the Resume Quality metric at https://t.co/cegyfz8ykZ👇 pic.twitter.com/ArG0TMsRv6
— Evan Miyakawa (@EvanMiya) February 11, 2026
Currently, the Mountain West is looking at a potential one-bid league if Utah State runs the table. The conference actually needs the Aggies to lose so other teams, particularly New Mexico and San Diego State, can pick up quality wins. The Lobos could snag a Quad 1 win if it wins in Logan in the regular season finale. The Aztecs might get credit for a Quad 1 win if they beat USU in Viejas, though whether the Aggies would stay inside the top 30 in the NET with that loss (and maybe others) would be up in the air. Beating Utah State has essentially become the best bet for an at-large ticket to the NCAA Tournament for any team left on the Aggies schedule. Boise State and Nevada will surely be licking their lips at a chance to leap closer to the bubble if they can take USU down.
The maximum number of bids the Mountain West is looking at is three. It’s hard to see both UNM and SDSU picking up at-large bids, so the ideal scenario at this point to maximize bids would be for San Diego State and Utah State to do well enough to earn at-large bids but have someone else win the conference tournament. Whether that be the Lobos or someone else would be up to the basketball gods.
