We’re just over a quarter of the way through Mountain West play for the 2025-26 season, so let’s check in with another edition of Mountain West Watch and see how the teams are doing.
This edition will go over my latest power rankings and who would be my picks for the end-of-season awards were they to be handed out today. We’ll also go over the key matchups of the weekend to see how they could shake up the hierarchy that’s been slowly shaping over the first three weeks of conference games.
I’ve used tiers in my somewhat consistent series of posting power rankings on social media but here I’m going to just keep it simple and go 1-12. Partly because boxing these teams into tiers is getting harder and harder and it’s led to me breaking my own rules.
1. Utah State (15-1, 6-0)
The Aggies are far and away the top team by the metrics, ranking just outside the top 20 in most metrics and as high as 16th, which is where they sit in the NET. Jerrod Calhoun has transformed this team into one that not only has a great offense, something they had last year, but also an elite defense. Utah State ranks 31st nationally in defensive efficiency per KenPom, a vast improvement over the 2024-25 squad that ranked 150th in the same category. It’s given Utah State the ability to win in multiple ways. They’ve won in games that started as shootouts, such as when San Jose State hit nine 3-pointers in one half, and grind-it-out defensive matchups against Fresno State and Nevada. The Aggies are the most versatile, and dangerous, team in the conference right now.
2. San Diego State (12-4, 6-0)
San Diego State is starting to look like San Diego State again. Things started out on a bit of a rough patch in non-conference (by Aztec standards, they still only lost four games) but a 6-0 start with the last two games being roughly 20-point blowouts where the opponents don’t score more than 60 points is the kind of stuff we’re used to seeing from Brian Dutcher teams.
3. New Mexico (14-3, 5-1)
In my social media power ranking posts, I had New Mexico sitting in the tier titled “Beat one of the contenders and you get to be in the club.” But despite not beating Utah State or San Diego, the two teams in the “Contender’s Club” tier, since that post I moved the Lobos up. Why break the rules? Well, a 23-point win over Grand Canyon was certainly impressive enough for most. And New Mexico has been an a tear lately with its only hiccup in a nearly two-month span is a loss to Boise State which does admittedly look a little embarrassing in retrospect.
4. Nevada (12-5, 4-2)
The Wolf Pack can mostly hold their head high after a valiant effort in the Spectrum yesterday. Things can, and have, gone a lot worse for them and other teams. The Aggies had averaged 92.0 points per game in Mountain West play and Nevada threw out a defensive performance that held that offense to 72. That’s something to be proud of and enough to look forward to the Feb. 21 rematch at Lawlor.
Aside from the USU game, Nevada deserves a spot near the top by its overall performance but is pretty clearly a tier below for now because they’ve lost their two marquee games, vs SDSU and at USU, in conference play. The Wolf Pack will stay near the top, but if they want to be at the top, their win-loss ratio in key games is going to have to change.
5. Grand Canyon (10-6, 3-2)
I staked my claim as one of the biggest non-believers in Grand Canyon’s ability to contend in this conference. And while the Lopes losing big in The Pit backs up that bias to a degree, there’s also some fight we’ve seen from the Lopes in the early goings of the season. And being one of the few teams so far with an above .500 record both overall and in conference play is something that has to go in GCU’s favor.
6. UNLV (8-8, 3-2)
UNLV is as confusing as it always is and I don’t really think they deserve to be in the top half of a power ranking for the conference with a .500 record, but no one below them is doing anything to show they deserve to be above the Rebels, so here we are. Like always, the Rebels have talent, athleticism and skill. The main thing they lack, as always, is discipline and consistency. The Rebels haven’t gotten a crack against the top teams in the conference yet, but they’re gonna get all three of them in a row, Utah State (Jan. 20), San Diego State (Jan. 24) and New Mexico (Jan. 27). UNLV will probably find a way to win one of those and then lose the others by 15 points or something like that. It’s the Rebel way.
7. Boise State (9-8, 1-5)
I stuck my neck out for the Broncos multiple times this year and all anyone who did likewise has in return is a sore neck from looking at how far down Boise State has fallen. In the preseason this team was a contender, now they’re sitting on four straight losses. And to be honest, seventh might still be too high because I’m not sure they’re playing any better than Wyoming or Fresno State.
There have been plenty of Broncos media and supporters that have justifiably pointed out that Boise State have played not only one of the toughest schedules in the nation, but also the single toughest conference schedule thus far. But also look at it this way. Boise State went 4-7 against the top five teams in the conference last year with an average point differential of -3.3 and didn’t lose to a single team outside of the MW’s top five teams. This year, the Broncos are 1-4 against the top five with an average point differential of -11.0, plus a loss to a team outside the top five (UNLV). They’ve also already lost three home games, which exceeds last year’s full-season total. Even accounting for the tough schedule, Boise State hasn’t lived up to its own standard.
8. Wyoming (11-6, 2-4)
Once upon a time, around 27 days ago, there was a faint glimmer of a hope that the Cowboys could contend. They were 9-2 heading into conference play with one of those losses being by just four points on the road to a really good Texas Tech teams. Game at Arena-Auditorium were looking like they’d be Quad 1 games at the infamous 7,220 feet elevation.
Cut to now and the Cowboys are 2-4 in league play with two home losses by a combined 29 points. This team certainly looks and plays better than last year’s team, which won only 12 games, so credit to Sundance Wicks for that improvement. There’s just clearly room to go up.
9. Fresno State (8-9, 2-4)
The Bulldogs might become the sneakiest dogs of the conference as they seem capable of taking it to the best teams in the conference, even if the W isn’t always there at the final buzzer. Fresno State took Utah State just about to the wire and then came up just shy against Nevada. They’ve now downed Colorado State (though the Rams are looking rough right now themselves, see below) and have overall just shown the ability to be dangerous to teams that are way better on paper. I don’t trust Fresno State to get a good volume of wins, but they’ll generate a decent volume of scares for their conference mates.
10. Colorado State (11-6, 2-4)
There could be hope for Colorado State yet. After all, they were in a seemingly hopeless position last year where they had no chance of making the NCAA Tournament, only to flip a switch and make a fantastic run. But there are some very serious holes to fix. Kyle Jorgensen coming back isn’t going to fix the defense which is on par with San Jose State and Air Force, the two worst teams in the conference (spoiler for the rest of the power rankings). When the Rams get Jorgensen back, which could be as early as this weekend, they’ll basically be a slightly worse version of last year’s Utah State team. When the offense is on, extremely dangerous but liable to lose a shootout. If the shots aren’t falling that night, they’ll get blown out.
11. San Jose State
Congrats to the Spartans on getting their first win of conference play, but it might still be a long season yet.
12. Air Force (3-14, 0-6)
Wake me up when the Falcons win a game in conference play. And also sorry to Joe Scott for the impossible job he has trying to develop a team with the restrictions he faces.
ALL-MW FIRST TEAM
- Mason Falslev (Utah State)
- MJ Collins (Utah State)
- BJ Davis (San Diego State)
- Elijah Price (Nevada)
- Tomislav Buljan (New Mexico)
The first three on this list, Falslev, Collins and Davis, are the three names I’m highly confident about. The remaining two were up for debate, with two or three other names in serious contention. Jake Hall could also get a spot, though it’d probably be at the expense of his teammate, Tomislav Buljan. Jaden Henley is in KenPom’s All-MW team right now and could earn a spot in the final tally. For the advanced stat merchants, I gathered data on player catch-all metrics and averaged out player’s ranks in each of four different metrics — Win Shares, Box Plus/Minus, PER and EvanMiya Bayesian Performance Rating. Come up with an average for each player across those metrics and you can pull out a list of top ten players in the Mountain West according to analytics.
PLAYER OF THE YEAR — MJ Collins (Utah State)
Collins fits the bill for “best player on best team” though you could argue Falslev for that same title, but we live in a scoring-centric world and Collins leads the conference in scoring (20.1 per game) and plays for the top-rated team.
DEFENSIVE PLAYER OF THE YEAR — Mason Falslev (Utah State)
Much like in my end-of-non-conference edition of these awards, Falslev comes up on top when looking across a variety of criteria. Traditional stats? Falslev leads the league in steals (2.7 per game) by a pretty wide margin (next-closest is 2.0 per game). Advanced metrics? Falslev leads the conference in Defensive Win Shares, Defensive Box Plus/Minus, is second in Defensive Rating and fourth in EvanMiya’s Defensive BPM. There are some other noteworthy names for this award, such as Nana Owusu-Anane or Miles Byrd, but Falslev is at the top of this one.
FRESHMAN OF THE YEAR — Tomislav Buljan (New Mexico)
This is probably the closest and most diverse race among all these awards. There are four very solid freshmen who are likely to be very deserving of this award by the end of the year and it may even result in a co-FOTY. I’m mainly split between a pair of New Mexico players, forward Tomislav Buljan and guard Jake Hall, with Wyoming guard Nasir Meyer very much in the conversation as well. UNLV center Tyrin Jones also makes for a compelling pick for those who love great rim-running/rim-protecting bigs.
SIXTH MAN OF THE YEAR — BJ Davis (San Diego State)
It almost feels like Brian Dutcher is deliberately positioning BJ Davis to be 6MOY because there’s basically zero reason for him to be coming off the bench. Davis is legitimately playing at a First Team All-MW level but still doesn’t step onto the court until a few minutes have passed in each game. He closes every game, but doesn’t start. It’s a bit weird, but also more and more common among coaches
COACH OF THE YEAR — Eric Olen (New Mexico)
You could make an argument for Utah State’s Jerrod Calhoun with how the Aggies are exceeding even their relatively high expectations and just how much the defense has improved from last year, but Olen fits better with how voting for this award has typically gone. This is an award about exceeding expectations and doing more with less (or less than we thought you had). Olen and his team were entirely new to New Mexico and (mostly) the Mountain West. To be among the top teams despite all of that is worthy of recognition.
We should be getting a great weekend of matchups on Friday and Saturday. Maybe not the best slate of the year, but we’ll get our first heavyweight bout of the year plus a couple of intriguing games.
Colorado State @ Boise State (Friday)
This could be the game where the once potential POY candidate Kyle Jorgensen will make his return. The forward made the trip to Fresno State and was listed as questionable but didn’t play. If the Rams can get him back it’d be a huge boost to their already potent offensive firepower. On the other side, you’ve got a desperate Boise State team that will try to avoid losing three home games in a row for the first time since the 2011-12 season.
Utah State @ Grand Canyon (Saturday)
Students are already camping in the 77-degree weather down in Phoenix in anticipation for Utah State coming to town. The Lopes will welcome the 23rd-ranked Aggies into Global Credit Union Arena, which will be just the fourth time GCU has hosted a ranked opponent. The Lopes are 1-2 in home ranked games all-time thus far, with that one win being over a different Mountain West/future Pac-12 team, San Diego State.
New Mexico @ San Diego State (Saturday)
This is the heavyweight matchup of the weekend, the first major clash of top-level contenders this conference has seen this year. We had some false starts, like Utah State vs Colorado State, or a few Boise State games, but this one appears to be a legit weekend-making matchup. Both teams have elite defenses. Both teams have top players in the conference. It’ll be worth the price of entry and well worth carving out the time to watch this one on TV.
