Who was the MWC kidding?

This one is easy. Too easy.

It's like teeing up a watermelon and pounding it with a Louisville Slugger.

Thud. Swooooosh.

Poking fun at the Mountain West Conference and the cry for more respect in its NCAA seeding is an easy issue to knock today. Could debating that assertion be more dumb?

I include myself on the wrong side of that claim. I confess, mea culpa, my fault, my bad, I thought this league was tougher and argued so.

Before the MWC tournament in Las Vegas, there was plenty of talk about the league deserving one, possibly two more teams in the NCAAs. The talk around the league was that the MWC was the best it's ever been, that the travails of competing around the league's circuit were so competitive, so tough, that many schools around the country would struggle to do battle on and in The Mountain.

Well, the mountain was more of a molehill, if we judge it by the performance of co-champions BYU and Utah.

These two didn't lay an egg, they hatched a cinder block.

In postseason play, the MWC's five elite teams have played seven games in the NCAA and NIT and stand 4-3. In the Big Dance, No. 5 seed Utah lost to No. 12 seed Arizona and No. 8 seed BYU lost to No. 9 seed Texas A&M by a combined 26 points — 13 apiece.

Hardly a decent showing at all. File it as a failure.

I remember listening to the league's coaches during a Mountain West Conference teleconference call before the Las Vegas tournament. People were making their cases for respect. There was a specific quote from San Diego State coach Steve Fisher which I gladly used because, well, it fit so well into the train of thought that day.

Fisher, who won an NCAA tournament final at Michigan, said, "This is a very good league filled with really good teams. There are five teams in this league that could be pulled out of a hat and put anywhere in the country for the NCAA tournament and nobody would be surprised if any of the five get to the Sweet 16."

Gulp.

Great for P.R.

Not so good for reality.

Fisher's team is the only one left playing after accepting a No. 1 seed in the NIT, quickly dispatching Weber State, 65-49, and then beating Kansas State, 70-52. The Aztecs will face the winner of Mondays's matchup between Davidson and St. Mary's.

In addition to BYU and Utah's early exits from the NCAAs, UNLV was one-and-done in the NIT. Lon Kruger's Runnin' Rebels lost to Kentucky, 70-60.

Steve Alford, the MWC coach of the year, got New Mexico a No. 3 seed in the NIT. The Lobos beat Nebraska before losing at Notre Dame, 70-68.

The Aztecs might just make a run in the NIT, a postseason affair few care about because it's comprised of the castoffs to the NCAA event.