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NCAA Tournament Projections: Sorry Wyoming
Find out the chances for each Mountain West team to make the NCAA Tournament.
Contact/Follow @JeremyMauss & @MWCwire
There is a new way to determine NCAA Tournament bids
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The NCAA Tournament selection committee has made some changes to how they select teams. Gone are the days of only using RPI only to determine which teams are worthy. (Read our intro here)
These changes weigh road and home games differently and four RPI groups, plus KenPom, RPI and BPI are metrics, too.
| RPI Group 1: Home (1-30) | Neutral (1-50) | Away (1-75) |
| RPI Group 2: Home (31-75) | Neutral (51-100) | Away (76-135) |
| RPI Group 3: Home (76-160 | Neutral (101-200) | Away (136-240) |
| RPI Group 4: Home (161-351) | Neutral (201-351) | Away (241-351) |
The Wyoming Cowboys are in an interesting predicament as they have a solid RPI at 51 and its strength of schedule 39, yet if you ask the most famous Bracketologist on the market he says no way to the Cowboys earning an at-large bid.
Lunardi is probably right on this because if you dig deeper into Wyoming’s schedule they do have eight games played from Group 1 and Group 2 teams but the top tier the record is just 0-3 and then an impressive 4-1 record in the next group.
The Cowboys have few chances to improve that Group 1 column. They do get Nevada at home and have another game against Boise State on the road. as a Group 2 team.
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The other is way for some of those Group 2 wins to somehow get to Group 1. The Broncos could get better and make the home win in Laramie much better and but the win against South Dakota State is not likely to move to a Group 1 win and neither likely will be the home win against San Diego State.
The Cowboys have a shot to make a mess of the tournament seeding because of how good they are at home and the team is pretty good and should be able to get a few wins on the road. Odds are Wyoming will need to win the Mountain West tournament to make it to March Madness.
The order below is alphabetically. (You may need to scroll to the right to see all the rankings)
| Team | Record (D1-only) | RPI | Group 1 | Group 2 | Group 3 | Group 4 | SOS | KenPom | BPI | Sagarin |
| Air Force | 4-9 | 294 | 0-2 | 0-0 | 0-3 | 4-4 | 274 | 301 | 296 | 266 |
| Boise State | 13-3 | 38 | 0-2 | 2-0 | 3-1 | 8-0 | 115 | 59 | 47 | 40 |
| Colorado State | 7-9 | 167 | 0-5 | 1-3 | 1-1 | 5-0 | 85 | 193 | 235 | 197 |
| Fresno State | 10-6 | 143 | 0-2 | 0-1 | 3-3 | 7-0 | 177 | 82 | 82 | 106 |
| Nevada | 15-3 | 18 | 1-2 | 3-0 | 6-1 | 4-0 | 41 | 29 | 26 | 25 |
| New Mexico | 6-10 | 217 | 0-7 | 0-1 | 1-1 | 5-1 | 86 | 171 | 128 | 178 |
| San Diego State | 10-4 | 60 | 1-2 | 2-0 | 3-1 | 4-1 | 97 | 61 | 51 | 29 |
| San Jose State | 2-13 | 293 | 0-1 | 0-1 | 0-8 | 2-3 | 166 | 296 | 314 | 298 |
| UNLV | 12-4 | 152 | 0-1 | 1-2 | 4-1 | 7-0 | 288 | 67 | 80 | 74 |
| Utah State | 9-7 | 147 | 0-2 | 0-3 | 3-1 | 6-1 | 167 | 146 | 123 | 123 |
| Wyoming | 10-5 | 51 | 0-3 | 4-0 | 2-1 | 4-1 | 39 | 104 | 151 | 76 |
