Beginning in September and running up through November 11th, the first day of the regular season, College Basketball Talk will be unveiling the 2016-2017 NBCSports.com college hoops preview package.

Today, we are previewing the Mountain West Conference.

The Mountain West has long been a haven for cast-offs. Coaches that ran afoul of the law or the NCAA could find a home and transfers that couldn’t cut it at bigger schools would get a chance to thrive. There was a stretch were the MWC was as strong as the Pac-12, getting as many as four bids to the NCAA tournament. In the last couple of years, however, the league has slid. It’s a step below the Power 5 conferences and has arguably fallen behind the Big East, the AAC and the Atlantic 10 in terms of conference strength.

It’ll bounce back at some point, but on paper, that doesn’t seem to be this year, the power atop the conference is condensed to one team.

FIVE THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW:

1. There is a ton of turnover in the league: Wyoming’s Josh Adams graduated. So did Fresno State’s Marvelle Harris. Boise State’s James Webb III is now in the NBA. SDSU’s front line graduated, as did Winston Shepard, while Colorado State lost their three best perimeter players. And all that comes before discussing UNLV, who saw Dave Rice get fired January, interim head coach Todd Simon leave for Southern Utah and Chris Beard take the job and leave for Texas Tech in the span of two weeks. That left Marvin Menzies to take over a program that had just two scholarship players.

2. San Diego State will be favored once again: To get an idea of where, exactly, the MWC was in the hierarchy of college hoops, think about this: San Diego State won the MWC regular season title by three full games. They went 28-10 overall on the season. And yet, the Aztecs found themselves in the NIT come Selection Sunday. The Aztecs should once again dominate the conference this season, as they bring back a loaded perimeter attack. Junior Trey Kell was sensational in MWC play, averaging 16.4 points and 4.4 boards while shooting 39.3 percent from three, and he’ll have plenty of help in the back court. Dakarai Allen is back. Jeremy Helmsley is back. Teki Gill-Cesear, a former top 50 recruit, is eligible. Throw in Matt Shrigley’s return from an ACL tear, and the competition for back court minutes will be fierce.

The ceiling for the Aztecs will be determined by their front court, where the graduation of Skylar Spencer and Angelo Chol will hurt what turned into one of the nation’s best defensive teams. Junior Malik Pope has all the talent in the world but has yet to find any kind of consistency. Sophomore Zylan Cheatham is another guy with potential that battled injuries last year. Throw in Indiana transfer Max Hoetzel and redshirt freshman Nolan Narain, and there are pieces there for SDSU to repeat in the MWC.

3. New Mexico lose Cullen Neal but will still be competitive: The only starter that the Lobos lost this offseason was Neal, the coach’s son, who left as a redshirt sophomore and graduate transfer due to the abuse he received from Lobo fans. But Elijah Brown, the league’s second-leading scorer, is back. So is Tim Williams, who was arguably the best offensive big man in the conference. Sam Logwood and Obij Aget both started every game last season and, presumably, will this year, too. There are some questions in the back court, but overall, this is the roster that is probably best-suited to push SDSU for the league crown.

4. Nevada is the program to keep an eye on: The year before Eric Musselman arrived, Nevada won nine games. In Musselman’s first year, they won 24 games and the CBI title. They lost Marqueze Coleman in the offseason, but that’s really it. They return D.J. Fenner and Lindsay Drew. They add a slew of talented freshmen and transfers to the mix. And, most importantly, they brought back Cam Oliver, a 6-foot-9 big man with legitimate NBA potential. As a freshman, Oliver averaged 13.4 points, 9.1 boards and 2.6 blocks. The Wolf Pack not only look like a top three team in the league this season, the program’s future is as strong as it has been since Mark Fox was still in town. Dave Rice and Yanni Hufnagel give Musselman elite west coast recruiters to bring in talent for the former NBA head coach to mold. If this staff can stay together for a few years, Nevada can do some big things.

5. The Mountain West looks like a one-bid league: The real measure of where the MWC was as a conference last season came on Selection Sunday, when a nationally-relevant program with a famous head coach and an even more famous alumni (Kawhi Leonard) was left out of the NCAA tournament despite winning the league’s regular season title by a full three games. Now, much of that was the result of the Aztecs losing a bunch of ugly games during non-conference play, but that would have been something they could overcome in the conference as a whole offered up potential big wins.

On paper, SDSU looks good enough to earn an at-large bid this season, so even if someone else wins the automatic bid, the Aztecs should be dancing. But they did last year as well, and we saw how that turned out.

MORE: 2016-17 Season Preview Coverage | Conference Previews | Preview Schedule

PRESEASON MWC PLAYER OF THE YEAR: Trey Kell, SDSU

I’m not sure that Trey Kell is the best player in the conference, but I would make the argument that he was the most valuable player on the best team – by far – in the conference last season, and I don’t think anything has changed. Throw in the fact that there isn’t the same kind of borderline NBA-caliber talent in the league this season, and Kell, coming off a year where he averaged 16.4 points in MWC play, is a pretty easy pick here.

THE REST OF THE MWC FIRST TEAM:

• Cam Oliver, Nevada: If Kell is the most important player in the league, Oliver is the most talented player.
• Elijah Brown, New Mexico: Along those same lines, Brown is the best player in the league. He should lead the conference in scoring.
• Tim Williams, New Mexico: Williams is the most dangerous front court scorer in the MWC.
• Jeremy Helmsley, SDSU: Helmsley had a promising freshman season and is primed to take a step forward as a sophomore.

FIVE MORE NAMES TO KNOW:

• Jalen Moore, Utah State
• Dwayne Morgan, UNLV
• Gian Clavell, Colorado State
• Nick Duncan, Boise State
• Marcus Marshall, Nevada

BREAKOUT STAR: Cam Oliver, Nevada

Trey Kell already had his breakout, in league play last season. I want to go with Helmsley here, but I’m not sure how much better his numbers can get this year with the way SDSU plays and the clogged back court. So I’ll go with Oliver, who I think has a chance to emerge on the radar of NBA teams this winter.

COACH UNDER PRESSURE: Craig Neal, New Mexico

I don’t think Neal is in danger of losing his job, but there are expectations at New Mexico. And considering that things got so bad last season that Craig had to ship his son off to the other side of the country, I think it’s safe to say that life in Albuquerque is never going to be easy for the Lobo coach.

ON SELECTION SUNDAY WE’LL BE SAYING … : The MWC has gotten one bid in back-to-back years.

I’M MOST EXCITED ABOUT: Wyoming. Not the team or the state, but one day going to a game there. When I was running a site called Ballin’ is a Habit, I took a road trip with a guy named Troy Machir. We were in Lawrence, Kansas, after a Jayhawks game when we found out that SDSU had to spend 24 hours in an airport traveling to Laramie to play Wyoming. Laramie was an 11 hour drive and the game was in 24 hours. Troy was too soft to make the trip. Our friendship was never the same.

ONE TWITTER FEED TO FOLLOW: @theshowsdsu

PREDICTED FINISH

1. SDSU: They’re the best team in the league. No questions asked.
2. New Mexico: Elijah Brown and Tim Williams are the most dangerous 1-2 punch in the conference. Can they defend well enough to win the league?
3. Nevada: They are one of the most talented teams in the league, but it feels like the Wolf Pack are still a year away.
4. Utah State: Jalen Moore not only has one of the nation’s best heads of hair, but he may be the league’s most underrated star.
5. Colorado State: Larry Eustachy gets Gian Clavell, who averaged 20 points before getting injured, back for a sixth-year and returns Emmanuel Omogbo, who nearly averaged a double-double.
6. Boise State: The Broncos lose a lot from last season, but Leon Rice is a proven winner and I cannot pick against Nick Duncan, a three-point shooting offensive lineman.
7. Fresno State: Replacing Marvelle Harris is just not an easy thing to do.
8. Air Force: Dave Pilipovich returns a lot of pieces from last season, including Trevor Lyons, who injured his hand in a boxing class.
9. San Jose State: The Spartans have averaged six wins the last three years and seven wins the last five.
10. Wyoming: Fresno State lost Marvelle Harris from a team that reached the tournament. Wyoming lost Josh Adams from a team that won 14 games and changed head coaches.
11. UNLV: The Rebs will be back. It won’t be this season.

Beginning in September and running up through November 11th, the first day of the regular season, College Basketball Talk will be unveiling the 2016-2017 NBCSports.com college hoops preview package.

Today, we are previewing the ACC.

There will be no shortage of attention given to the ACC this season, and it’s not only because the consensus No. 1 team in the country and a total of four top ten teams reside here. In September, the state of North Carolina, where the ACC is headquartered, became a national talking point as the NCAA, and, subsequently, the ACC itself, decided to pull all of their postseason games out of the state for the 2016-17 calendar year.

That means that the Blue Devils and the Tar Heels will not be getting home games in the first weekend of the NCAA tournament this season, and that may be what it takes to get the controversial HB2 law overturned.

But we’ve talked enough about that law and the impact this decision will have on it already. So lets get to the hoops.

FIVE THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE ACC:

1. Duke is going to be awesome, but they are not without flaw: This will be the most talented team that Mike Krzyzewski has had in Durham since Jay Williams was on the roster. There could be three top ten picks on the roster (Harry Giles III, Jayson Tatum, Marques Bolden) and that doesn’t factor in the NBCSports.com Preseason National Player of the Year, Grayson Allen, or Amile Jefferson, a fifth-year senior that was averaging a double-double last season when he broke his foot.

They’re loaded. No one is denying that.

But the roster construction isn’t perfect. (Is it ever?) There’s no real point guard on the Blue Devils next season. Frank Jackson is more of a scorer that can handle the ball than a point guard, the proof being the amount of time Allen will have the ball in the lead guard role this year. Moreover, Duke’s four best perimeter players — Allen, Tatum, Jackson and Luke Kennard — are all at their best with the ball in their hands, creating shots for themselves. That’s not ideal.

No one in the world is better suited to finding a way to make all of this talent work together than Coach K is, and it will be fascinating to see how he decides to put this puzzle together.

2. Virginia loses Brogdon, but still will contend: I’m not sure that it is possible to be more underrated than Malcolm Brogdon was last season, and I understand the irony in me saying that while also saying that the Cavaliers can still contend without him. The reason? For starters, I don’t think we’ve seen the best of London Perrantes yet. As a senior, don’t be surprised when he embraces playing a bigger role offensively. And then there is Austin Nichols, the Memphis transfer who couldn’t be a more perfect fit for what Tony Bennett wants to do on both ends of the floor.

But the biggest reason I think UVA will remain in the mix for the ACC crown? Bennett’s program is good enough at this point that we can pencil them into the top four before actually looking at the roster.

3. You may not recognize the names at Louisville, but they can make a Final Four: Last season, Louisville showed flashes of being a top 15 team while using a pair of mid-major grad transfers to bridge the gap between the Terry Rozier and Montrezl Harrell years and a promising 2015 recruiting class that wasn’t quite ready last season.

Now? They should be ready. Sophomores Donovan Mitchell — who spent much of last season playing behind Damion Lee — and Deng Adel — who battled knee issues last year — are on track to make Cardinal fans realize why people have been raving about the potential those two have. Yes, I wonder about a team where Quentin Snider is the lone point guard on the roster, and no, I have no idea who out of that motley crew of bigs will take a step forward, but if both Mitchell and Adel develop into all-ACC caliber players like I think they will, Rick Pitino should be able to once again field a winner.

4. UNC has talent, but they also have question marks: The knock on North Carolina last season was that, while they had a roster full of highly-rated recruits, they didn’t necessarily have much future NBA talent in their ranks. That was before Brice Johnson and Marcus Paige graduated. Now, it seems like every player on this Tar Heel roster has either a major red flag in their game or a major question mark in their outlook this season. Will the Joel Berry II from last March show up, or will it be the Joel Berry II that struggled to beat out Nate Britt for the starting point guard spot? Has Justin Jackson found a way to be a consistent three-point shooter? Has Theo Pinson? Can Isaiah Hicks handle the pressure that comes with being a star player? Just how good is a front court if the best player is Kennedy Meeks?

The Tar Heels are a top ten team on paper. But just how sure are you that what we’ll see on the court on a night-to-night basis will be a top ten team?

5. It’s Virginia Tech, not Syracuse, that you need to be all-in on: Syracuse, a Final Four team last season, got Tyler Lydon back for his sophomore season, brought in Tyus Battle and Paschal Chukwu, and added a pair of fifth-year seniors in the back court in John Gillon and Andrew White. But they lost their three best players from last season, including Michael Gbinije, from a 9-9 ACC team and they don’t really have a point guard.

The Hokies? They return everyone from a team that went 10-8 in the ACC last year, including wins over Miami (who was top ten at the time) and UVA, and have a head coach in Buzz Williams who is as good as anyone in the country and getting a group of under-recruited players to have a chip the size of Blacksburg on their shoulder. Syracuse could be good this season. Tech will be better.

MORE: 2016-17 Season Preview Coverage | Conference Previews | Preview Schedule

PRESEASON ACC PLAYER OF THE YEAR: Grayson Allen, Duke

Allen is our Preseason National Player of the Year, so why wouldn’t he be our Preseason ACC Player of the Year? It’s far from a shoe-in, however, as there are a couple of factors working against the junior. For starters, he’ll be playing a different role this season, operating as more of a lead guard than someone whose job was to put his head down and get to the rim. And with the amount of talent on the roster around him — Duke could potentially start five first round picks — it will be hard for him to replicate the production he had last season.

That said, this was Allen’s stat-line last season: 21.6 points, 4.6 boards and 3.5 assists with a true shooting percentage of 61.6%. I know people are required to hate him because he’s white and a star at Duke, but no high major player since 1993-94 (which is as far back as the database at CBB Reference goes) has ever posted that stat-line.

THE REST OF THE ALL-ACC FIRST TEAM:

• Dennis Smith Jr., N.C. State: I’m not sure how good the Wolfpack will be, but assuming his ACL is back to 100%, Smith may be the single-most talented player in the conference.
• Jaron Blossomgame, Clemson: Blossomgame is an under-the-radar name because he plays for Clemson, but he’s a future top 40 draft pick that can defend multiple positions and averaged 18.7 points last season.
• Jayson Tatum, Duke: We initially had Harry Giles III here, but Tatum gets the bump after this week’s news that Giles underwent another knee surgery.
• Austin Nichols, Virginia: Nichols averaged 13.4 points, 6.7 boards and 3.4 blocks before leaving Memphis. He’s a perfect fit for the five-spot in Virginia’s system and he’s had a year to learn what Tony Bennett will want from him.

FIVE MORE NAMES TO KNOW:

• Joel Berry II, North Carolina
• Donovan Mitchell, Louisville
• Deng Adel, Louisville
• London Perrantes, Virginia
• Tyler Lydon, Syracuse

BREAKOUT STAR: Donovan Mitchell and Deng Adel, Louisville

Mitchell is going to be the trendy pick on this Louisville team to be a breakout star, not only because he’ll have a chance to step into a starting role in the back court, but because he had a handful of impressive performances in league play last season. But I think there’s a chance that Adel ends up being the best player on the Cards this year. All I heard over the summer were good things about his development, and he was really impressive in practices before hurting his knee as a freshman.

Just so I’m on the record with this, in just about any other year, both Tyler Lydon of Syracuse and JaQuan Newton of Miami would be an easy pick here.

COACH UNDER PRESSURE: Brad Brownell, Clemson

The obvious pick here is Boston College’s Jim Christian — if you can’t win a league game, you’re automatically on the hot seat — but Brownell is a more interesting case. This will be his seventh season with the Tigers. He hasn’t reached the NCAA tournament in five years and is six games under .500 in ACC play in those five seasons. But, with Blossomgame returning to school, Brownell has a chance to get back to the tournament with this group. If he does, that may save his job.

ON SELECTION SUNDAY WE’LL BE SAYING … : Grayson Allen, Amile Jefferson and Matt Jones will be the first Duke players to win two rings since Christian Laettner and Bobby Hurley were playing.

I’M MOST EXCITED ABOUT: Seeing how the other powerhouse programs at the top of the conference — Virginia, UNC, Louisville — try and defend a super-talented, but somewhat-flawed, Duke roster.

FIVE NON-CONFERENCE GAMES TO CIRCLE ON YOUR CALENDAR:

• Nov. 15, Duke vs. Kansas
  
• Nov. 29, Michigan State at Duke
• Dec. 17, North Carolina vs. Kentucky
• Dec. 21, Kentucky at Louisville
• Jan. 29, Virginia at Villanova

ONE TWITTER FEED TO FOLLOW: @accsports

PREDICTED FINISH

1. Duke: Shocker.
2. Virginia: We cannot overlook the loss of Malcolm Brogdon or underrate just how good Anthony Gill was. That said, Nichols will be a borderline all-american this season and we haven’t seen the best of London Perrantes yet.
3. North Carolina: Losing Marcus Paige and Brice Johnson hurts a lot, but there are quality pieces left on this roster. The problem? They’re all question marks. Which Joel Berry II shows up? Will Justin Jackson reach his potential? Can Isaiah Hicks or Kennedy Meeks really anchor the front line of a top ten team?
4. Louisville: The sophomore class for the Cardinals is going to shine this season. Donovan Mitchell and Deng Adel could end up being first round picks one day. The major issue for Louisville will be their front court. They have a lot of bodies and not a lot of proven pieces.
5. Virginia Tech: My sleeper pick. They return everyone — and add two injured pieces — from a team that won 19 games, went 10-8 in the ACC and beat Miami and UVA.
6. Syracuse: Getting Tyler Lydon back to school was key. Adding Andrew White was big as well. The Orange are going to have an absurd amount of length and athleticism in that zone. Will their point guard play and rebounding hold up?
7. Miami: There will be some turnover for the Hurricanes, but with JaQuan Newton running the show and Jim Larrañaga in charge, rebuilding years in Miami won’t be as bad as they’ve been in the past.
8. Notre Dame: Gone are Demetrius Jackson and Zach Auguste, both of which are major blows. Mike Brey has proven he can weather a storm like this, however. V.J. Beachem’s time to shine?
9. N.C. State: The Wolfpack have a ton of talent, namely freshmen Dennis Smith Jr. and Omer Yurtseven. Will all the pieces come together?
10. Florida State: Like N.C. State, the Seminoles have plenty of pieces, but they’ve struggled to look like a cohesive unit in recent years.
11. Pitt: Jamel Artis and Michael Young might be the best forward tandem in the conference, but this is a team dealing with coaching turnover that lost their point guard, James Robinson.
12. Clemson: I love Jaron Blossomgame’s … well, game. I don’t love much else on this roster.
13. Wake Forest: Danny Manning’s team was a total disaster last season even though they had the talent to be much better than they were. They lost Codi Miller-McIntyre and Devin Thomas. Was that addition by subtraction?
14. Georgia Tech: They hired Josh Pastner this offseason. I’ll let you decide if that’s a good or bad thing.
15. Boston College: BC lost Eli Carter from a team that didn’t win an ACC game last season. Woof.