Game #172. The WCC title still goes through Gonzaga, as St. Mary’s and the Zags match up again in the Championship Game for the third season in a row.
Midway through the West Coast Conference regular season, it appeared that St. Mary’s had taken the mantle from stalwart Gonzaga as the “it” team in the league. The Zags were reeling after a home loss to the Gaels, the first such loss in a decade and a half which followed up road Ls at San Francisco and Santa Clara. Randy Bennett’s team, on the other hand, was sitting pretty at 6-0 and seemed on a course with destiny to win its first outright WCC title in a long while. Didn’t happen that way. After that game in Spokane, Mark Few’s Bulldogs got it together and ran off nine conference wins in a row; the Gaels, perhaps feeling the pressure of playing from ahead, stumbled in losses at Portland, at San Diego and at home against the hated Zags. Needless to say, unlike last season, both schools are perched precariously on the bubble for the NCAA Tournament — there is a high likelihood that tonight’s loser will not get invited to the Big Dance next weekend. There’s a decent likelihood that both will be. It’s difficult to say, but both squads will bring everything they have to make sure that they’re not the team sweating through the next six days waiting to hear from about their future from a bunch of Indianapolis fat cats. Join us tonight for what promises to be a battle extraordinaire from two teams that really don’t like each other very much.