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BYU’s at San Diego St. Saturday, which may be ideal for both

One should never enter the hoops weekend unprepared. That means reading Luke Winn’s power rankings.

(Well, and Rob Dauster’s weekend preview. And Ken Davis’ mailbag. But you get my drift. Wanted a short lede.)

His latest version has Pitt at the No. 1 spot, but that’s that the interesting part. He incorporates a Hoopism-style grid into four rankings to illustrate the differences in each team’s home/road efficiency splits during conference play (but only the NCAA tourney-bound teams). The Big East gets one (Pitt dominates, of course), along with the Big 12 (Texas is better on the road than Kansas is at home?), Big Ten (all hail the big three) and Mountain West.

sdsu-byu

And the Mountain West’s is the most interesting to me right now.

With Saturday’s matchup between No. 6 San Diego State and No. 7 BYU – combined records? 53-3 – it’ll be interesting to see if the Aztecs can hold court against the visiting Cougars and earn a season split of the series. That happens, SDSU is in excellent shape for a No. 2 seed in the NCAA tournament, and possible even a 1.

Yet, check out Winn’s grid.

The Aztecs boast an incredible +.270 points per possession at home, but the Cougars are actually better on the road this year than they are on the road (at least according to the efficiency numbers). As Winn writes, that means Saturday’s when we should see both teams at their best.

Sounds like my afternoon is booked.

You also can follow me on Twitter @MikeMillerNBC.