NSN's weekly poll: Who will win this week's Mountain West softball tournament?

Every Monday, Nevada Sports Net will post a weekly poll question on its main Twitter account. On Tuesday's NSN Tonight, we will reveal the final poll results and discuss the topic for a segment. On Wednesday, we will post the results and NSN Daily segment while I offer my vote on the question.

This week's poll

NSN Tonight segment

Murray's take

The MW softball tournament starts Thursday in Boise with six of the league's nine teams making the field. This is my favorite MW Tournament bracket as it's both a single-elimination and double-elimination tournament. Thursday's first two games are loser-out games with the winners advancing to the tournament's four-team double-elimination format. This seems like a just reward for the league's top-two seeds, who don't have to bother with the single-elimination portion of the event. But it also allows access for 66.6 percent of the conference.

San Diego State got the first seed and UNLV the second, giving both a major advantage. Nevada, Fresno State, Boise State and Colorado State all play in the first round. All but Colorado State have legitimate odds of winning this event, so it should be a fun field. While the majority of the voters went with Nevada (77.4 percent, a huge margin), I voted for UNLV. The Rebels won series against San Diego State and Nevada late in the season and have that first-round bye. They're playing good ball.

Nevada was 9-6 against the five teams in the field, so the Wolf Pack has more than proven it can win this tournament. But Nevada also is 8-8 in its last 16 games after starting the year 30-7, so the Wolf Pack has not played at its peak in recent weeks. It did, however, take two of three at MW champion SDSU to close the regular season. Ultimately, I won't be shocked if any team in this field wins the tournament as all six are in the top 100 of the RPI. UNLV is the lowest of those six at 100, so I'm going with an underdog as Nevada looks for the second conference tournament title in its softball history (it won the 2006 WAC Tournament).

Columnist Chris Murray provides insight on Northern Nevada sports. Contact him at crmurray@sbgtv.com or follow him on Twitter @ByChrisMurray.