Around the Mountain: Here's where every team could be seeded for the Mountain West Tournament

With one week and 10 (of 100) games left in the Mountain West’s regular season, not one seed is set for next week’s conference tournament.

For those new to the game, all 11 teams make the conference tournament, which starts Sunday (the women’s tournament) in Las Vegas, Nevada at the Thomas & Mack Center.

The men’s tournament is Wednesday (March 12) through Saturday (March 15), the first round with seeds 6-11 playing and the top five seeds getting byes into Thursday’s (March 13) quarterfinal round.

Heading into the final week of action, the UNM Lobos are in first place. One win this week would clinch at least a share of the regular season title — the program’s first since 2013.

In case anyone wondered, Richard Pitino would like to do that. Whether it was meant to be asked the way it was or not, Pitino was asked on Saturday after beating Air Force, “Does it matter to you?” in reference to a regular-season championship.

“Yeah, winning the league matters to me,” Pitino said, a bit confused by the question. “I think if we win Tuesday, we share it, which, yes, that absolutely matters to me.

“This time of year you’ve got NCAA Tournament seeding, but our number one goal was to win a regular-season championship. If you do that, you’re probably going to put yourself in a really good position for the NCAA Tournament. We don’t really talk a whole lot about that, but hell yeah, I want to win a title. Absolutely.”

But first things first.

The Lobos know they can’t fall lower than the No. 2 seed.

As for seeding the entire tournament, there are dozens of scenarios at play as to how each team gets each seed. Way too many to list here. But here’s what we do know...

Possible MW Tournament seeds:

1. (Colorado State/New Mexico/San Diego State)

2. (Boise State/CSU/UNM/SDSU/Utah State)

3. (BSU/CSU/SDSU/USU)

4. (BSU/CSU/SDSU/USU)

5. (BSU/CSU/SDSU/USU)

— First round bye —

6. (Nevada/UNLV)

7. (Nevada/UNLV)

8. (San Jose State/Wyoming)

9. (San Jose State/Wyoming)

10. (Air Force/Fresno State)

11. (Air Force/Fresno State)

Blowouts aplenty

Twenty-four of the first 100 Mountain West games played this season were of the “blowout” variety, as defined by KenPom.com (being a game decided by 20 or more points).

That 24% blowout rate is the third most among 31 conferences. The West Coast Conference is No. 1 with 33.3% of its games being blowouts and the Ivy League is No. 2 at 25.0%.

MW wins by 20 or more points:

7 — Colorado State

4 — Boise State

4 — New Mexico

3 — San Diego State

3 — Utah State

2 — Nevada

1 — UNLV

MW losses by 20 or more points:

7 — Air Force

6 — Fresno State

3 — San Jose State

3 — Wyoming

2 — UNLV

1 — Colorado State

1 — Nevada

1 — Utah State

Players of the week

UNLV’s Jaden Henley was named Mountain West Player of the Week on Monday after averaging 22.5 points, 6.5 rebounds and 4.0 assists in a pair of wins over San Jose State and Nevada.

It’s the first weekly award for the DePaul transfer.

Fresno State’s Brian Amuneke is the Freshman of the Week after scoring 17 points in Saturday’s home loss to Boise State.

Poll position

There were no Mountain West teams ranked in Monday’s new Associated Press Top 25 poll, but the Lobos were still getting two points in the “others receiving votes” section of the poll.

UNM’s two points game via one voter — David Jablonski of the Dayton (Ohio) Daily News — voting the Lobos at No. 24 .

Three for me

There are plenty of important games this week in the league for seeding and postseason purposes, but these are the three I’m looking forward to:

UNM at Nevada: Tuesday, 6 p.m. PST/7 p.m. MST, CBS Sports Network — The Lobos clinch at least a share of the Mountain West championship with a win, their first regular-season title since 2013 when Steve Alford was coach. The Wolf Pack wins on their senior night and it’s career win No. 700 for Alford, who is now the coach in Nevada.

San Diego State at UNLV: Tuesday, 8 p.m. PST/9 p.m. MST, CBS Sports Network — UNLV knocked off the Aztecs in Viejas Arena earlier this season and have been playing well lately. The Aztecs are in the unique position of still playing to make it into the NCAA Tournament.

Colorado State at Boise State: Friday, 7 p.m. PST/8 p.m. MST, FS1 — Could the Rams be playing for at least a piece of the program’s first-ever Mountain West championship? They are the last original member never to have won one and Friday night, depending on how the Lobos perform during the week (Tuesday at Nevada and Friday at home vs. UNLV) could open the door to a Rams title. Of course Boise State, like San Diego State, is fighting to make its way into the NCAA Tournament and has been playing at another level at home lately.

Honorable mention: I try hard to keep this to three games a week, but how can I not list the UNLV at UNM game in the Pit, which could have some net cutting on Senior Night for the Lobos? The first meeting with the Rebels was a last-possession UNM win in Las Vegas in late January.