We Have Our First True Stolen NCAA Tournament Bid Thanks to San Diego State

I haven’t had to write this blog just yet – depending what you think of Middle Tennessee State. But, San Diego State just beat Nevada 90-73 in the Mountain West Semifinals, which means the MWC should be sending two teams to the NCAA Tournament. More importantly that means if you’re a fan of MTSU, St. Mary’s, Louisville, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas or UCLA you’re starting to sweat. That’s one less available bid that you assumed would be open.

That’s because Nevada should be a NCAA Tournament team. They are 21st on KenPom, 14th in the RPI and won the MWC regular season outright. This is a league that is the 8th best league in the country per KenPom. Nevada has wins over URI, Davidson and Boise State twice. The Wolf Pack have the 60th toughest nonconference schedule and the 80th toughest overall schedule. So, this isn’t necessarily a St. Mary’s type situation in terms of scheduling.

But, all the credit to San Diego State here. This is a team that finally has a full roster with Malik Pope and Trey Kell. This is now the second time they have beat Nevada in a couple weeks and will be playing for a NCAA Tournament bid. Remember, Pope missed a game due to the Yahoo report a couple weeks ago while Kell missed time to injury. This is a team that can bother a 4 seed or so if they win tomorrow.

As for Nevada – people will likely pick at their resume, especially since Lindsey Drew is out for the rest of the year. But, I think they did enough, especially with the strength of the MWC this year. Either way, Sunday just got a lot more interesting with our first real bid thief.