Big slate of important games in the Mountain West tonight, and two of them involve big-time payback.
The first one I'm going with right now is Fresno State at San Diego State -14, OU118. Just 3 weeks ago the Aztecs had a clear path to basketball nirvana. They took the long bus ride up to Fresno and got their butts whooped 59-57 in an unexpected and embarrassing loss. Now the Bulldogs come down to San Diego to face a refocused Aztec team. On top of that SDSU is coming off a 79-73 loss to rival Colorado State. In addition, the Aztecs are 3-0 at home in conference games having beat UNLV 53-47, New Mexico 56-42, and Air Force 53-49.
I don't expect the Aztecs to stray from what's working and that is defense. The total is at 118 right now and I'm going with the under in this one. They might cover the 14 points, but I think they stay conservative and just shut down FSU.
The play is take the under 118.
As far as UNLV payback at Nevada - yep, I think they wallop Nevada after a tough 64-62 loss to a team no one expected much from, but this instate rivalry gets heated and I think the Rebels will want to impose their will up in Reno. UNLV has a lot more talent than the Wolf Pack, so it's up to them to play a whole game without their patented second half melt-down. UNLV is favored by 4 and that's the right side here. They've done well in these road revenge spots in the past and it's "shit-or-get-off-the-pot" time for UNLV.
The play is UNLV -4
ADDED - Wednesday
#781 Air Force -9 @ San Jose State at 7pm PST
San Jose State 0-7 has been beaten and bullied by every opponent and there's no reason to believe it's going to change here. SJSU is ranked 347th in the country and play with a depleted line-up. AF beat the Spartans 78-56 earlier in the month and this is quite frankly a battle to determine the worst team in the Mountain West. Air Force's 1-7 record is a bit misleading as the Falcons been without their leading scorer Max Yon for 4 games, but this is a resilient team and they've been competitive. Unfortunately they're just a few rungs lower on the talent ladder than CSU, SDSU, Boise, and Wyoming. This game and Saturday's at UNLV are the best chance for Air Force to get a few wins. I'm going to lay the 9 points with Air Force.