The Gonzaga Bulldogs are the No. 1 team in the nation, and have been the top team in the West Coast Conference for two decades. The Bulldogs look to continue their league dominance with the West Coast Conference Tournament, which gets underway on Thursday at Orleans Arena in Las Vegas. Gonzaga finished undefeated in conference play during the regular season, finishing first in the WCC for the seventh consecutive season and for the 18th time in the last 19 years. The Bulldogs have won the WCC Tournament the last six seasons, and 16 times in the last 20 years. In the four times in the last two decades that Gonzaga didn’t win the conference tournament, they reached the championship game. The stakes Gonzaga is a lock for the NCAA Tournament no matter what happens in Las Vegas, and will most likely be a No. 1 seed. St. Marys finished second in the WCC and is on the bubble for the NCAAs, listed as one of the last four teams out of the tournament in Chris Dobbertean’s latest bracketology. A win in the semifinals would certainly help St. Mary’s case, but the Gaels might need a conference tournament win to punch their ticket to March Madness. Format All 10 teams in the WCC are in the tournament, even the Portland Pilots, who finished 0-16 in the league. To the victors go the spoils in Las Vegas, with the top two tournament seeds receiving byes all the way to the semifinals. Additionally, No. 3 and No. 4 get byes until the quarterfinals, while No. 5 and No. 6 get a pass into the second round. Teams & seeds Bracket & schedule The WCC tournament runs from March 7-12, with the first round starting at Orleans Arena in Las Vegas on Thursday. The championship game is on Tuesday night, March 12. Regional outlets will televise the first two round of the tournament, with online streaming through TheW.tv. Starting with the quarterfinals on Saturday, ESPN and ESPN2 take over, with online streaming of the final three rounds available on Watch ESPN. Here is the schedule, with all times ET. Thursday, March 7 Game 1: No. 8 Pepperdine 61, No. 9 Pacific 53 Game 2: No. 7 San Diego 67, No. 10 Portland 47 Friday, March 8 Game 3: No. 8 Pepperdine 68, No. 5 Loyola Marymount 65 Game 4: No. 7 San Diego 62, No. 6 Santa Clara 45 Saturday, March 9 Game 5: No. 8 Pepperdine 89, No. 4 San Francisco 72 Game 6: No. 7 San Diego 80, No. 3 BYU 57 Monday, March 11 Game 7: No. 1 Gonzaga 100, No. 8 Pepperdine 74 Game 8: No. 2 St. Mary’s 69, No. 7 San Diego 62 Tuesday, March 12 Championship Game: No. 2 St. Mary’s 60, No. 1 Gonzaga 47<doc-sep>If you can believe it, conference tournaments are beginning and Selection Sunday is on the horizon. For the West Coast Conference, action gets underway Thursday night at the Orleans Arena in Las Vegas. BYU won’t play until Saturday (and won’t know their opponent until Friday). Here’s the scoop and schedule on the 2019 WCC Basketball Tournament: The first games are Thursday night at 7 p.m. MST between ninth-seeded Pacific and eighth-seeded Pepperdine. The late game (9 p.m. MST) will be between no. 7 (seed) San Diego and no. 10 Portland. This is on BYU’s side of the bracket, so it should be of interest to Cougar fans. The Thursday games will air on these channels: Spectrum SportsNet, NBCSports California, ROOT Northwest, AT&T Rocky Mountain, BYUtv, TheW.tv. On Friday, games are at the same times (7 and 9 p.m. MST). The winner of Pepperdine/Pacific will take on no. 5 LMU then on BYU’s side of the bracket, the winner of San Diego/Portland will take on no. 6 seeded Santa Clara (BYU will face the winner of this game). Catch the Friday games on these channels: NBCSports Bay Area, Spectrum SportsNet, BYUtv, TheW.tv. Saturday is when BYU Basketball will get in on the action, but not until pretty late, so consider taking a nice, late afternoon nap. The quarterfinals will be broadcast on ESPN2 and the first game will be between no. 4 San Francisco and the winner of Pepperdine/Pacific vs. LMU. That game will begin at 8 p.m. MST. No. 3 BYU will face the winner of San Diego/Portland vs. Santa Clara around 10 p.m. MST. With a break in the action Sunday, semifinals will be on Monday night on ESPN and ESPN2. This is when Saint Mary’s and Gonzaga will finally get in on the action. No. 1 Gonzaga will take on the winner of the first quarterfinal game at 7 p.m. on ESPN. On BYU’s side of the bracket, no. 2 Saint Mary’s will take on the winner of the second quarterfinal game at 9:30 p.m. MST on ESPN2. That leaves the championship game between whoever’s left standing on Tuesday night at 7 p.m. MST on ESPN. Are you still with us? TL;DR for BYU fans? The Cougars will play at 10 p.m. MST Saturday night, then hopefully again at 9:30 p.m. MST Monday vs. Saint Mary’s... And then hopefully again on Tuesday at 7 p.m. MST against Gonzaga. Get full schedule details and see the full bracket, here. If you’re into the odds, check out this tweet from Ken Pomeroy: West Coast Conference. All games at Las Vegas. #log5 pic.twitter.com/1aoiiBfOwC — Ken Pomeroy (@kenpomeroy) March 3, 2019 Despite being the 3-seed in the tournament, BYU has the fourth best odds to win the WCC Championship, and those odds are 1.4 percent. No. 1 (seeded and in the country) Gonzaga has an 84.1 percent chance at winning the title, so anyone else would definitely be a big, surprising upset — Crazier things have happened in March, though, right? Stay tuned for How to Watch posts on all of BYU’s games. Happy conference tournament viewing!<doc-sep>One of the biggest storylines going into this season was determining which team would challenge Gonzaga for the WCC crown. The other teams, erm, haven’t quite done that. Aside from San Francisco (which hung a halftime lead over the Bulldogs before peacing out in the second half) and Loyola Marymount (which trailed by one point at half, but finished the game shooting 7.1 percent from three), no team has pulled within 13 points of the No. 1 team in the nation. The crazy part is: Both teams aren’t even seeded in the top three in the new-look WCC Tournament. Five-seed Loyola Marymount has a first-round bye, and will play the winner of Pacific and Pepperdine. Four-seed San Francisco has flamed out ever since getting legitimate attention as an at-large NCAA Tournament candidate. Meanwhile, 2-seed Saint Mary’s has dropped games against every team in the top four, plus eight-seeded Pepperdine. Lastly — and this might shock readers — 3-seed BYU turned a season that once held so much NCAA Tournament promise into an absolute soap opera. All in all, the middle of the WCC should provide quite a bit of fun in Vegas this week. Tournament Bracket How to Watch First Round (Thursday, March 7) BYU TV/Spectrum Sportsnet/AT&T SN Rocky Mtn./Root Sports will air both games. TheW.tv will stream both games. Game 1: Pacific vs. Pepperdine, 9 p.m. Game 2: Portland vs. San Diego approx. 11:30 p.m. Second Round (Friday, March 8) BYU TV/Spectrum Sportsnet/AT&T SN Rocky Mtn. will air both games. TheW.tv will stream both games. Game 3: Game 1 Winner vs. Loyola Marymount, 9 p.m. Game 4: Game 2 Winner vs. Santa Clara, 11:30 p.m. Quarterfinals (Saturday, March 9) ESPN2 will air both games. Game 5: Game 3 Winner vs. San Francisco, 10 p.m. Game 6: Game 4 Winner vs. BYU, approx. 12:30 a.m. 3/10 Semifinals (Monday, March 11) Game 7: Game 5 Winner vs. Gonzaga 9 p.m. (ESPN/2) Game 8: Game 6 Winner vs. Saint Mary’s, approx. 11:30 p.m. (ESPN/2) Championship (Tuesday, March 12) Game 9: Game 7 Winner vs. Game 8 Winner, 9 p.m. (ESPN)<doc-sep>
The 2019 West Coast Conference women’s tournament begins on Thursday and Gonzaga is looking to repeat as champions for a third straight year. After a 16-2 regular season, the Bulldogs grabbed the top seed and will have a bye into the semi-finals. They beat every team this season by double digits, except for BYU, who they lost to both times. Storylines Will Gonzaga Get Revenge? Both Gonzaga-BYU games were decided by two points. In Provo, the Zags had a good look to tie the game at buzzer but could not finish. In Spokane, the Cougars hit 10 threes in the first half and hit two free throws with two seconds left to win. Gonzaga is hoping the old saying of “it’s hard to beat a team three times in a season” rings true. Winning the WCC Tournament will secure a top-four seed in the NCAA Tournament and the likelihood of hosting the first two rounds in the McCarthey Athletic Center. To do it, Gonzaga must get past (most likely) their two heated rivals – Saint Mary’s and BYU. Will BYU Even Make the Finals? BYU gets up to play Gonzaga. Head Coach Jeff Judkins always has something up his sleeve when he faces the Zags. The problem is that BYU doesn’t always get up for the other teams in the conference. Once they beat Gonzaga the first time in Provo, they proceeded to drop three straight games. They have also won several one or two possession games against bottom tier WCC teams. In the semi-finals, BYU will most likely be facing off with Pepperdine. In their last meeting, the Waves were able to run BYU’s three shooters off the three point line and beat the Cougars by 16 in Malibu. Pepperdine also has the WCC Player of the Year on their squad. Yasmine Robinson-Bacote averaged 19.5 points in their two contests and 20 points for the season. Another note: the number two seed has not made the championship game since 2014. Last year, BYU was upset by the 6 seed in the quarterfinals. The year before that, they were taken to overtime by the 7 seed and then fell to the 3 seed in the semi-finals. BYU is also playing for their NCAA Tournament lives. In the latest bracketology, BYU is a 9 seed. They should make the tournament even if they lose their semi-final game, but they shouldn’t leave it up to the committee. Everyone wants to see a Gonzaga-BYU final so hopefully both teams take care of business. Bracket Schedule Round One – Thursday March 7 Game 1: No. 8 Portland vs No. 9 San Francisco – 12 pm (theW.tv) Game 2: No. 7 Santa Clara vs No. 10 San Diego – 2 pm (theW.tv) Round Two – Friday March 8 Game 3: No. 5 Loyola Marymount vs Game 1 winner – 12 pm (theW.tv) Game 4: No. 6 Pacific vs Game 2 winner – 2 pm (theW.tv) Quarterfinals – Saturday March 9 Game 5: No. 4 Saint Mary’s vs Game 3 winner – 1 pm (theW.tv) Game 6: No. 3 Pepperdine vs Game 4 winner – 3 pm (theW.tv) Semi-Finals – Monday March 11 No. 1 Gonzaga vs Game 5 winner – 12 pm (theW.tv) No. 2 BYU vs Game 6 winner – 2 pm (theW.tv) Championship – Tuesday March 12 Women’s Championship Game – 1 pm (ESPNU)