Mountain West Conference Basketball Weekly Recap

Scores

Monday, December 5

Boise State 79, Idaho State 55

Tuesday, December 6

TCU 75, Texas Tech 69

Wednesday, December 7

Duke 87, Colorado State 64

Boise State 92, Portland 70

Air Force 55, Wright State 34

San Diego State 74, San Diego 62

UNLV 94, Cal State San Marcos 50

Friday, December 9

Wyoming 65, Colorado 54

Saturday, December 10

Wisconsin 62, UNLV 51

New Mexico 44, USC 41

LSU 64, Boise State 45

Nebraska 69, TCU 57

Air Force 63, Arkansas-Pine Bluff 51

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There wasn’t a whole lot to point to this past week in the Mountain West Conference. With BYU and Utah now out of the league, the basketball character of this part of the college sports world has been appreciably reshaped. San Diego State and BYU dueled last year in one of the sport’s best regional confrontations, but BYU’s absence and Jimmer Fredette’s journey to the NBA have made the Mountain West a more impoverished basketball realm. There weren’t a lot of five-star matchups to be found in the first full week of December, and the Mountain West’s big chance for an upset went by the boards. UNLV and coach Dave Rice, who knocked off North Carolina on Thanksgiving weekend, could not topple Wisconsin at the Kohl Center in Madison. The Badgers were hardly a study in efficiency, but coach Bo Ryan’s ballclub bludgeoned Vegas with its trademark defense, a hard-nosed form of basketball the Rebels were simply not prepared for. The big key for UNLV is to not let this loss affect its mindset for the rest of the season. The Rebels have so often gone off the reservation for multiple weeks at a time, losing games in which they had no business playing down to the level of competition. If UNLV can avoid the proverbial “bad loss” in 2012, it should be in very good shape for an NCAA Tournament at-large bid.

In the other game involving an upset-minded Mountain West club, the Colorado State Rams got whacked by Duke in Durham, North Carolina. Colorado State threatened to get a tourney ticket last season, but the Rams weren’t able to muster much of a counterattack against Duke’s athleticism and firepower. Colorado State needs to use this decisive loss as a teaching tool for the conference season. If it can, who knows how far coach Tim Miles’s team can go.

This past Saturday, the Mountain West lost most of its key games. Boise State and TCU fell to downmarket programs in power conferences (LSU and Nebraska, respectively). New Mexico did beat USC, but only after enduring a 14-minute stretch without a field goal. Yes, it’s shaping up to be “that” kind of a season in the Rocky Mountains.

By: Matt Zemek
DFN Sports Senior Staff Writer