Mountain West basketball: A case for and against each contending team

The Mountain West is as wild as ever. Here’s a reason why each of the contenders will — or won’t — end up taking home the league’s crown.

With conference play kicking into high gear, several leagues are poised for competitive title races over the next two months.

There might not be a single conference in college basketball quite as wide-open as the Mountain West, though. The league has already sent four teams to the NCAA Tournament in each of the past two years and could even tie (if not exceed) the conference record of five bids in 2013.

At the time of this writing, six teams — Utah State, Boise State, San Diego State, Nevada, New Mexico and Colorado State — have at least a 9.4 percent likelihood of claiming at least a share of the Mountain West regular-season title, according to T-Rank. In the other high-major conferences, the ACC (2), Big Ten (3), Big 12 (5), Big East (4), Pac-12 (3) and SEC (3) all have fewer contenders reaching the 9.4 percent threshold.

Let’s take a look at each contender and make a case for and against each team.

More Heat Check CBB:

• Bracketology: Purdue, Houston, Arizona and Kansas are projected 1-seeds
• Tournament Index: March Madness win probabilities and Cinderella projections
• Rauf Report: UNC’s road success and Purdue’s defense

Utah State Aggies

Case for the Aggies: No team in college basketball this season has surprised quite like the Utah State Aggies. Picked ninth in the league’s preseason poll with an entirely new roster, first-year head coach Danny Sprinkle has done a marvelous job in his new home. Forward Great Osobor, who followed Sprinkle to Logan via Montana State, has been one of the most productive players in the sport, averaging 18.9 points, 9.6 rebounds and 2.8 assists while shooting nearly 60 percent from the floor. Ian Martinez is also having a career year after slotting into modest roles in previous stops at Utah and Maryland, nearly tripling his scoring average (13.1 ppg vs. 4.6 ppg) in an Aggie uniform compared to his prior three seasons.

Case against the Aggies: Last year’s Utah State squad leaned on its arsenal of perimeter weapons to win 26 games and clinch an NCAA Tournament at-large berth. This season, however, the Aggies have been reluctant to take jumpers and ineffective when doing so. According to Hoop-Math, Utah State ranks 14th nationally in at-rim attempt rate with 48.5 percent of their attempts coming on layups or dunks. What happens when opposing teams clog up the lane? The Aggies are 215th in the country in 2-point jumper shooting percentage (36.9 percent) and 237th in 3-point percentage (32.5 percent). As great as Osobor is attacking the lane, he isn’t a jump shooter, so other Aggies will need to step up against better interior defenses.