Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Analysis:

Bern’s-Eye View: Forecasting Mountain West Basketball Week 17

Utah State vs. UNLV

AP Photo/Herald Journal, John Zsiray

Utah State’s Sean Harris moves the ball as UNLV’s Patrick McCaw defends during an NCAA college basketball game, Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2015, in Logan, Utah.

The Rebel Room

Rivalries, Recruiting and Tributes

It's a loaded show this week as Las Vegas Sun sports writers Ray Brewer and Taylor Bern get into UNLV's tribute to Tark, Tony Sanchez winning the offseason, guessing Stephen Zimmerman's decision and more.

Here we are, the final week of regular season games in the 2014-15 college basketball season. As usual it feels like it flew by and yet I would never want to go back because the end of the regular season means the start of the best time of year for this sport.

First it’s conference tournaments, including four in Las Vegas, and then the best 96 hours in sports as the NCAA Tournament’s first weekend runs March 19-22. The West Coast Conference tournament starts this week at the Orleans Arena and then next week in Vegas we’ve got the Western Athletic Conference (Orleans), Pac-12 (MGM Grand) and Mountain West (Thomas & Mack Center) running basically simultaneously. It’s great, except when the games you really want to see tip at the same time.

In the Mountain West there’s still some shuffling that could happen but if the season ended today, here’s what the first two days of games would look like:

Wednesday, March 11

• 8 New Mexico vs. 9 Air Force, noon

• 7 UNLV vs. 10 UNR, 2:30 p.m.

Thursday, March 12

• 1 Boise State vs. UNM/Air Force winner, noon

• 4 Utah State vs. 5 Wyoming, 2:30 p.m.

• 2 San Diego State vs. UNLV/UNR winner, 6 p.m.

• 3 Colorado State vs. 6 Fresno State, 8:30 p.m.

It’s not quite a wide open field but there will be several teams who feel like this is their year to cut down the nets. Who’s going to get some momentum heading into it? Let’s look at the picks:

Note: UNLV picks will appear in the live blog on the day of games.

TODAY

Utah State (plus-6.5) at Wyoming

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

• Utah State is the most interesting team heading into the Mountain West tournament. The Aggies have won six straight and will finish several spots ahead of their preseason slot (ninth) but it’s tough to say whether they really belong with that top group. Utah State is 2-2 against Boise State, San Diego State and Wyoming heading into tonight’s game and its only meeting with Colorado State is Saturday night at home for the last regular season game of coach Stew Morrill’s career.

Pick: Utah State

Air Force (plus-6.5) at Fresno State

7 p.m., Mountain West Network

• Air Force has failed to cover in five straight games and I think it’s too late for things to turn around heading into the Falcons’ regular-season finale tonight at Fresno State. Air Force and New Mexico will likely be the first game of the tournament next Wednesday at noon.

Pick: Fresno State

Colorado State (minus-7.5) at UNR

7 p.m., Mountain West Network

• I want to go with Colorado State but the Rams haven’t been good enough on the road in league play to back them. Here’s hoping UNR saved up a decent performance for senior night.

Pick: UNR

Boise State (minus-18) at San Jose State

7:15 p.m., Root Sports/Mountain West Network

• My strategy of blindly picking against the Spartans hasn’t resulted in a lot of wins lately as the lines have gotten bigger and bigger, but it’s too late to go back now. I’m going down with this ship.

Pick: Boise State

Last week: 5-3

Season: 107-88-2

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

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