New Mexico's Quietly Awesome Resumé

Within the last ten days, almost every single team in contention for a #1 seed has lost. Indiana at Minnesota, Miami at Wake Forest, Duke at Virginia, Michigan at Penn State, Michigan State at Ohio State, Syracuse at Marquette, Florida at Tennessee. So to heck with those guys. If the NCAA Tournament were to begin tomorrow, the Selection Committee should give a #1 seed to the New Mexico Lobos. As crazy as that notion might seem at first, their case is much stronger than anybody realizes.

First of all, New Mexico has the second-best RPI in the country. No joke. Is this a fluke? Looking at the rest of the RPI's top ten, it doesn't look that way:

1. Duke
2. New Mexico
3. Miami
4. Kansas
5. Michigan State
6. Louisville
7. Indiana
8. Gonzaga
9. Florida
10. Georgetown

Not a lot of controversy to be found there. Sure seems like the RPI has done a good job identifying which teams are the best. And it's telling us that New Mexico belongs in that group. Actually, on top of that group.

This is a team that has a whopping 16 wins against top-100 teams (based on RPI). Comparatively, Duke has 12, Gonzaga has 11, and Indiana has 10. Sixteen quality wins is a lot. Plus, they still have two top-100 teams left on their regular season schedule, and could potentially face two more top-100 teams in the Mountain West conference tournament. If they win out, they could end up with twenty quality wins. That's a lot, too. Even more than sixteen, in fact. Fun stat: not one of last year's #1 seeds won 20 games against top-100 opponents.

All of this does come with a caveat: the Lobos own one of the best home-court advantages in all of college basketball. Wins over talented conference foes UNLV, San Diego State, and Colorado State all came at home. So what have they accomplished elsewhere? A whole lot, actually. In neutral-court and road games, the Lobos are 10-3 with wins over Cincinnati, Connecticut, Colorado State (again), and Indiana State.

Another appealing thing about them is the lack of a really bad loss. They've only fallen four times on the season; three were on the road against tournament teams (Saint Louis, UNLV, and San Diego State). The fourth was the only semi-questionable one: at home against South Dakota State back in December. And SDSU is still a top-100 RPI team.

The most likely arguments against the idea of the Lobos getting a #1 seed will be based on misconceptions about their conference. The Mountain West doesn't get a ton of attention. But it ranks as the second-best league according to the RPI. More significantly, four or five of its nine teams are headed to the NCAA Tournament. The Big Ten is the only other league in the country with a rate that high. So the Lobos managing to win 11 of their 13 games within the Mountain West should be perceived as an impressive accomplishment, not a given. Furthermore, the numbers say that they played the third-toughest overall schedule in the country. No, New Mexico does not play in a cupcake conference and New Mexico does not play cupcake opponents.

This team has very quietly assembled an incredible body of work, and it's becoming more and more noticeable with every additional loss suffered by the other candidates for the top seeds. The Lobos just want to be noticed. They won games away from home, won games against good nonconference opponents, and won games within a cutthroat league. That's all one can ask for. It's a big if, but if the Lobos win the Mountain West conference tournament, they really should be a #1 seed no matter what anyone else does. Twenty quality wins, a top-two RPI, a top-three strength of schedule, just four losses, and both the regular season and postseason championships in a top-two conference? Heck, in what universe would that resumé not deserve a #1 seed?