Mountain West, Rebels still getting some love from Lunardi

If it’s Monday it must mean a new Bracketology on espn.com from noted bracketologist Joe Lunardi.

Lunardi, who usually comes within a team or two of predicting the NCAA Tournament bracket which will officially be released on Sunday, March 15, continues to show the Mountain West Conference some love with four teams projected as in the tournament today. And yes, one of those big four is Lon Kruger’s Runnin’ Rebels.

This week Lunardi as UNLV as a No. 12 need in the Midwest Regional playing No. 5 UCLÅ in the Portland, Ore., pod. I’m sure Rebel fans would love that matchup … as long as Booker Turner wasn’t one of the officials.

Lunardi also has MWC leader Utah as a No. 8 seed playing Virginia Tech in the South Regional and Cal playing No. 11 seeded San Diego State. His fourth MWC team is BYU as a No. 11 seed playing Syracuse in Philadelphia in the East Regional.

Interestingly, Lunardi has New Mexico as his 7th team just out of the bracket. A strong finish by Steve Alford’s Lobos could mean five MWC teams in the tourney?

Of course, a lot can change in the next four weeks. UNLV, for instance, could suddenly find itself on the outside looking in with a road loss at struggling Wyoming on Wednesday night or a home loss to BYU on Saturday night.

Still, the Rebels have positioned themselves to make a nice run at no worse than an at-large bid with a strong regular season finish. And with as crazy as things have gone in the MWC this year, I wouldn’t want to put all my eggs into having to win the conference tourney this time around.