The fact that the San Diego State men's basketball team dropped its last outing to a top-flight team on the road before a partisan crowd of almost 19,000 is hardly a capital crime. And the pollsters clearly agree with that assertion.

Despite a 65-63 tug-of-war loss to Nevada-Las Vegas on February 11, the Aztecs held on to the 13 spot in the latest Associated Press poll. In the USA Today/ESPN poll, SDSU fell one notch to a still very respectable 15.

UNLV, under the radar on the nationalscene but a team that none one would want to play in the NCAA Tournament, is slotted number 11 in both polls. Kentucky, Syracuse and Missouri are ranked 1-2-3 in both polls.

Kansas and Duke are No. 4 and 5 in the AP, and are the other way around in USA Today/ESPN. A big loser in the rankings was Murray State, which was the only undefeated Division I squad in the land until it lost to Tennessee State at home on February 9. The Racers had been No.9, but that upset loss dropped them all the way down to 16.

The Mountain West race is a quagmire right now. Even though they've already lost more games than they did all of last season, the Aztecs (20-4, 6-2 in the MW) are sharing a piece of first place with UNLV (22-4, 6-2) and New Mexico (20-4, 6-2).

The Rebels and Aztecs have split their two games, and San Diego State hosts the Lobos in its next contest on February 15.

How tight are things in the Mountain West?

Colorado State (which crushed the Aztecs in Fort Collins last month), Wyoming and Texas Christian, generally considered afterthoughts around here, all have 4-4 records and are still very much in the race for first place.

It's been relatively rough sledding for the Aztecs lately, as they lost two of their last four games, both on the road. However, coach Steve Fisher remains confident his club will be in good shape once the Mountain West Tournament (hosted by UNLV) rolls around later this month.

"We have good players,'' Fisher said. "(Guard James) Rahon and (Chase) Tapley both have played starter minutes last year even though Rahon wasn't a starter. We have guys that got used to winning. I've said this before, and we've got a good group. We've got pretty good players. We're different than we were last year, but we have a good team.''

So does UNLV, which just might wind up facing San Diego State in the Mountain West Tournament final, with the winner earning an automatic berth in the NCAA tournament.

"I see a team that's competitive as us,'' Tapley said. "They have the same makeup as we do. They like to do the same concepts we like to do, play hard defense, get up the floor and knock down the open shots. Just really playing the flow, that's what both these teams do.''

Whether they'll be doing it against each other in the next couple of years is in jeopardy. The Aztecs will be playing in the more geographically-friendly Big West Conference starting in 2013-14, with a handful of Big East games tossed in; a by product of SDSU's football marriage into that conference.

There's no telling what UNLV will do; its football program is irrelevant, at best, and although the men's basketball entity is decades removed from the glory days of "Jerry Tarkanian and the Runnin' Rebels" the UNLV brand still commands national recognition. As Las Vegas Review-Journal columnist Ed Graney logically pointed out the other day, it absolutely makes perfect sense for the two schools to continue playing, even if it's once a year, regardless of conference affiliations.

Not only has a nice rivalry developed between SDSU and UNLV, but it's easy travel for both sides, not to mention that Viejas Arena and Thomas & Mack Center are two of the top venues in the country for men's college basketball.

"It's always a battle, always two great teams going at it," UNLV guard Oscar Bellfield told the Review-Journal. "It's a great thing to have them on the schedule. And if you can pull out a win, it's even better. The (teams) should definitely continue playing."

Generally it's hard to get big-time athletic directors to say anything about anything. But Nevada-Las Vegas AD Jim Livengood was hardly coy when asked if he wants to see the Aztecs remain part of his school's hoops menu.

"Absolutely, we should continue playing," Livengood said to the Review-Journal after UNLV bested the Aztecs. "I can't believe another college basketball game played today had a better atmosphere. This was just incredible. We need to play San Diego State."

They could be playing each other once more in the Mountain West Tournament, in what would certainly be the typical battle between them.