Inside college basketball's most underrated conference

By Andy Katz
FOX Sports College Basketball Analyst

The coaches. The talent. The venues. The experience. And the numbers.

All of these components add up to a potential banner season for the Mountain West, with the real possibility that the league could end up with four NCAA Tournament bids: Boise State, Colorado State, San Diego State and Wyoming.

How did this happen?

First off, this wouldn’t be the first time.

The MWC had five teams make the tournament back in 2013, with San Diego State, New Mexico, Boise State, UNLV and Colorado State.

The growth of the league has been exponential since 1998, when it splintered off from the WAC. In addition to having exceptional talent, the league features some of the top hidden gem venues in the country.

The MWC's success in the NCAA Tournament has been minimal of late — winless, in fact, in the past two NCAA Tournaments in 2019 and 2021. Still, that doesn’t mean it can’t happen or that this league isn’t deserving of reaching the four-bid threshold for the fourth time (four in 2010 and 2012, five in 2013).

"There are veteran teams with veteran coaches,’’ San Diego State head coach Brian Dutcher said.

Dutcher was signaling the former Big Ten coaches who are now coaching in the Mountain West, in Nevada’s Steve Alford (former Iowa coach), New Mexico’s Richard Pitino (Minnesota), San Jose State’s Tim Miles (Nebraska) and Dutcher himself (who was with Steve Fisher at Michigan for 10 years). Colorado State’s Niko Medved, Wyoming’s Jeff Linder and Fresno State’s Justin Hutson were all former MWC assistants. Boise State’s Leon Rice was at one point the heir apparent to Gonzaga’s Mark Few. UNLV’s Kevin Kruger played in the league for his father Lon at UNLV.

"It starts with the overall talent level in the league,’’ Medved said. "It will be almost impossible to pick five guys for first-team all-conference. You have like 12 guys. Everyone in the league has a star. The home courts are great. It’s better than a lot of major conferences. We’re on pace to set attendance records. Wyoming has fans back. Viejas (at San Diego State) is great. Utah State is great.’’

To Medved’s point, the scene at Wyoming has been phenomenal, with court-storming games against Colorado State and Boise State. The Cowboys have rising stars in Hunter Maldonado and Graham Ike, players who could end up being household names in the NCAA Tournament if the Pokes can make a run. 

Medved said it's clear that the schools are investing in basketball when you see the atmospheres at each institution. 

Heading into Tuesday night’s games, Boise State and Wyoming are tied with one loss (9-1 and 8-1, respectively) with 18-5 and 19-3 records. Colorado State is 17-3 (7-3) and San Diego State is 13-6 (5-3).

"The league did very well in the non-conference and that put us in a good position as we made our way into conference play,’’ Linder said. "The talent level, the overall size of the teams, the experience/age of a lot of the teams, and if you add all of those things together with the quality of coaching, you have a recipe for a multi-bid league.’’

There doesn’t have to be future NBA stars on these rosters to prove the league is rich with talent. There are professional basketball players who will come out of this league, maybe led by Fresno State’s Orlando Robinson. 

"Go through team-by-team, and you can see there will be guys who will make money playing basketball,’’ Rice said. "The majority of the contenders don’t have freshmen as key contributors. These are old teams.’’

And old teams that win games against the right teams and create separation in a league like the Mountain West will equal multiple bids — maybe as many as four next month. 

Andy Katz is a longtime college basketball writer, analyst and host. He can be seen on FOX Sports and Big Ten Network platforms, as well as March Madness and NCAA.com, and he hosts the podcast "March Madness 365." Katz worked at ESPN for nearly two decades and, prior to that, in newspapers for nine years.