REYNOLDS SAYS 3 MWC TEAMS SHOULD MAKE NCAA TOURNEY

0 Comments | Gazette, The (Colorado Springs), Feb 15, 2008 | by JAKE SCHALLER

March is two weeks away, and analysts continue to construct NCAA Tournament possibilities.

For his part, Air Force basketball coach Jeff Reynolds said the Mountain West Conference "right now looks like it's a three-bid league this year."

"I think BYU and UNLV are playing really well, but I think at any given point you've got Utah, New Mexico and San Diego State who all are capable of winning and catching fire here right now," said Reynolds, whose team faces Wyoming on Saturday. "Definitely feel like our league is worthy of consideration of three teams."

On his most recent NCAA Tournament projection for ESPN.com, Joe Lunardi included two teams from the Mountain West, assigning No. 11 seeds to league leader BYU and UNLV.

Reynolds said the league can be overlooked because it is relatively new and does not get much national exposure.

"I think certainly the fact that we're not on ESPN and we're not talked about -- we're never talked about -- that's a detriment to the league," he said.

Last season, UNLV, which won the Mountain West Conference Tournament, and regular season champion BYU went to the NCAA Tournament. The league has not had three teams in the tournament since the 2003-04 season with BYU, Air Force and Utah. That marked the fourth straight season three conference teams made the tournament.

Washington and the wall

In five games from Jan. 19 to Feb. 6, Air Force freshman Evan Washington made only 3 of 24 shots from the floor (12.5 percent) and averaged only 2.4 points. Reynolds speculated that -- like most freshmen -- he had "hit the wall."

But Washington scored nine points and grabbed six rebounds Tuesday against UNLV. In the previous game against Utah, he hit all five of his shots en route to 11 points.

"Now he's sort of come over that wall a little bit, and hopefully he'll continue to progress," Reynolds said.

Free advice on free throws

Reynolds said he got 52 e-mails Sunday after the Falcons' loss to Utah. "And 49 of them were that I needed to do a better job of coaching free throws," he said. "And I want you to know, I've worked hard on that the last couple days."