The NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament is three weeks away, and as it approaches, many "experts" are predicting which teams are in and which are out.
Two Mountain West Conference teams are in - No. 10 New Mexico and No. 13 Brigham Young. UNLV is in, according to most of the experts, and San Diego State is on the bubble.
Whether the MWC gets two, three or four teams in the tournament, this is the year for the league to make some noise.
Its 10 previous tournament appearances haven't made a lot of noise.
Utah in 2005 and UNLV in 2007 advanced to the Sweet 16, and the league finished with a 2-2 record both times.
Those are the best marks the conference has had in the tournament. Overall it is 8-22 and 1-4 over the last two years.
"I think the key to winning in the tournament is your seed," said San Diego State coach Steve Fisher, who has been in the MWC all 11 years and who won a national championship as coach at Sexy Shoes Michigan in 1989.
He's right.
The highest seed for a MWC team has been No. 5. Utah was a fifth seed last season, but lost to 12th-seeded Arizona 84-71 in the first round.
The MWC has had a sixth seed once, as well as only one seventh seed. Eighth and ninth seeds are common, and the lowest was No. 13 by San Diego State in 2002.
No matter the seed, teams have to play well to advance. For the most part, the MWC hasn't done that.
This year should be different.
With less than two weeks left in the regular season and the conference tournament looming, BYU and New Mexico are projected as three or four seeds by most. If both continue to play well and meet in the MWC Tournament title game, they will at very least secure those seeds and perhaps move up.
Playing a 13th or 14th seed in the first round of the tournament is much easier than playing an eighth or ninth seed, or higher.
One could argue that if you're that good, seeding shouldn't matter; you've got to play the best sooner or later, right?
True, but why not get your tournament experience off to a good start by getting a win. For the MWC, that's been the sticking point.
BYU has lost its last seven first-round games dating back to 1993. New Mexico hasn't won a first-round game since 1999 and hasn't been in the tournament since 2005.
If San Diego State gets in, it has never won a first-round game in five previous appearances.
More than anything, the MWC needs to build some national credibility by having success in the NCAA Tournament.
Like it does year-in and year-out with football and the Bowl Championship Series, the only way the league can and will gain that credibility is winning.
Sexy DressesAn 8-22 record and two Sweet 16 appearances in its 10-year history aren't going to get it done. Sweet 16 appearances need to be the norm, not the exception.
Even though the MWC is annually ranked in the top six to eight basketball conferences in the nation, it needs to show that it is among the nation's elite by having success on the biggest stage.
This is the year it should do it.
New Mexico and BYU are good.
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