Mountain West is great ... minus S.D. State!

Jesse Palmer sure got it right during "College Football Live" on ESPN-TV this week.

Palmer said that the Mountain West Conference is clearly better than the Big East or Atlantic Coast conferences so far this season.

That being said, why do the Big East and ACC have automatic bids into the Bowl Championship Series ... but not the Mountain West?

Thus far, the Mountain West is 5-0 vs. the Pac-10. And if you think it has been weaklings of the Pac-10 vs. the best of the Mountain West, think again:

UNLV, which was picked to finish last in the Mountain West, beat No. 15 Arizona State in overtime last week.

BYU won 59-0 over a UCLA team that had upset Tennessee in its first game.

New Mexico, expected to be a middle-of-the-road team, downed Arizona.

TCU beat the same Stanford team that had upset Oregon State two weeks previous.

There is an exception in the Mountain West. It’s San Diego State (0-3), whose losses have included Cal Poly and San Jose State.

If SDSU one day drops football and leaves the Mountain West, the conference would be better off for it in football.

SDSU aside, the Mountain West certainly deserves to be there during the BCS competition this season!

USD capable of pulling off NCAA upset

You know what?

The University of San Diego may have an upset in the making coming in the first round of the NCAA Tournament Friday vs. the University of Connecticut in Tampa, Fla.

Why?

These Toreros don’t seem to be intimidated on the big stage.

They went on the road in December and won at Kentucky, arguably one of the top four all-time national programs.

They won back-to-back games … albeit at home … against Saint Mary’s and Gonzaga in the West Coast Conference Tournament.

UConn will be a tall task in more ways than one. The Huskies feature All-Big East Defensive Player of the Year Hasheem Thabeet, a 7-foot-3 sophomore center who averaged 4.5 blocked shots a game this season.

Albeit the Huskies (24-8) have won 13 of their last 16 games, they’ve also lost three of six since a 10-game winning streak. And they were defeated by West Virginia, 78-72, in last week’s first round of the Big East Tournament.

USD (21-13) must try to offset Thabeet inside with 6-8 center Gyno Pomare, who has averaged 13.7 points and 7.4 rebounds.

As one might expect, the Toreros are a virtual unknown to UConn. Huskies coach Jim Calhoun mainly knows a little about Pomare.

“He's had some very good games. It's going to be an interesting battle, because we have a big guy, too,” Calhoun told the Connecticut media.

San Diego State? The Aztecs travel to Florida on Wednesday to play the two-time defending NCAA Champions in the NIT Tournament.

Say goodbye to the Aztecs!