March is here and the Mountain West Tournament begins this week, which means the time to get up in arms about subjective basketball opinions is now baby.
Although I don’t have an official vote on the basketball side, I do release my own picks for all-conference selections and individual awards annually. Feel free to tell me how wrong I am, the debate is all part of the fun, but there’s no need to blow a gasket here. While I put a lot of thought and effort into this process, I’ll say it one more time so there isn’t any confusion, this is all just for fun and these picks are unofficial.
Just like the official picks, everything below is based on the conference slate, so big games in November were not relevant. I do value stats heavily but they are not always an end-all argument. Team success is also something I very much value, particularly with some of the tougher all-conference decisions.
Finally, there are no positional mandates with my three all-conference teams, so the logic was more trying to determine the best 15 players in the Mountain West this year. I wasn’t concerned about whether the five guys on each team would be able to play well together in real life, which is why the third team has all guards. This is a bit of an oversimplification but essentially I have those guys ranked 11th through 15th in terms of their overall impact in league play.
Alright, now that we’ve set the scene here, let’s just get right into it and potentially get a little controversial. I did not give all of the awards to the Lobos despite the fact that they have had an incredible season and should be the highest seeded team from the Mountain West in the NCAA Tournament.
I did reluctantly name Richard Pitino the Coach of the Year, because even though I wholeheartedly believe Niko Medved did a more impressive job than anybody else this season, the Lobos thoroughly out-played the Rams in both of their matchups. They were the outright conference champions with 17 wins. In principle I think that Pitino has to win regardless of who I believe is actually the better coach.
When it comes to the player of the year, though, I refuse to concede. Nique Clifford is the best basketball player in the league and elevated his team more than any other individual.
I’m fully aware that UNM swept CSU. I also know how incredibly talented Donovan Dent is. None of this is meant as a slight towards him. As Geoff Grammer pointed out, he’s the first player in league history to average 20 points and six assists per game, which is pretty absurd.
While the Rams are a dangerous group and are playing some really nice team basketball going into the MW Tournament, it’s also clear that Dent has the benefit of a deeper roster around him. It’s why the Lobos were picked second in the preseason and the Rams were picked seventh despite both Dent and Clifford being projected as all-conference selections.
Both of these teams are a lot different than they were in the spring of 2024. Both lost significant contributors. But the consensus from the beginning has been that this Lobos team would be extremely good. We knew Dent was going to be a stud, we knew Tru Washington and Nelly Junior Joseph were in line for big years as well. To their credit, unlike Boise State or Nevada, UNM actually lived up to the preseason hype. But I just keep coming back to the point that Lobos were supposed to be really good.
Without Clifford, CSU most certainly would not be the 2-seed right now, I’m not sure they’d even have had a realistic shot to finish top 5. Nobody has individually elevated their team’s ceiling more than him this year.
Considering Clifford only averages one less point and one less assist per game than Dent in league play, but is a way better rebounder, a more dangerous 3-point shooter and a more efficient scorer overall, I highly disagree with the folks arguing it’s an open and shut case for Dent this year.
Averages in conference:
- Dent: 20.9 points | 6.0 assists | .489 (FG%) | .333 (3-point) | 15.4 attempts per game | 2.5 total rebounds
- Clifford: 19.6 points | 5.0 assists | .509 (FG%) | .414 (3-point) | 13.5 attempts per game | 9.2 total rebounds
According to KenPom, Clifford has more game MVP’s than anybody in the country this season with 18. For context, Ryan Kalkbrenner (Creighton) has 17 and Cooper Flagg (Duke) has 16, so that’s really saying something. Dent has 15 himself, so he’s clearly been excellent as well. Again, the point here is not to try and drag Dent down, it’s to illustrate how significant Clifford’s impact for CSU has been. And those metrics say that nobody has done more heavy lifting than Clifford in the country. KenPom also has Clifford as the only mid-major player in the top 10 for National Player of the Year.
If I had to bet on who will actually win, my guess is that Dent will take the majority of the votes just mostly due to the fact that UNM swept CSU and won the league. He’ll very much be deserving of the honor if that’s the case.
My eyes tell me what many of the metrics tell me though. And that’s that Clifford was the best player in the league this season. Without him, I think the Rams would have been lucky to win 16 games all year, let alone 16 games in league play. I think you could make a pretty strong case that he should be the Defensive Player of the Year as well, but I wanted to have a little bit more league-wide representation.
Individual Awards
Player of the Year: Nique Clifford (CSU)
Coach of the Year: Richard Pitino (UNM)
Defensive Player of the Year: Miles Byrd (San Diego State)
Sixth Man of the Year: Drake Allen (Utah State)
Newcomer of the Year: Alvaro Cardenas (Boise State)
Freshman of the Year: Magoon Gwath (San Diego State)
Mountain West All-Conference First Team
(G) Nique Clifford | CSU
(G) Donovan Dent | UNM
(G) Ian Martinez | Utah State
(F) Tyson Degenhart | Boise State
(F) Nelly Junior Joseph | UNM
Second Team
(G) Mason Falslev | Utah State
(G) Miles Byrd | San Diego State
(G) Alvaro Cardenas | Boise State
(G) Kyan Evans | CSU
(F) Nick Davidson | Nevada
Third Team
(G) Dedan Thomas Jr. | UNLV
(G) Obi Agbim | Wyoming
(G) Josh Uduje | San Jose State
(G) Kobe Sanders | Nevada
(G) Tru Washington | UNM
All-Defense
(G) Nique Clifford | CSU
(G) Donovan Dent | UNM
(G) Mason Falslev | Utah State
(G) Miles Byrd | San Diego State
(F) Magoon Gwath | San Diego State