This upstart conference has been making noise for a few years now. This year they are especially strong, and have as many as far teams that could have a claim on a tournament spot, though they almost certainly won’t get that many.<\/p>\n
Best Team<\/strong> – Utah. I don’t know what is in the water in Utah, but I want to drink some. First their football team flexes their muscles, then their basketball team does. They had a couple of blips along the way, but impressive wins over Gonzaga and LSU show that they are for real.<\/p>\n Worst Tournament Team <\/strong>– UNLV. A friend of mine is an alum and a blindly loyal fan. He’s very frustrated by this team – lots of talent but no heart to go with it. I don’t disagree – especially as the season has progressed. They have played themselves from virtual lock to longshot to even get in. Team That Bugs Me<\/strong> – Maybe I’m getting soft, but I don’t really have a problem with any team here. In fact, I kind of have a loose affection for the conference in general.<\/p>\n Potential to Rise Up<\/strong> – New Mexico. The Lobos won their last five games to play themselves into consideration. They beat all the major contenders in their conference at least once. They didn’t have a hugely successful non-conference schedule, but they weren’t afraid to challenge themselves. This is the kind of team that could get hot and break some opposing hearts.<\/p>\n Best Player<\/strong> – Luke Nevill, Utah. The senior center is a beast. He is the runaway leader in points and rebounds for his team, and he is defensively strong enough to earn conference defensive player of the year honors. It’s not often that a guy who is 7’2″ has a game this complete and polished – especially one who most people haven’t heard of.<\/p>\n Player to Watch<\/strong> – Jonathan Tavernari, BYU. The Brazilian took a leap forward this year, and put up some pretty solid numbers. He played even better as the season progressed, tallying three double-doubles in his last seven games.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This upstart conference has been making noise for a few years now. This year they are especially strong, and have as many as far teams that could have a claim on a tournament spot, though they almost certainly won’t get that many. Best Team – Utah. I don’t know what is in the water in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[741,3],"class_list":["post-1314","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-college-basketball","tag-mwc","tag-ncaa-tournament"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1314","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1314"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1314\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1315,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1314\/revisions\/1315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\nTrue Contenders<\/strong> – The winner won’t come from this group, but Utah and BYU could certainly factor into the second weekend, and any team that gets\u00a0 in from this group will be a tough draw. They are well seasoned by brutally tough conference play and some very tough conference buildings to play in.<\/p>\n