Wednesday, March 11th, 5:00 p.m. (et).

FACTS & STATS: Site: Thomas & Mack Center (18,500) -- Las Vegas, Nevada. Television: The Mtn. Home Record: Air Force 7-10, CSU 6-9. Away Record: Air Force 1-9, CSU 2-11. Neutral Record: Air Force 1-1, CSU 1-1. Conference Record: Air Force 0-16, CSU 4-12. Series Record: Colorado State leads, 63-29.

GAME NOTES: Searching for their first-ever win in the 10 years of the Mountain West Conference Tournament, the Air Force Falcons square off against the Colorado State Rams in first-round action today at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas. Until now the ninth-seeded Falcons have gone 0-9 in this event so even one win would be a step in the right direction. However, the academy has hit hard times in 2008-09 by going winless in league action and has won a total of only nine games overall. The Falcons beat some very weak adversaries in the early going and last landed in the win column on December 28th versus Dartmouth as part of the Golden Bear Classic in Berkeley, California. As for the Rams, they too won only nine games during the regular season, but in their case they at least logged four league victories. Eighth-seeded Colorado State, which won this event in 2003 with a narrow 62-61 win against UNLV, finished the regular season with three straight losses and six setbacks in the last seven games. In terms of the all-time series between these two squads, CSU owns a commanding 63-29 advantage over the Falcons and, obviously, defeated Air Force in both meetings in 2008-09. The winner of this meeting will be back in action on Thursday afternoon versus top-seeded and nationally-ranked BYU in the quarterfinals.

During conference play this season the Falcons were painfully overmatched all too often, scoring just 51.2 ppg and giving up 64.7 ppg. That's not to say there were not a handful of outings that were not close calls for Air Force, just that none ever worked in its favor. Andrew Henke was at the top of the scoring list in those 16 games with his 13.1 ppg, although he started just half of them. Matt Holland (10.5 ppg) shot 39 percent behind the three-point line versus the MWC, but that still did not disguise the fact that he had a mere 12 assists in those 16 bouts. Anwar Johnson accounted for 8.3 ppg and a team-best 41 assists, but his accuracy from the field (.380) was symptomatic of everyone else on the team as they shot a collective 40.3 percent from the floor. What's worse, in those games that the Falcons could have gotten over the hump, shooting a miserable 62 percent at the free-throw line wasn't going to help matters.

An All-MWC performer for the Rams this season, Marcus Walker managed to come up with a team-best 17.7 ppg in league games, even though he came off the bench in six of the 13 contests in which he appeared. When it comes to scoring overall on the season, Walker was again the top man on the list with his 17.0 ppg, and why shouldn't he be -- he attempted 379 shots from the floor which was 142 more than his closest teammate (Andy Ogide) who ended up playing three more games than Walker. Ogide was credited with 10.2 ppg on the year as he shot close to 50 percent from the field and made sure to focus his energies where they would do the most good and not out on the perimeter where he attempted just two shots. Ogide handled a good portion of the rebounding for the program with close to six boards per contest, while Andre McFarland (8.4 ppg) contributed 4.1 rpg even as he knocked down a team-high 53 three-point shots on the campaign.

Anything can happen in the postseason, especially once teams realize that this could be the last game they play and the end could be only 40 minutes away. With that in mind, expect to see the Falcons come out with an inspired effort to halt a couple of lengthy slides.

Predicted Outcome

Air Force 61, Colorado State 57