Late in regulation, it looked as though Saint Mary’s was going to win. The Gaels, who were faster to loose balls and tougher on the glass at both ends of the floor, earned extra possessions and did much more within five feet of the tin than Gonzaga did. SMC’s big men, Rob Jones and Brad Waldow, outfoxed and outfought Gonzaga’s Robert Sacre and Elias Harris on most of the game’s important box-out sequences, enabling the Gaels to carve out a 68-63 lead with 31 seconds left in regulation. However, just when it seemed that SMC was going to reach the winner’s circle, a series of improbable events unfolded. After Gonzaga got a pair of foul shots – on a dumb Saint Mary’s foul – to pull within three points at 68-65, SMC’s Matthew Dellavedova was clearly whacked on the arm by a Gonzaga defender in the backcourt. However, no foul was called and the Zags tied up Dellavedova with 10.7 seconds left. The possession arrow pointed to the Zags, giving them an extra chance. Saint Mary’s clearly tried to foul on Gonzaga’s ensuing possession, but the officials didn’t call the foul. Harris got open for GU and buried a three with five seconds left to tie the score. Dellavedova raced downcourt and released a 10-foot leaner just before the horn, but the shot missed. Somehow, Gonzaga lived to force overtime. Saint Mary’s had to be wondering what was going on in Las Vegas.

To their great credit, the Gaels didn’t fold up and leave. They regrouped and took the fight to Gonzaga in overtime. Dellavedova won a loose-ball battle and earned two foul shots with 48 seconds left. The Australian hit both attempts to give SMC a two-point lead at 74-72. The Gaels smothered Gonzaga on the Bulldogs’ final few offensive possessions, and when Dellavedova hit two last foul shots at the six-second mark of overtime, the win had been sealed.

Matt Zemek
DFN Sports Senior Staff Writer

Once again, San Francisco faltered at crunch time, while Saint Mary’s rose to meet the moment. The Gaels hit 54 percent of their field goal attempts, managing to eclipse USF’s production and walk away with a five-point win. The victory propels SMC into Monday’s tournament championship game against the Gonzaga Bulldogs, maintaining the two schools’ control of this particular conference.

With 17 minutes left in regulation, San Francisco led by a 43-39 count. Then Saint Mary’s took over. The Gaels scored on 14 of their next 16 possessions, carving up USF’s weakening defense with icy efficiency. SMC got whatever it wanted at the offensive end of the floor, using inside-outside balance and excellent ball movement to grind down the Dons. The game remained close into the final minutes, with the Gaels protecting a four-point lead, but San Francisco wasted nearly a minute of clock time by fouling late in the shot clock on two consecutive possessions. Saint Mary’s hit its foul shots – Matthew Dellavedova hit all 10 of his charity pitches – and found the winner’s circle in Vegas.

(2) Gonzaga 77 (3) BYU 58

The Brigham Young Cougars will have a very, very long wait until – and then on – Selection Sunday. The Gonzaga Bulldogs made sure of it.

BYU entered Saturday night’s second semifinal in the West Coast Conference Tournament needing to beat Gonzaga to feel safe about its NCAA Tournament at-large hopes. BYU didn’t face elimination from the Big Dance with a loss, but this was a game that would have shifted a lot of leverage into the Cougars’ hands. Instead, that leverage evaporated into the late Las Vegas night. In a game that ended just before 11 p.m. local time, the clock struck midnight on BYU’s hopes of having a drama-free Selection Sunday.

Gonzaga earned yet another meeting with old rival Saint Mary’s in the tournament final on Monday night, racing past BYU in a game that never felt particularly close. The Bulldogs played with supreme energy from start to finish, displaying a level of engagement with their task that hasn’t been prevalent for most of the season. The Zags got into passing lanes, ran the floor, and hit open perimeter shots in a comprehensive display of dominance. Gonzaga point guard Kevin Pangos was the star of this showdown, scoring 30 points on 10-of-17 shooting, including a 5-of-9 outing from three-point range. Teammate Elias Harris snapped down 15 rebounds for the Bulldogs, who hope that they have one more big effort in them before they leave Las Vegas on Tuesday morning.

BYU will leave Las Vegas hoping that bubble teams lose a lot over the coming week. That’s what will determine whether the Cougars make the NCAA Tournament or not.

Matt Zemek
DFN Sports Senior Staff Writer

Well, guess what? The team with the darkhorse label was bumped off by an even darker horse, the San Francisco Dons. Playing with freedom and confidence, the fifth seed got the jump on the fourth-seeded Lions and ushered Loyola Marymount out of the tournament with a seven-point decision in Sin City. Michael Williams was sensational for San Francisco, hitting 5 of 8 threes and scoring 19 points. The Dons also got a strong performance from guard Cody Doolin, who scored 16 points and grabbed 7 rebounds in a masterful display of all-court virtuosity. San Francisco’s victory was made all the more impressive by the fact that its most fearless and formidable shooter, Rashad Green, hit just 3 of 15 shots. Green was carried by his teammates on Friday night, an encouraging sign as USF moves on to face Saint Mary’s in the semifinals on Saturday. San Francisco will have to win four games in order to claim the WCC crown and a ticket to the NCAA Tournament. The Dons are halfway there, and what gives them hope is the realization that they’ve already won without their star player’s best basketball. If Green can come alive against Saint Mary’s and the supporting cast holds its end of the bargain, a bracket buster could yet emerge from the WCC field… it just wouldn’t be Loyola Marymount. It would be San Francisco. How’s that for a Las Vegas surprise?

(3) BYU 73 (6) San Diego 68

The Brigham Young Cougars entered this third-round game knowing that if they won, they’d give themselves a chance to face the Gonzaga Bulldogs in the West Coast Conference Tournament semifinals. That would-be matchup against the Zags offered the promise of a ticket-punching victory, a scalp that would secure the Cougars an NCAA Tournament berth. However, before being able to get a shot at Gonzaga, BYU had to deal with a feisty underdog, the San Diego Toreros. USD nipped at BYU’s heels throughout the evening and pulled within just three points – at 71-68 – in the final half-minute. However, the Toreros produced a very poor possession with under 10 seconds left, wildly missing a desperation three-point shot and paving the way for Brigham Young to hold on. BYU was buoyed by the return of forward Noah Hartsock, a terrific all-around player with superb defensive instincts, a rock-solid mid-range jumper, and considerable shot-blocking ability. Hartsock’s ankle has been in bad shape over the past few weeks, but he was able to give it a go against San Diego, and the Cougars needed every bit of his contributions. Hartsock scored 19 points on 8-of-13 shooting while snapping down five rebounds. BYU would have been lost without Hartsock because its main sharpshooter in the backcourt, guard Matt Carlino, struggled profoundly in this game. Carlino scored just 8 points on 3-of-9 shooting and was plagued by foul trouble from start to finish. BYU will need a hot-shooting masterpiece from Carlino if it expects to beat Gonzaga in what shapes up as a season-making game for the people from Provo, Utah.

Matt Zemek
DFN Sports Senior Staff Writer

(8) Portland 74, (9) Santa Clara 70

It was an exquisitely painful way for a basketball season to end on Wednesday night inside Orleans Arena in Las Vegas. The Santa Clara Broncos had to know that their 2012 run would end in this building before too long, but the precise nature of their basketball death had to sting with unusual freshness and poignancy.

Let’s be honest: Santa Clara wasn’t going to do much in the West Coast Conference Tournament. The Broncos – like their opponent, the Portland Pilots – were not going to win the five games in five days that would be needed to claim an automatic berth to the NCAA Tournament, which was the only way either team could have played basketball beyond March 5, the night of the tournament final. In a league where it’s hard enough to win the tournament as a third or fourth seed – given that the top two seeds receive byes into the semifinals – the two teams that have to participate in the play-in game are naturally staring at a short tournament stay and a quick ticket to the offseason.

What will sting Santa Clara, though, is the fact that the Broncos were on the verge of giving their season a moment of meaning and satisfaction, only to see their opportunity slip away into the Vegas night.

The thing to realize about Santa Clara is that it did not win a single league game during regular-season competition. The Broncos went 0-16 in West Coast Conference play, finishing dead last in the league, well behind the eight-place Pilots, who scratched out a 3-13 mark in the WCC. Santa Clara wanted to at least leave the season with one league win, and thanks to a night of turnover-free basketball – a rather significant accomplishment for any team, not just a poor one – the Broncos, trailing 72-70, had a chance to either tie or win the game in the final 10 seconds.

That’s when the heartbreak entered the picture for SCU and head coach Kerry Keating, who is now staring at the likely termination of his employment.

With 5.8 seconds left on the clock, Santa Clara committed a turnover, its first of the evening. The Broncos hit under 38 percent of their shots while Portland knocked down over 56 percent of its field goal attempts. Santa Clara watched Portland hit 8 of 16 threes and rack up 17 assists to the Broncos’ meager total of seven. The Pilots also blocked seven shots, whereas Santa Clara blocked only two. Yet, because of the turnover column – Portland committed 15 of them – SCU had its gleaming chance… only to then boot the ball the one time it could not have afforded to do so. Portland escaped with the win, while Santa Clara trudged off the court with a 0-17 record against the WCC.

Portland advances to play fifth-seeded San Francisco on Thursday night in the second round.

Matt Zemek
DFN Sports Senior Staff Writer

The Portland Pilots won one game in the 2012 West Coast Conference Tournament, but when you are forced to enter the play-in game of a five-round tournament, the prospects for a deep run in the brackets are minimal, and so it was that the odds worked against the Pilots on Thursday night at Orleans Arena in Las Vegas. The fifth-seeded San Francisco Dons, who defeated the Gonzaga Bulldogs late in the season and have been known to play spoiler in the WCC before, disposed of Portland with icy efficiency in the first of two thoroughly lopsided second-round games.

The Dons rolled up 51 points in the first half on a night when they hit just over 50 percent of their shots (31 of 61 from the field). San Francisco banged in 11 of 23 triples and established the fast pace it wanted. Portland, lacking the weapons of the team that made the WCC Tournament semifinals a year ago, was simply not able to keep up. Three San Francisco starters scored at least 15 points, with Rashad Green tallying 19 on lethal 8-of-11 shooting from the field. Teammate Angelo Caloiaro also scored 19 points and Perris Blackwell added 15. San Francisco guard Cody Doolin racked up 5 steals to fuel USF’s defense. The Dons accumulated 11 steals and gained a number of fast-break buckets as a result. The Dons were never seriously threatened throughout the second half, and the fact that they were able to win with minimal strain will keep the team relatively fresh as it prepares to face fourth-seeded Loyola Marymount in the third round on Friday night.

(6) San Diego 76 (7) Pepperdine 54

The second WCC second-round game was as dramatic as the first one, which is to say, not dramatic at all. The seventh-seeded Pepperdine Waves didn’t play in the first round on Wednesday night, but just like Portland, the Waves were put out to sea – and saw their season end – on Thursday night in Vegas. The sixth-seeded San Diego Torreros did the deed, running away in the middle of the first half and hiding from the young men of Malibu, California, where the Pepperdine campus is located.

San Diego won on the strength of its defense, holding Pepperdine to 39 percent shooting from the field while forcing 18 turnovers from the Waves’ flustered guards. San Diego accumulated 9 steals and was generally quicker to the ball all night long. The Torreros’ superior speed pried open easy opportunities near the basket, a chief factor in USD’s 56-percent shooting rate from the field. Up 11 at halftime, San Diego blasted the Waves to bits in the second half by rolling up 43 points. The clear star of this contest was USD guard Johnny Dee, who hit 9 of 14 shots, 6 of 9 from three-point range, and all six of his free throws. Dee must hope that he has something saved for third-seeded BYU in the third round on Friday night. San Diego can hope, though, that since its starters got some rest due to the blowout, it will have enough in the tank to tackle the Cougars as the WCC Tournament continues.

Matt Zemek
DFN Sports Senior Staff Writer

Thursday, February 23

Saint Mary’s 70 Portland 43

Gonzaga 74 BYU 63

San Diego 60 Loyola Marymount 57

Pepperdine 63 Santa Clara 57

Saturday, February 25
Saint Mary’s 67 San Francisco 60
Gonzaga 65 San Diego 57
BYU 76 Portland 66
Loyola Marymount 68 Santa Clara 65

The West Coast Conference regular season went down to the final game with its outcome hanging in the balance, and in those last minutes of tension and trial, the Saint Mary’s Gaels forged one of the sweetest and most satisfying moments in their basketball existence. The Gaels, who had come so close to winning the outright WCC title on a number of occasions over the past few years, finally did the deed by winning at San Francisco late Saturday night. Whereas Gonzaga couldn’t beat the Dons on their home court, Saint Mary’s was able to prevail in the City By The Bay, and that ultimately made the difference for coach Randy Bennett’s team, which broke Gonzaga’s 11-year hold on at least a share of the WCC crown. Beginning in the 2001 season and continuing through last year, coach Mark Few enabled Gonzaga to stand on the mountaintop in the WCC, sometimes on its own and sometimes with Saint Mary’s sharing the glory. However, SMC had never been able to keep the conference’s regular-season championship for itself, and that’s a goal the Gaels desperately wanted to reach. Now, their long uphill struggle is over. They’ve found the promised land and can use their journey to restore confidence that had been ebbing the previous few weeks. Saint Mary’s suffered a shocking home-court loss to Loyola Marymount and then got blasted at Murray State in the BracketBusters event. The outright WCC title looked like a better-than-even-money proposition in the second week of February, but the Gaels lost hold of their command and gave Gonzaga an opening. As mentioned above, it was San Francisco which played the pivotal role in this race, beating Gonzaga at home to give the Gaels a second chance. Saint Mary’s ironically needed to beat USF to seal the deal, and Bennett’s boys were up to the task. San Francisco made a late rally to pull within three points, but Saint Mary’s held firm at the foul line in the final minute to achieve its moment of supreme triumph. The Gaels have been the top seed in the WCC Tournament before, but not as the unquestioned sole champion of the league. All signs point to a Saint Mary’s-Gonzaga rematch in the tournament’s championship game, and based on the final weekend of the regular season, it would be hard to bet against the Gaels, who have – for one year, at least – changed the way the West Coast Conference narrative is told.

West Coast Conference Tournament Matchups:

First Round:

(9) Santa Clara vs. (8) Portland

Second Round:

Game 1: 9/8 winner vs. (5) San Francisco

Game 2: (7) Pepperdine vs. (6) San Diego

Third Round:

Game 1 winner vs. (4) Loyola Marymount

Game 2 winner vs. (3) Brigham Young

Semifinals

Game 1 winner/Loyola Marymount vs. (1) Saint Mary’s

Game 2 winner/Brigham Young vs. (2) Gonzaga

Final

Semifinal winners
Matt Zemek
DFN Sports Senior Staff Writer

Wednesday, February 15

Loyola Marymount 75 Saint Mary’s 60

Thursday, February 16

BYU 85 San Francisco 84

Gonzaga 73 Santa Clara 62

San Diego 78 Portland 75 (OT)

Seattle 81 Pepperdine 70

Friday, February 17

Loyola Marymount 61 Valparaiso 53

Saturday, February 18

Murray State 65 Saint Mary’s 51

San Francisco 66 Gonzaga 65

BYU 82 Santa Clara 67

Pepperdine 70 Portland 65

CS Bakersfield 72 San Diego 63

It was supposed to be a different narrative, a removed-from-the-normal conclusion to the season, in the West Coast Conference this year. That was the storyline one week ago, at any rate. The Saint Mary’s Gaels were supposed to lock down the league title and win the outright WCC crown, breaking a 12-year run in which the Gonzaga Bulldogs have held at least a share of the league banner. Saint Mary’s clearly outpaced Gonzaga over the first month and a half of the season, so with a home game against Loyola Marymount coming down the pike, the Gaels and coach Randy Bennett were expected to move one step closer to their moment of coronation and glory.

There was just one problem: They didn’t show up, and as a result, an outright title might not show up on the ledger sheet, either. Loyola Marymount thoroughly outworked SMC at both ends of the floor on Wednesday night, limiting the sluggish Gaels to just 60 points in a game that was very really close. Saint Mary’s hoisted a lot of threes – 28 of them – and made just six, while the far more efficient and aggressive Lions hit 7 of 15 treys and earned 11 more free throw attempts, 27 to 16. Loyola Marymount crowded the paint and established a pronounced territorial advantage, hounding Saint Mary’s into 14 turnovers. This was a comprehensive beatdown, and it recalled the ghosts of last year, when Saint Mary’s faded at the end of the season to give Gonzaga a piece of the WCC. Now, the same thing could be on the verge of happening once more. It’s too much for a Gael fan to take.

Well, except for one thing: When given a chance to tie for the league lead, Gonzaga promptly threw it away in San Francisco — literally. The Zags coughed up 21 turnovers, wiping away the value of their 51 percent field goal shooting performance. Gonzaga’s size was superior to San Francisco’s, but deficient ballhandling allowed the Dons to stay in the fray. Then, with 2.6 seconds left, USF’s Rashad Greene hit a leaner in the lane to put the home team up by one. A late Gonzaga heave missed the mark, and for the third straight year, San Francisco had beaten Gonzaga at home, enabling Saint Mary’s to keep the lead. Yes, it was that kind of a week in the WCC.

Elsewhere in the WCC, BYU kept alive it’s at-large NCAA Tournament chances by escaping from the University of San Francisco two nights before USF stunned Gonzaga. BYU claimed a wild one-point win on a Matt Carlino leaner in the final minute. Carlino scored 30 points for the Cougars, who needed every last tally on a night when their defense was non-existent. BYU has to relish the fact that while most bubble teams bumble along, it is moving up the WCC ladder. Its win over Santa Clara on Saturday created a second-place tie with Gonzaga. If BYU can win at Gonzaga this upcoming week, it should be seen as a tournament lock.

Matt Zemek
DFN Sports Senior Staff Writer

Thursday, February 9

Gonzaga 73 Saint Mary’s 59

San Diego 70 Pepperdine 57

Loyola Marymount 76 Portland 62

San Francisco 85 Santa Clara 69

Saturday, February 11

Saint Mary’s 82 Santa Clara 67

San Francisco 81 San Diego 70

BYU 86 Pepperdine 48

Gonzaga 78 Loyola Marymount 59

This past week in the West Coast Conference featured a counterintuitively odd story: Gonzaga held on to second place in the conference, yet became the biggest story in the league.

The Bulldogs have been the best program in the conference over the past 15 years, becoming the biggest brand name and the team with the most national profile. Saint Mary’s has established itself as the 2012 leader in the WCC and has developed a name for itself in the sport, but Gonzaga is still the most recognizable school in this past of the United States. In most years, the Zags have been the top team in the WCC, with Saint Mary’s usually playing spoiler. For these reasons, Gonzaga expects to finish in first place; consolidating a hold on second place in the league should normally not be cause for much of any rejoicing. However, this past week served as the exception which proves the rule. There’s ample reason to be encouraged if you’re a Gonzaga fan right now, even if the Zags are still almost certain to lose the league to Saint Mary’s.

Why should the term “second-place Gonzaga” be comforting to the people of Spokane, Washington, where this Jesuit school is located? Quite simply, there was a distinct possibility that Gonzaga would fall to third place this past week. Coach Mark Few’s team had to face big, bad Saint Mary’s on Thursday and then take on (at the time) third-place Loyola Marymount under 48 hours later. It’s true that GU was playing in its home gymnasium, the McCarthey Athletic Center (otherwise known as “The Kennel”), but Saint Mary’s had established such pronounced superiority to the Zags that the home team felt uniquely vulnerable on its home floor. Gonzaga lost at Saint Mary’s and BYU earlier this season, so with the Gaels in town on the back end of the conference home-and-home series, the Bulldogs faced a true put-up-or-shut-up moment. A loss to Saint Mary’s would have relegated Gonzaga to third place in the league while significantly denting the team’s confidence and possibly even putting GU’s NCAA Tournament hopes in jeopardy. A win would have re-established a feeling of normalcy while giving the Zags a high-quality win on their resume. This really was an all-or-nothing occasion for Gonzaga, one of the many high-pressure situations this program has encountered ever since it earned a bullseye from opponents due to its magical NCAA Tournament runs in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Sure enough, Gonzaga was up to the task. Kevin Pangos poured in 27 points to lead GU to a 14-point smackdown of Saint Mary’s on a night when the Zags’ defense thoroughly bottled up the Gaels. All the energy, all the toughness, that was missing from Gonzaga’s road trips to Saint Mary’s and BYU emerged in full relief in Spokane, as the comforts of home revived a team in need of a kick-start. Gonzaga exhibited the healthy desperation of a team that had not played with all that much passion over the previous six weeks. Stale and sluggish in the early stages of the WCC season, Gonzaga transformed itself into the team that league observers have so easily recognized over the past decade.

Then, on Saturday, Gonzaga subdued any talk of a letdown with an equally emphatic drubbing of Loyola Marymount, a decent team with nine WCC wins to its credit. Pangos scored 21 more points while teammate Elias Harris soared for 17 points and 15 rebounds. The Zags raced to a 24-point second-half lead before cruising home with a 19-point win. No, this team isn’t about to overtake Saint Mary’s for first place, but second place never felt so good. Gonzaga has pretty much ensured a return to the NCAA Tournament while silencing doubts about its legitimacy. That’s a well-spent week in Eastern Washington.

Matt Zemek
DFN Sports Senior Staff Writer

Thursday, February 2

Saint Mary’s 84 San Diego 73

Portland 84 Santa Clara 78

Loyola Marymount 67 Pepperdine 57

BYU 83, Gonzaga 73

Saturday, February 4

San Diego 70 Santa Clara 65

Loyola Marymount 90 San Francisco 88

Gonzaga 72 Pepperdine 60

BYU 79 Portland 60

In the West Coast Conference, an important process of revival took place this past week. The Brigham Young Cougars, who looked down for the count and were trending toward the National Invitation Tournament, made a strong plea to the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee, a full-throated announcement that they want to be considered for inclusion into the field of 68.

BYU got whacked at home by Saint Mary’s a week earlier, leading most basketball pundits to conclude that the NIT was in the Cougars’ future. BYU’s home court – the Marriott Center in Provo, Utah – has been a distinct stronghold in recent seasons, so when Saint Mary’s waltzed into town and put a beatdown on Brigham Young, coach Dave Rose’s team wasn’t just scrambling for answers. It was put into a must-win position when it hosted longtime West Coast Conference powerhouse Gonzaga on Thursday night. It was really rather simple: BYU had to win if it wanted any chance at a tourney ticket, and given its face-plant against Saint Mary’s, the smart money seemed to reside with the Zags, a team that lost at Saint Mary’s earlier this season and had something to prove in its own right. This was the first BYU-Gonzaga game since the Cougars’ move to the WCC, so Gonzaga wanted to answer the call just as much as BYU did. The newbie in the league obviously wanted to tell the Zags that its presence in the league was something to fear, but Gonzaga harbored the desire to tell BYU that getting a foothold in the new-look WCC would not be very easy at all.

When the smoke cleared, though, BYU gained that foothold and made it look fairly easy indeed.

Gonzaga simply could not handle BYU’s defensive pressure. The Cougars used quick hands to produce a boatload of steals – 14 in all – and generate stacks of cheap fast-break buckets which inflated the Cougars’ shooting clip to 49 percent. BYU forced 19 Gonzaga turnovers on a night when the Zags simply didn’t exhibit much of any composure or toughness in their halfcourt sets. Gonzaga appeared flustered by BYU and rattled by the raucous Marriott Center crowd. The Cougars were the ones throwing all the punches and making all the forward movements in this contest; the visitors from Spokane, Washington, were the ones on their heels throughout the evening.

Gonzaga is still more likely than not to make the NCAAs, but the loss gives Saint Mary’s – the winner of two games this past week – a firm grip on first place in the conference. Moreover, this loss means that the Zags can’t give away a bad loss if they want to shore up their NCAA candidacy… unless they take care of Saint Mary’s and BYU at home. Gonzaga has to make sure that it wins the big home games on its slate and creates the kind of resume that will satisfy the selection committee. BYU has played itself back into the conversation, but the Cougars just might have to beat Gonzaga again – this time, in Eastern Washington – if they want to feel good about their NCAA hopes.

It’s getting mighty interesting in the new West Coast Conference. BYU wasn’t making much of its debut season in the league, but a Thursday success story against Gonzaga has clearly changed the trajectory of the Cougars’ season…. and of the next four weeks.

Matt Zemek
DFN Sports Senior Staff Writer