LAS VEGAS – Upsets have been the order of the top half of the bracket in the 2026 Mountain West Championships, highlighted by ninth-seeded Air Force upsetting San Diego State to earn their second trip to the tournament semifinals, while fifth-seed Boise State held off a rally from New Mexico. Meanwhile the other spot in the final comes down to the two teams that finished tied for second place during the regular season in UNLV and Colorado State. Check back here to get full recaps and coverage of both contests.
No. 9 Air Force 68, No. 5 Boise State 66
Milahnie Perry and the Falcons (16-17) have authored the most unlikely run in Mountain West tournament history to reach the program's first title game, becoming the first No. 9 seed to advance to the championship game and the fifth team that had to play a first round game to advance to the final since the current tournament format was established in 2014.
"For a team that's not been here and not been in a game like that in the Mountain West Conference Tournament just says a lot about the fight out of this team and especially with these young ladies," said Air Force head coach Stacy McIntyre.
The decisive stretch came when Air Force dashed off a 9-0 run that began with just under six minutes to play in the fourth quarter. Alyssa Cortez was left open in the left corner for a triple that pulled the game level at 57-57, then Perry found Emily Adams for a go-ahead layup with 4:20 to play, and the Academy's all-time leading scorer followed up by knocking down back-to-back buckets.
Perry scored a game-high 27 points —16 in the second half — and dished six assists, while Keelie O'Hollaren came off the bench to score 15 points on 4-for-8 shooting from downtown. The Falcons battled foul trouble in the second half to two key contributors, with Adams fouling out on an offensive foul with 3:28 remaining after scoring 9 points with seven rebounds. Defensive Player of the Year Jayda McNabb also added 5 points with seven boards and six helpers.
"It was just important to let the game come to me and be able to trust my teammates, because I know that coming into each game, they would send two, three people at me, so just being able to kick that out," Perry said.
The senior guard has 78 points through the first three games, tying the single tournament scoring record set by Nevada's T Moe across four games in 2018.
"I know my teammates are great shooters, great scorers, and so I'm glad that they showed that. And I just feel like as a conference, we weren't respected as much. I'm just going to leave it at that," she said with a laugh.
Air Force knocked down nine 3-pointers against the Mountain West's top 3-point shooting team entering the game, as Boise State attempted a season-low three shots from beyond the arc (eight fewer than previous low) and focused on getting the ball inside. Libby Hutton led the Broncos with 25 points and seven rebounds as Boise State outscored Air Force 46-26 in the paint, and also got 10 points apiece from Tatum Thompson and Danni Bayes.
The teams traded big quarters in the first half, with the Falcons leading 18-11 after the first and the Broncos taking a 20-11edge in the second for a 31-29 lead at the break. Boise State had lost just twice all season when holding the lead at the half, but could never quite shake AFA as they could never build a multi-possession lead in the final 20 minutes. The second half saw nine lead changes and nine ties, with six changes and seven ties in a whipsaw third quarter.
After getting swept in the season series by both SDSU and Boise State, Air Force has the opportunity to avenge another sweep in the final. The series against Colorado State saw the Rams squeak out a 65-63 win that was within a possession in the final minute on the road and then take a 66-52 result in Fort Collins.
No. 3 Colorado State 66, No. 2 UNLV 59
A second quarter injury to conference newcomer of the year and team leading scorer Lexus Bargesser could've sunk CSU. Instead, it galvanized the Rams (25-7) behind a big second half from Brooke Carlson and a strong performance from Marta Leimane to set up the first ever all Centennial State showdown for the 2026 Mountain West tournament title.
"We (talked) about how we are going to play together, keep it up. As coach was saying, nothing is stronger than a wounded bear, so we knew that we had to keep playing and fight through it," Carlson said. "At the end of the day, we came together and got it done."
Colorado State went on a 10-0 run straddling the third and fourth quarters, as the conference's top defense held UNLV (21-11) to just one field goal after the 4:19 mark of the third all the way until 2:55 remaining in the game. The Rams outscored the Lady Rebels 22-10 over the 11:24 stretch where they held UNLV to 1-for-13 shooting, building a lead as large as 13 points at the midway mark of the fourth quarter.
"Sometimes it takes some quarters to just get the rhythm of how they are guarding you, where we can generate offense, who we have to facilitate through...our kids do a really good job of kind of realizing and figuring out throughout a basketball game this is how this thing needs to go for us to generate offense," said Colorado State head coach Ryun Williams.
Carlson scored 12 of her CSU-high 19 points in the fourth quarter with a game tops five assists, while Leimane came off the bench to score 16 points and hit 4 of 5 from beyond the arc. McKenna Murphy was also critical off the bench, scoring 8 points and hitting both of her triple tries, and scored the paint bucket that gave the Rams the lead for good at the 2:47 mark of the third.
The Lady Rebels were held to their second-lowest field goal percentage (31.7%) of the season, with Aaliyah Alexander scoring 22 points and Mariah Elohim adding 11 points, but Meadow Rowland was blanket all evening by Hannah Ronsiek and scored just 9 points on 3-for-15 shooting to go with 10 rebounds. UNLV also had just four 3-pointers over the first 38:52 of the game, finishing 6 of 25 from downtown while Colorado State made 8 of 20 beyond the arc.
Bargesser left the game nearly three minutes into the second quarter when she appeared to injure her left leg on an attempted baseline drive. After halftime the CSU media relations staff shared that she was out with a lower leg injury, and her status for the championship is not certain, but Williams told the Mountain West Network that it 'didn't look good.'
The Rams are back in the championship game for the first time since 2023 and are looking for the program's third tournament title and first since 2016. Coincidentally, the Rams were one of the four teams since 2014 that advanced to the final after beginning the tournament in the first round before Air Force accomplished the feat this year.
"We're a rival for Air Force...Don't they say that with rivalry games, the record doesn't matter?" Williams mused. "You can see why. I mean, look at what they're doing. Look at what they've done. Perry is arguably the hottest player in the country right now. When you have that weaponry — and they're always disruptive. They always play with incredible effort, and Adams is really playing well.
"That's why. We know we're going to have to play our best game of the tournament tomorrow. There's no question about that."
This story was updated at 10:18 p.m.