No offense to the teams that got sent packing on Thursday, but these are the semis we really wanted anyway, clearly the four best teams in the conference advancing to square off with a date in the championship game awaiting. In the first session, top-seeded New Mexico got a huge performance by conference player of the year Darington Hobson but still had to hold off a pesky Air Force team, and they’ll advance to face a San Diego State team that had to get two late free throws by junior point D.J. Gay to keep their at-large NCAA tournament hopes alive. In the late session, BYU’s junior guard Jimmer Fredette scored a MWC Tournament record 45 points, including 30 in the second half to pull away from a game TCU squad and they’ll square off with a UNLV team that pulled away from Utah late playing in front of what is ostensibly a home crowd at the Thomas & Mack Center. Both of these matchups were a wash in the regular season, with the home team winning each game, but three of those four games were down-to-the-wire contests, with both Aztec/Lobo matchups very even games. We hope you’ll join us for what could be two classic, intense examples of the best March has to offer.