Monday, January 19, 2015

Bubble Watch, part 9: Mountain West

It's time to take inventory of there all 351 teams in the country stand.  Over a dozen or so posts today, we'll break down the resumes that matter in typical Bubble Watch style.

The Mountain West is in trouble.

The Lockbox:
none, this year

Bubble:
San Diego St (14-4) (4-1) RPI 19 SoS 45
Vital signs:  3-4 R/N, non-con SoS 27, 2-3 vs. Top 50, 5-3 vs. Top 100
Signature wins:  Utah, N-BYU
Bad losses:  @Fresno
The bad loss and the lack of depth of signature wins keeps them out of the lockbox for now.  As for now, a sterling SoS and signature win have them safely in.  One issue:  the chance of resume-boosting wins are a bit down in this conference, so they need to be careful not to lose too many of these.

Colorado St (17-2) (4-2) RPI 35 SoS 146
Vital signs:  8-1 R/N, non-con SoS 126, 0-0 vs. Top 50, 3-1 vs. Top 100
Signature wins:  @Colorado?  Boise and UTEP?
Bad losses:  @New Mexico, but not really
Not a single game against the RPI Top 50 yet.  How is their SoS not in the 200s?  It's pretty obvious that they need to beat a tourney team to feel safe on any level...and SDSU might be their only surefire chance.  The one bit of good news:  8 road/neutral wins already in their back pocket.  That is not a trivial amount.

Wyoming (16-3) (5-1) RPI 92 SoS 254
Vital signs:  4-2 R/N, non-con SoS 335, 1-2 vs. Top 50, 3-2 vs. Top 100
Signature wins:  @Colorado St, Colorado
Bad losses:  @Cal, I suppose
That non-con SoS will kill them.  In 1st in the conference right now, but way too many things working against them in the long run.

NIT watch:
Boise St (12-6) (2-3) RPI 54 SoS 63 - one top 100 win at the moment, which just isn't enough to support decent but pedestrian computer numbers.
New Mexico (12-6) (4-2) RPI 109 SoS 143 - a much lower SoS than they're accustomed to.
UNLV (10-8) (1-4) RPI 105 SoS 56 - that win over Arizona (and a N-Temple too!) is getting erased by an awful start to conference play.  Granted, @SDSU and @Boise was part of it...but so was home to Nevada.

No postseason projected:
Fresno St (9-10) (4-2)
Utah St (10-7) (3-2)
Nevada (6-10) (2-2)
Air Force (8-9) (1-5)
San Jose St (2-16) (0-6)

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