Around the Mountain: How the incoming hoops teams stack up

North Dakota State joining the Mountain West makes the league better in football. The Bison, winners of 10 of the past 15 FCS football championships, will have the No. 1 home field advantage in the Mountain West when they join for the 2026 season.

NDSU is joining as a football-only member; its other sports will remain in the Summit League. 

Mountain West basketball will be getting three new members next season, but those additions are not nearly as exciting. Here's a look at how each of the men's basketball programs joining for the 2026-27 season is performing this year:

Hawaii Rainbow Warriors

• League: Big West
• Record: 17-5 (9-3 BW, t-1st)
• KenPom/NET: 95/90
• NOTE: The current leaders of the Big West don't have Utah State- or San Diego State-level talent, but they are a Top 100 program with a highly-regarded young coach (Eran Ganot, a former Big West Coach of the Year) who gets his teams to defend. As a basketball program, they're fine. Not great, but fine.

UC Davis Aggies

• League: Big West
• Record: 15-9 (8-5 BW, t-4th)
• KenPom/NET: 156/167
• NOTE: These Aggies got the invite to the Mountain West because of a promise of money — lots of it — being pushed into investing in this program. Jim Les, a two-time Big West Coach of the Year, has 364 Division I coaching victories. UCD knocked off Nevada in Reno this season, so it is plenty capable of competing. Their roster (all with eligibility remaining) includes' Marcus Wilson, an Albuquerque native who attended Cibola then Albuquerque Prep; Abdullah Amzil, younger brother of former Lobo Mustapha Amzil; and Nils Cooper, son of Lobo legend Michael Cooper.

UTEP Miners

• League: Conference USA
• Record: 9-15 (5-8 CUSA, 9th of 12)
• KenPom/NET: 272/273
• NOTE: UTEP won 20 games in coach Joe Golding's first season in El Paso (2021-22), but they haven't gotten back there despite playing in a league that isn't top-notch. Will Golding even be the coach when it joins? This season, the Miners rank 307 in offensive efficiency and 212 in defensive efficiency in KenPom. UTEP, which hasn't been to an NCAA Tournament since 2010, brings in a name fans might recognize, but not much more.

MW Players of the Week

Here are the Player and Freshman of the Week awards as selected by the Mountain West league office:

• Player of the Week: Dylan Andrews, Boise State — The UCLA transfer averaged 29.0 points and 5.0 assists while shooting 61.5% overall, 64.3% from 3-point range (9-14) and 95.0% (19-20) at the free throw line in wins over Nevada at home and New Mexico in the Pit.
• Freshman of the Week: Adlan Elamin, Utah State — A first-time winner by the league, Elamin helped the Aggies to a two-win week, but largely won this award based on his game in the Pit — 11 points, 10 rebounds, two assists and a block. In Saturday's close win at Wyoming, he had six points, three rebounds.

Weekly Nique

In an effort to correct the league's weekly awards when needed, or at least recognize a few more players around the conference each Monday, Colorado State fan and podcaster Steve Ivy and I hand out our own player awards each Monday called the Weekly Nique, named after current NBA player Nique Clifford who somehow only won the league's award once in his Mountain West career at Colorado State.

This week, we wholeheartedly agreed with the Player of the Week winner and found it as hard as the league office did to find a freshman who had two worthy games (Elamin would have been our pick had the league not chosen him).

• WEEKLY NIQUE POW: Mason Falslev, Utah State — A frontrunner for Mountain West Player of the Year, Falslev appears to be falling into the very Nique Clifford-esque role of being as good a player as there is in the league but having no player of the week awards to show for it. We are in agreement Dylan Andrews deserved it this week, but anyone who watched Falslev in the Pit win knows he was in control of that game. In two wins (at UNM, at Wyoming), Falslev averaged 23.0 points, 5.0 rebounds and 4.0 assists.
• WEEKLY NIQUE FOW: Deshawn Gory, Fresno State — A two-time Nique winner, Gory averaged 16.0 points in a 1-1 week for the Bulldogs.

Other freshmen with decent weeks were all three Lobo freshmen who show up here regularly, but with an 0-2 week, they had a lot to overcome to make a case for a nod here; one-time Lobo commit Issac Williamson at UNLV has been decent as of late; and Gory's teammate Bastien Rieber averaged 11.5 pointe and was 10-of-13 at the free throw line in a win over UNLV last Tuesday.

Poll position

There were no Mountain West teams in Monday's latest Associated Press Top 25 poll, but the Utah State Aggies appeared in the "others receiving votes" portion of the poll.

• Utah State Aggies: 15 points, six spots out of Top 25, appearing on 10 of 61 voter ballots with a high vote of No. 21 by Percy Allen of the Seattle Times.

NET gains

Here are this week's KenPom and NET rating updates as of Monday for those trying to keep tabs on where the league's teams stack up on the national landscape.

Monday's MW KenPom rankings

• 26 Utah State
• 41 San Diego State
• 47 New Mexico
• 53 Boise State
• 56 Nevada
• 66 Grand Canyon
• 100 Colorado State
• 102 Wyoming
• 127 Fresno State
• 128 UNLV
• 251 San Jose State
• 347 Air Force

Monday's Mountain West NET ratings

(with Quad 1/Quad 2 wins in parenthesis)

• 25 Utah State (3/5)
• 42 San Diego State (1/3)
• 45 New Mexico (1/5)
• 54 Boise State (3/3)
• 57 Nevada (0/4)
• 69 Grand Canyon (2/3)
• 97 Wyoming (0/0)
• 98 Colorado State (1/3)
• 137 UNLV (2/3)
• 139 Fresno State (0/0)
• 265 San Jose State (0/0)
• 344 Air Force (0/0)

My five

Here are the five Mountain West games I'm most looking forward to this week, listed in order of when they're played:

• New Mexico at Grand Canyon: Wednesday, 8 p.m. MT (FS1) — The Lobos roughed up the Mountain West newcomers by 23 in the Pit on Jan. 13 and the Lopes are coming off a loss to the same UNLV team the Lobos beat by 28 points a couple weeks ago. But Grand Canyon at home has been a different beast. The Havocs — the GCU student section — help create a loud, boisterous, distracting home environment that has helped the Lopes to home wins over Utah State, San Diego State and Boise State.
• UNLV at Boise State: Friday, 8 p.m. MT (FS1) — Boise State holds the crown for this season's "more dangerous than their record would suggest" team, but UNLV is the Mountain West's all-time leader of being a team that can beat the good teams or fall the bad ones on any given night. The Rebels beat Boise State in overtime in the Thomas & Mack Center on Jan. 13.
• Memphis at Utah State: Saturday, 6 p.m. MT (CBS Sports Network) — This game looked attractive when it was scheduled — a February nonconference game between a top American Athletic Conference team and a top Mountain West conference team? Yes, please! Then, Memphis went and played itself out of the NCAA Tournament picture a month ago. Still, this game will get attention, which is a good opportunity for the Mountain West in mid-February.
• Wyoming at Colorado State: Saturday, 7 p.m. (TheMW) — Part 1 of the Border War went the way of the Pokes Jan. 31 in Laramie. This go 'round in Fort Collins will be the last in the rivalry as conference foes. With CSU off to the Pac 12, the teams will play moving forward in the nonconference, but it won't be twice a year and it won't be for the same stakes as when they were league rivals.
• Nevada at San Diego State: Saturday, 8 p.m. MT (CBS Sports Network) — It was a tight one in Reno on Jan. 6 with five Aztecs scoring in double figures, but Nevada's Elijah Price was the best player in that game (17 points, 10 rebounds, four steals and 11-of-12 at the free throw line). Nevada is the only Mountain West team in the top 70 of the NET rankings without a Quad 1 win on its résumé. This is one of their final remaining chances to secure one.

Reach Geoff Grammer at ggrammer@abqjournal.com or follow him on Twitter (X) @GeoffGrammer.