Bern’s-Eye View: Forecasting Mountain West Basketball Week 13

By Taylor Bern

Wednesday, Feb. 4, 2015 | 12:28 p.m.

Finally, a positive week for the Forecast, capped off by Derrick Marks’ ridiculous closing performance last night in Boise State’s 68-63 victory at Utah State. Marks scored 23 on 9-of-13 shooting, including a nearly 40-foot 3-pointer in the final minutes that dropped in like the easiest of jump shots.

Like Marks, who does most of his damage in the second half of games, I’m hoping for a strong finish as we head into the final weeks of the regular season. The Mountain West title race is as tight as expected, with six teams within two games and eight teams within three.

The most important game tonight as far as the standings are concerned is Colorado State at Wyoming, which is also the Vegas Play of the Day. A Wyoming victory would put a big dent in the Rams’ chances, while a Colorado State upset could further muddy the waters at the top.

Here’s what I’ve got in that game and the other three on the slate tonight:

TODAY

New Mexico (minus-3.5) at Air Force

6 p.m., Root Sports/Mountain West Network

• Falcons senior Max Yon is expected to return to the team tonight after missing six games for personal reasons that no one seems to know the details about. No matter, his return comes at the perfect time for Air Force to screw up a few things in the conference race and make itself a team that at least makes opponents earn some of their victories. I think that starts tonight.

Pick: Air Force

Colorado State (plus-2.5) at Wyoming

6 p.m., Mountain West Network/Campus Insiders

• This is a short drive for Colorado State in a cross-state rivalry game that finds the Rams not only looking for revenge but also trying to pull themselves into a tie with the Cowboys at 7-3 in league play. I think they pull it off.

Pick: Colorado State

San Jose State (plus-18) at Fresno State

7 p.m., Mountain West Network

• You know the drill. I’m 7-2 in Mountain West games just blindly betting against the Spartans, and six of those games were bigger spreads than tonight. In fairness, one of those losses was Fresno State failing to cover a 13.5-point spread at San Jose State, but that’s not going to affect my decision today.

Pick: Fresno State

San Diego State (minus-10.5) at UNR

7 p.m., ESPN3

• This is my least confident pick of the day, because I really don’t think UNR is any good, but this decision is more about the Aztecs’ offense needing to win by 11 on the road. San Diego State is certainly capable of pulling that off, but I think the smarter side is the home team.

Pick: UNR

Last week: 8-3

Season: 86-70-1

Taylor Bern can be reached at 948-7844 or [email protected]. Follow Taylor on Twitter at twitter.com/taylorbern.