UNR enters Mountain West tourney as big fish in small pond

Less than a month ago, the Mountain West looked like a one-bid league, and even that might have been generous.

Preseason favorite UNR was a disappointing 8-4 in conference play after dropping a road game at San Diego State on Feb. 12 (the Wolf Pack’s third loss in seven games), and no other MWC teams were even in the top 80 in RPI at that time. The Mountain West looked like a league up for grabs, a league where mediocre would be good enough to take the title.

Instead, UNR did what good teams do — they got better down the stretch and closed the regular season by winning their final six games, including a de facto championship game against Colorado State on Saturday in the season finale. Now the Wolf Pack is heading into this week’s conference tournament as the No. 1 seed and the clear favorite to claim the championship and the league’s only NCAA tournament bid.

It might be hard to swallow for UNLV fans, but the Rebels’ in-state rival is now the big fish in the small pond that is the Mountain West. The Pack might be the league’s only legitimately “good” team. UNR is No. 36 in RPI, No. 57 in the KenPom.com ratings and not a lock to get blown out in the first round of the NCAA tournament (ESPN’s bracketology has them as a No. 12 seed).

That doesn’t mean UNR is in the clear. A loss in the conference tourney would probably doom the Wolf Pack to the same fate suffered by San Diego State last year, when the Aztecs went 28-10 and 16-2 in league play but lost in the MWC championship game. SDSU was shut out of the NCAA tournament, and UNR is probably in the same boat this year — no MWC tourney win, no bid to the NCAAs.

Are any other teams in the Mountain West capable of pulling off an upset this week? Fourth-place Fresno State swept the season series with UNR, but none of the other top seeds — No. 2 Colorado State, No. 3 Boise State or No. 5 New Mexico — managed to topple the Wolf Pack this year.

Powerful forwards Cameron Oliver and Jordan Caroline are a tough matchup for any opponent, combining to post 30.2 points and 17.7 rebounds per game, and high-scoring guard Marcus Marshall keeps every defense honest by making 3.4 3-pointers per game. With the way the Pack has been clicking over the last month, it’s hard to see any weaknesses.

Colorado State has overachieved this season thanks to the stellar two-way play of forward Emmanuel Omogbo, my choice for MWC Player of the Year (see below), and volume scorer Gian Clavell, but the Rams are thin, and they just lost by double digits in Reno.

Boise State has Swiss army knife Chandler Hutchison, who could theoretically draw UNR’s forwards away from the basket in certain matchups, and the Broncos’ have one of the nation’s stingiest 3-point defenses — BSU allows just 5.6 made 3-pointers per game, 14th in the country — but none of that made a difference when UNR went 2-0 against Boise this season, winning by an average margin of 13.5 points.

Fresno State has sweet-shooting guards Deshon Taylor (45.5 3FG% in conference play) and Jahmel Taylor (41.2 percent), and New Mexico has the inside-out combo of attacking guard Elijah Brown (18.9 points per game) and Tim Williams (just returning from injury), and both teams had some success against UNR — Fresno State went 2-0, and New Mexico took the Wolf Pack to overtime on Jan. 7 before losing — so there’s some intrigue in those possible matchups. Problem is, Fresno and UNM face off on Thursday, so only one of them can advance to face UNR.

When laying out the bracket like that, finding a team to challenge UNR seems more like the work of a devil’s advocate and less like a rational projection. UNR is the clear favorite, and it will be a surprise if anyone stops them from cutting down the nets and the Thomas & Mack Center this week and punching a ticket to the round of 64.

Anatomy of an upset

UNLV has had a tough season, but the Rebels could salvage a lot of good will by winning Wednesday’s play-in round game against San Diego State. Not only would it extend the Rebels’ season by another day, it would erase a lot of painful memories that have come at the hands of SDSU in recent years.

San Diego State has beaten UNLV 10 straight times, including MWC tournament wins in 2014 and 2015 that ended the Rebels’ seasons. SDSU also dropped the Rebels twice in the regular season this year, so this one win would be extremely gratifying for UNLV.

Unfortunately for UNLV, an upset is a tall task. San Diego State was a 14-point favorite the last time the two teams met, and the spread is likely to be just as daunting this time around. KenPom.com gives the Rebels a 28-percent chance of victory. But the Rebels aren’t hopeless. Neither of the losses to SDSU this season could be classified as blowouts, and San Diego State has proven to be upsettable in recent tournaments (such as last year, for instance).

What would it take for UNLV to pull off the victory? A hot shooting game from Jovan Mooring and Tyrell Green, for starters. The Rebels’ two best outside shooters have combined to hit just 12-of-33 from the field against SDSU this season; SDSU still sports the conference’s best defense (0.803 points per possession against, 11th in the country), so UNLV will need points from its best offensive players.

UNLV will also need to attack SDSU’s lethargic offense and generate some turnovers. SDSU is a slow-paced, poor shooting team, but the Aztecs control the ball well. They finished the season 40th in the country in turnovers committed, and they won the turnover battle, 25-18, in the first two games against UNLV. The Rebels need to turn up the defensive pressure, take the ball away and put the onus on San Diego State to execute its offense.

If Marvin Menzies can draw up a perfect game plan and the Rebels follow it, it might be possible — not likely, but possible — to put a bow on this tough season.

Coaching up

Speaking of Menzies’ ability to game plan, here’s a stat that should give Rebels fans some confidence heading into Wednesday: During his time as head coach at New Mexico State, Menzies’ teams played six Western Athletic Conference tournament games against higher seeds, and the Aggies’ record in those contests was 4-2.

The most impressive underdog performance came after 2009-10 season, when NMSU finished third in the league but beat the top two seeds (Nevada and Utah State) en route to earning an NCAA berth.

Of course, there is a big difference between those New Mexico State teams and this UNLV team. Those NMSU teams were never bad, finishing in second or third place in the league and always sporting a WAC record over .500, while this UNLV team finished in last place. But still, Menzies has shown an ability to coach up his squad against league opponents with everything on the line, and that’s a good thing.

Ballot time

In the spirit of transparency, disclosure and argument baiting, here’s how I voted for the Mountain West All-Conference teams:

First team

Emmanuel Omogbo, Colorado State; Cameron Oliver, UNR; Gian Clavell, Colorado State; Marcus Marshall, UNR; Brandon Clarke, San Jose State.

Second team

Jordan Caroline, UNR; Deshon Taylor, Fresno State; Chandler Hutchison, Boise State; Trey Kell, San Diego State; Zylan Cheatham, San Diego State.

Third team

Elijah Brown, New Mexico; D.J. Fenner, UNR; Jalen Moore, Utah State; Jovan Mooring, UNLV; Koby McEwen, Utah State.

Player of the Year: Emmanuel Omogbo

Defensive Player of the Year: Cameron Oliver

Coach of the Year: Larry Eustachy, Colorado State

Freshman of the Year: Koby McEwen, Utah State

Sixth Man of the Year: Hayden Dalton, Wyoming

Newcomer of the Year: Jordan Caroline, UNR

The awards were announced on Sunday, but allow me a couple caveats to accompany my ballot. First, these were my initial choices, but each media market is only allowed to submit one ballot, so I had to link up with Las Vegas Review-Journal beat writer Mark Anderson and merge our ballots into one amalgamation. Some (but not many) compromises were made until we managed to agree on everything.

Second, I didn’t get to see some of these players as much as I wanted to during the season, so I relied on statistics to help me reach some of my decisions. For instance, Player of the Year came down to Omogbo and Oliver. Their traditional stats were similar — Omogbo averaged 15.7 points and 10.9 rebounds in conference play, while Oliver posted 15.8 points and 9.7 rebounds — but Omogbo beat Oliver in efficiency stats like true shooting percentage (.584 to .557), eFG% (.552 to .533), PER (28.3 to 22.3), win shares (3.2 to 2.3) and my personal favorite, net rating, which was the most illuminating statistic (26.7 to 14.6). So I went with Omogbo, who really was head and shoulders above the rest of the league statistically.

The one vote where I discounted the hard data was Newcomer of the Year, where I chose UNR forward Jordan Caroline over his teammate, Marcus Marshall, despite putting Marshall ahead of him on the all-conference first team. No statistical defense for that one — I just like the way Caroline plays and wanted to reward him with a vote for an individual award.

Mike Grimala can be reached at 702-948-7844 or [email protected]. Follow Mike on Twitter at twitter.com/mikegrimala.