Mountain West basketball on cusp of unpredictable conference tournament

The chaos out west has been extremely entertaining and should lead to an incredible postseason

Feb 21, 2026; Fort Collins, Colorado, USA; Colorado State Rams guard Jase Butler (4) reacts with forward Carey Booth (0) as forward Kyle Jorgensen (35) and guard Brandon Rechsteiner (2) walk to center court in the first half against the San Diego State Aztecs at Moby Arena. / Isaiah J. Downing-Imagn Images

Conference championship week has arrived, and the hype is building around college basketball.

The Big 12, ACC, SEC, Big Ten, and Big East tournaments will be all must watch television but there is one league that could have more chaos than any of the power conference tournaments – the Mountain West.

Now, typically people have come to learn about powerhouses in the conference like San Diego State, New Mexico, or Utah State but this year is different. Those teams are still at the top of the league’s regular season standings, but the conference has been cannibalizing itself.

Everybody beats everybody.

Utah State, who currently holds the top seed in the Mountain West Tournament entering the final weekend of the regular season, has five losses in its conference and only three games separate the top seed from the 8th place team, UNLV.

Yet the hottest team in the Mountain West is Colorado State, who landed an impressive road victory against New Mexico on Wednesday night and has won eight straight games after starting the season 3-8 in the league.

While the parody in the conference could lend itself to a very fun and entertaining conference tournament, it has hurt the league’s ability to get teams in the NCAA Tournament.

Currently, most projections only have Utah State in the field but that could change if another team were to get the automatic bid next weekend.

The top four seeds get a bye the tournament, which will be held at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas, while everybody else plays on Wednesday in the opening round.

In the last four seasons, four different teams have won the Mountain West Tournament and the last team to win the regular season championship and tournament championship in the same season was San Diego State in the 2022-23 season, the same year in which the Aztecs went to the National Championship Game.

Buckle up because this edition of the Mountain West Tournament should be thrilling and all gets started on Wednesday in Vegas.