Around the Mountain: Which title contenders have the friendliest February schedules?

We're past the turn and headed down the back nine of the Mountain West season.

Three teams — the UNM Lobos, San Diego State Aztecs and Utah State Aggies — sit in a three-way tie for first place with 9-2 conference records.

Two other teams — 8-3 Nevada and 7-3 Grand Canyon — are one game back in the loss column.

February could be an epic month of Mountain West basketball, especially since only four teams get byes into the conference tournament quarterfinals, not five like a season ago.

If January repeats itself, things look good for the UNM Lobos.

Not only did UNM post the program's best January win percentage in a half-century — the Michael Cooper and Marvin Johnson's Lobos of 1978 had an undefeated January — it posted the best January record in the Mountain West and transformed itself from curiosity to title contender.

According to BartTorvik.com — one of the metrics the NCAA Selection Committee uses to evaluate teams to invite to the NCAA Tournament — the Lobos were the 21st best team in Division I in January (out of 365 Division I teams).

That's one spot ahead of the San Diego State Aztecs and a ways ahead of the rest of the Mountain West.

January-only Torvik national rankings

(ranking among 365 DI teams with record in parentheses)

• 21 New Mexico (8-1)
• 22 San Diego State (7-2)
• 38 Utah State (7-2)
• 44 Grand Canyon (6-3)
• 51 Nevada (6-3)

Nevada and Grand Canyon have only three games left against Top 5 teams — Nevada getting UNM and Utah State at home while playing at SDSU; GCU getting UNM at home and playing at SDSU and at Utah State, all in February.

SDSU has one road game left against the Top 5 — in the Pit on Feb. 28 — while getting Nevada, GCU and USU at home in February.

UNM has road games in February against GCU and Nevada, and gets USU and SDSU at home.

And then there's USU, which has the highest rankings in all computer metrics, but also has the toughest road ahead. The Aggies' February includes road games at UNM (Wednesday in the Pit), at Nevada, and at SDSU, with one home game vs. the Top 5, against GCU.

The MW has one week of games in March to cap the regular season with only two of the current top five playing each other: UNM at Utah State on March 7, the last night of the season.

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: Corey Camper Jr., Nevada — The senior guard who played previously at Arkansas and at UTEP scored 32 points in last week's home win over UNLV, including hitting five 3-pointers. He also had eight points in the midweek overtime win over Grand Canyon.
• Freshman of the Week: Jake Hall, UNM — The Lobos guard has won three of these in the past four weeks and this makes back-to-back weeks for Hall after he averaged 21.5 points and hit 9-of-15 3-pointers in back-to-back road wins over UNLV and San Jose State. His seven triples in the SJSU victory was the second most in a MW game by a freshman.

Weekly Nique

In an effort to correct the league's weekly awards when needed, or at least recognize a few more players around the league 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.

While we agreed that Camper had a good week, we felt Hall, even as a freshman, had the best two games in the league.

• WEEKLY NIQUE POW: Jake Hall, UNM — The Lobos freshman averaged 21.5 points per game and hit nine 3-pointers, including seven on Saturday against San Jose State. He did this in two road wins, including a record-setting 28-point win at UNLV on Saturday that put UNM into a three-way tie for first place.
• WEEKLY NIQUE FOW: Uriah Tenette, UNM — Hall getting POW opens the door for his teammate. Frankly, another pair of double-doubles from Tomislav Buljan could have got the nod here, too, and I promise my being the beat writer covering the Lobos isn't overpowering these votes, but the fact remains the Lobos' freshman three are having great seasons. This honor was long overdue for Tenette, and comes in a week in which he came off the bench to average 14.5 points, 3.0 assists and shoot 70.0% from the field (7-of-10) and 91.7% from the free throw line (11-of-12) while again being a pesky defender and a down-the-stretch ball handler.

Blowout race heating up

Updated conference blowouts (conference wins by 20 or more points):

• t1. Mountain West 26.6% (17 of 64 games)
• t1. West Coast Conference 26.6% (17 of 64 games)
• 3. Big 12 — 23.2% (16 of 69 games)

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• 31. Big Sky — 4.3% (2 of 47 games)

Poll position

There were no Mountain West teams in this week's Associated Press Top 25 poll, but Utah State did receive six points in the others receiving votes section, nine spots out of the rankings.

NET gains

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

Monday's MW KenPom rankings

• 31 Utah State
• 43 San Diego State
• 44 New Mexico
• 56 Nevada
• 59 Boise State
• 65 Grand Canyon
• 98 Colorado State
• 106 Wyoming
• 135 Fresno State
• 136 UNLV
• 250 San Jose State
• 347 Air Force

Monday's Mountain West NET ratings:

• 26 Utah State
• 42 New Mexico
• 45 San Diego State
• 59 Nevada
• 61 Boise State
• 68 Grand Canyon
• 100 Colorado State
• 103 Wyoming
• 141 Fresno State
• 144 UNLV
• 266 San Jose State
• 345 Air Force

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:

• Nevada at Boise State: Tuesday, 7 p.m. MT (TheMW) — The Broncos are running out of runway to make a move in the standings. Nevada is trying to remind people that the three-team tie for first in the league standings is nice and all, but at 8-3 they're hardly out of the picture. The Wolf Pack handled Boise by 15 in the first game in Reno on Dec. 20, and that was without reigning MW Player of the Week Corey Camper.
• Utah State at New Mexico: Wednesday, 9 p.m. MT (FS1) — First place is on the line in the Pit. UNM's Deyton Albury will be playing against the Utah State team he transferred from in the offseason. Second-year Aggies coach Jerrod Calhoun continues to prove former D-II coaches (he coached Fairmont State from 2012-17) can be great hires. Also see: UNM coach Eric Olen (who coached UC San Diego as it transitioned from D-II to D-I).
• Grand Canyon at UNLV: Saturday, 2:30 p.m. MT (FOX) — This may not be the game the big wigs at FOX Sports thought it would be when they booked it to air on their primary network. Nevertheless, GCU gets its first taste of playing in Thomas & Mack Center where they'll likely need to make a run in March to get into the NCAA Tournament. For the Rebels, a sub-.500 season moves from possible to likely if they don't start winning at home.
• Fresno State at Nevada: Saturday, 8 p.m. MT (TheMW.com) — Nevada is coming off a stretch of big games (wins over Grand Canyon and rival UNLV last week, plays Boise State on Tuesday) and could be looking ahead to next week's rematch with San Diego State. Fresno State, which lost by just one point to Nevada at home on Jan. 3, is still a dangerous team.
• Boise State at New Mexico: Saturday, 8 p.m. MT (CBS Sports Network) — The Broncos have one win vs. a team in the top half of the standings and it's the Lobos. The Lobos played their worst offensive game of the season on Dec. 30 in ExtraMile Arena and would love a redo vs. the Broncos. Is this the last time Leon Rice visits his friend Snake in the Pit? I know the Lobos baseball team is ready ... for the season ahead, of course. But I'm guessing Lobo fans will enjoy the Broncos visiting, too.

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