The disappointment inside the San Diego State locker room following the Mountain West Conference Tournament championship loss lingered into Selection Sunday. The nation heard it loud & clear on the television broadcast, the loser of the SDSU vs New Mexico semifinal game would be off the bubble. The winner would have a chance to win their way in with a championship victory.
The Aztecs were unable to seal the second part of the deal. On selection Sunday the program learned its season would not continue in the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament. It broke a five year streak of appearances, but wasn’t a sudden shock. The team was the last four in last season and eventually lost against North Carolina in the play-in game.
Listed this year as third in the first four out of the tournament, being so close hurts even more knowing there were several losses on the schedule that could have easily turned their fates differently.
Despite finishing second in the regular season and reaching the title game for the 17th time in conference history, being left out also highlighted a broader issue within the Mountain West Conference. The league received just one bid, Utah State earning a No. 9 seed despite sweeping both the regular season and conference tournament titles.
For Aztecs head coach Brian Dutcher, the outcome underscored the difficult reality facing high-performing programs outside college basketball’s power conferences.
“The parity has hurt our league this year,” Dutcher said following the championship game on Saturday in Las Vegas. “That’s what every league wants is parity. So if you’re in a power four, the parity is fantastic. Get 18, 19 teams in. But in the Mountain West, parity is not a good thing.”
The conference produced one of its most balanced seasons in recent memory. Seven teams reached the 20-win mark, and the standings remained tightly contested throughout the year. But instead of strengthening the league’s national standing, Dutcher believes the balance prevented teams from building the type of résumé the selection committee values.
“There wasn’t enough separation between the top,” Dutcher said. “And we had a good year. We finished alone in second place. We made the conference championship game.”
San Diego State believed its overall body of work — including a competitive record against top-tier competition — warranted serious consideration for an at-large bid.
“I think we went nine and nine or nine and ten in quad one and quad two games,” Dutcher said. “We’ve got a good team.”
Dutcher argued that the issue extends beyond one season and the margin for programs outside the sport’s major conferences is getting thinner and thinner.
“The thing we all know not being in the power four is the opportunities are shrinking,” he said. “They’re not growing.”
He also pushed back on the idea that this year’s bubble field lacked deserving teams from outside the power conferences.
“When people say the bubble’s soft and we don’t need to expand the field, we don’t need to expand the field if we keep taking mediocre power teams,” Dutcher said. “There are good mid-major teams that would play well in March that would love to go.”
According to Dutcher, those teams often end up competing directly against each other for limited opportunities rather than receiving the benefit of the doubt more commonly extended to larger conferences.
“When they say the bubble’s soft, it might be soft with power fours, but it’s not soft with mid-majors,” Dutcher said. “There are a lot of good mid-major teams.”
The result left the Mountain West with an unusual distinction: a one-bid league despite a season filled with competitive teams and multiple programs surpassing the 20-win mark. Utah State will have a tough road to March on top of just being selected. Villanova awaits them in the first round matchup. Waiting for them likely in the second round would be #1 seed Arizona Wildcats.
For San Diego State, not making the cut ends one potential path, but may create for Dutcher & staff a chance to really address the programs shortcomings with a bigger picture perspective.
Heading into the Pac-12 next season will raise the profile of the program next season no doubt. Will it be enough to claim being in a good enough conference to earn a spot next year? That’s the plan.
“We are one of those good teams,” Dutcher said.
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