Get To Know a College Basketball Mid-Major: Mountain West

You know all about the Power 5 conferences in college basketball. You hear about those more than any other, and those groups often dominate the March Madness conversation. There are 26 other conferences out there, however, and our goal is to get you up to speed on the teams, players and fights in the standings to know before the conference tournaments, Selection Sunday and the official start of March Madness. It’s time for you to get to know a mid-major: this time, it’s the Mountain West. The Mountain West formed in 1998, with all eight of its original members coming over from the Western Athletic Conference as part of a larger NCAA realignment happening at the time. It has 12 teams now — some less west and less mountainous than others — but will drop to 10 in 2026-2027. Right now, however, what we care about is the current state of the conference and just which teams might come out of it to participate in March Madness. The Mountain West tournament will be slightly different in 2026 than it was in 2025, as well, since last year there were 11 teams in the conference. With a dozen this time, and all 12 participating in the conference tourney, the setup now includes the top four teams in the standings receiving a bye into the quarterfinals, while the other eight all participate in the first round, the winners then moving to the quarterfinals with seeding that benefits the top seed the most — that team will face the winner of the eighth and ninth seeds clashing — and so on down the line. A rarity among mid-majors, Mountain West regularly picks up a number of at-large bids in addition to its automatic bid on the men’s side: from 2023 through 2025, the MW had 4, 6 and 4 teams in March Madness. The women’s side is a much different story, as it has been automatic bid and that’s it over the same stretch — a trend that’s going to continue into 2026. Mountain West — Men’s College Basketball Leaders: Air Force — which is 0-17 in conference play and has lost 21-straight games through Feb. 24 — has already clinched last place and a first-round game against the eventual fifth seed, but nothing else is set in the Mountain West. Particularly unsettled is the top of the conference: Utah State is 13-3, followed by San Diego State (12-4), New Mexico (12-5), Nevada (11-6) and Grand Canyon (10-6). That’s five teams fighting for four byes, and not far behind is 9-7 UNLV and a pair of 9-8 teams in Boise State and Colorado State. Not only does current Mountain West leader Utah State have four games left, but the next one — on Feb. 25 — is against San Diego State, which sits a game back. The Aggies are unlikely to fall out of a bye entirely even if they were to somehow collapse, but seeding does matter, and there are plenty of other teams to leapfrog them if the opportunity comes up. Utah State is 23rd in the NCAA Evaluation Tool, with New Mexico next at 44, and San Diego State 46th. Boise State (60) and Nevada (62) aren’t all that far behind, while Grand Canyon, Colorado State and Wyoming all made it into the top 100, as well. As far as Wins Above Bubble goes, Mountain West is likely to struggle to replicate its success of the last few years in terms of at-large bids, but they will exist. Wins Above Bubble has Utah State leading at 28 with a score of 2.74 — a score of 0.00 would put a team right at the bubble, at least hypothetically. New Mexico is just above that threshold, at 0.29, while San Diego State is just below it, at -0.48. Nevada (-1.13) and Boise State (-1.24) follow, but after that there is likely just too much ground for anyone to make up with what season remains. So, Mountain West is looking at two likely teams — an automatic and an at-large — but if, say, Utah State can put on a deep conference tourney run without winning it all, and then New Mexico and San Diego State make it to the finals… well, there could be room for three bids total. Similarly, if Nevada or Boise State go on a serious run from here on out, their scores could maybe shift enough to get Selection Committee attention, but there is a reason that FOX Sports’ Mike Decourcy has been projecting Mountain West with two bids instead of what it’s pulled off over the last three NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournaments. What makes it all a little more confusing to sort out right now is that, of all the teams with at least 10 wins in conference play, just one of them won its most recent game. It’s hard to pull the momentum lever and leave it at that when no one has any. There is no shortage of interesting teams that would be obviously tournament-worthy if they had caught just one or two more breaks over the course of the season, though, and seeing them all trying to one-up each other in the Mountain West tournament — and these last weeks of the season — will be as entertaining as it is informative. Mountain West – Women’s College Basketball Leaders: On the women’s side of Mountain West, San Diego State has a significant cushion, as it’s 16-1. Boise State is next up at 13-4 — the two play each other on Feb. 25, and the Aztecs already have at least a share of the regular-season title and top seed. Winning against Boise State will bring finality to that issue and give San Diego State, in theory, the easiest path through the conference tournament. Boise State is tied with UNLV for second, so not losing to San Diego State would serve multiple purposes in its quest for better seeding. Colorado State is next at 12-5, with New Mexico the last double-digit winner at 11-6. Grand Canyon is 9-8, Fresno State is 8-9, and then things get a bit ugly: Wyoming and Air Force are both 6-11, Nevada is 4-13, while Utah State and San Jose State are 2-15. San Diego State needs that conference championship if it’s going to partake in the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament, and not just because, historically, the Mountain West just gets the automatic bid. The Aztecs are 69th in NET through Feb. 24, and 55th in WAB, at -0.64. They are about as on-the-bubble as you can get, and since the best team left on the schedule by NET is Boise State — 110th — getting into positive territory is going to be difficult. Plus, if San Diego State doesn’t win the Mountain West conference, that will adversely impact its WAB, too. The Aztecs likely have the weapons to make it happen, however. Four of its players are top-20 in the conference in Player Efficiency Rating (PER): senior guard Nala Williams is second (26.2), sophomore forward Bailey Barnhard eighth (22.8), junior forward Kennedy Lee ranks 14th (20.9) and the team’s leading scorer, sophomore guard Naomi Panganiban, is 15th (20.2). Another way to put that is that the Mountain West has 15 players with a PER of at least 20, and San Diego State has four of them. Williams has the best Plus/Minus in the conference and the third-best Offensive Rating. Williams, Barnhard and Lee are top-9 in Defensive Rating. San Diego State is first in the conference in field goals despite being seventh in attempts, while rating first in 2-point percentage and second in 3-point. It does not have the best offense or defense, but is second in both — that balance has them atop the standings for a reason.