The Mountain West has six teams ranked in the KenPom top 52 and these are two of them. Colorado State, despite starting the year with 11 consecutive victories, is the lowest rated of the six. They have lost two in a row to fall to 16-3 on the year. Their first loss was an ugly one, 79-49 at San Diego State. That’s who they’ll face again tonight.

The Aztecs are just 4-2 in conference play and 12-5 overall, but they have a top five defense in adjusted efficiency and are second highest among Mt West teams in the KenPom ratings. Not only did they wallop CSU in the first meeting, they’ve won seven of nine.

I mentioned that SDSU has a top five defense. They are actually #2 in adjusted defensive efficiency and give up just 56.8 points/game. They say that “defense travels” and so you should count on the Aztecs not allowing many points here. Again, they held Colorado State to just 49 points in the first meeting.

In the last nine games, only Utah State has been able to score more than 60 against San Diego State. Meanwhile, Colorado State has just given up 88 points to UNLV and 84 points to Wyoming in its last two games.

Given how easily San Diego State won the first meeting, I’ve got to take them as a slight dog in the rematch. They are the better team and have swept the season series from CSU 12 of the past 22 seasons. They’ve even won 11 of the last 15 here at Moby Arena. Take the points.