The first half of Mountain West Conference play saw Air Force, once again, at the top of the pack. Much like last year, their disciplined Princeton offense was giving teams fits. After making the NCAA Tournament last year, Air Force rolled to a 19-2 start and 6-1 beginning to conference play. But now, other teams in the conference appear to be closing the gap.

I got a chance to watch Air Force’s game against SDSU last night. Wow, they suffered a true beatdown. It started off with an 8-0 deficit, eventually resulting in a 16 point first half. Then SDSU started doing windmill dunks…and hitting threes…and forcing turnovers. Air Force sure as hell didn’t look like the 15th best team in the country. The discipline I praised in this article was nonexistent at a hostile Cox Arena.

At the start of the year, SDSU and Air Force were co-favorites in the conference. The difference was San Diego State had to break in a couple of transfers and get over the departure of Marcus Slaughter. Air Force didn’t have those distractions, they had five seniors in their starting lineup. But now that SDSU is beginning to click, the Falcons don’t look all that impressive. If last night is any indication, Air Force’s deliberate offense isn’t fooling anybody in the second half of conference play.

This is a tricky conference to project because of how difficult road games are. Nearly all of the teams in the MWC play at a high elevation, meaning the home team is usually able to hold serve at home. There’s three teams in the RPI top 25 from the conference but the 4th team might be the best of the bunch. SDSU is currently 59th in the RPI but more importantly, still welcomes in UNLV and BYU to Cox Arena. Two wins there and they’re likely in decent shape for an at-large bid.

It’s weird to fathom, but between the MWC and Missouri Valley Conference, we could see 8 teams in the NCAAs from these two alone. When Southern Illinois and UNLV have higher RPIs than Florida, you know the season is crazy.