Zags seeded second for WCC men’s tourney, open play next Monday

SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. — Gonzaga and Saint Mary’s, the co-regular-season champions, were each awarded triple byes heading into the West Coast Conference men’s basketball tournament as the conference announced the full men's tournament bracket on Sunday.

Saint Mary's was awarded the No. 1 seed and Gonzaga was awarded the No. 2 seed in the WCC seeding process with tiebreakers, which was determined by the NCAA Evaluation Tool (NET) the day following the conclusion of the conference regular season schedule.

Saint Mary’s was ranked seventh in the NET, Gonzaga ninth.

Riding a seven-game winning streak, Santa Clara heads to Las Vegas as the No. 3 seed. With wins over both Saint Mary's and Gonzaga earlier this season, LMU joins the Broncos with a double bye as the No. 4 seed. Santa Clara and LMU will take the court for the first time on Saturday.

Saturday night, BYU defeated San Francisco in Provo. As a result of that outcome, BYU, Pacific and San Francisco tied for fifth place in the standings. Conference seeding tiebreakers for three or more teams establish a pod with the teams tied in the standings.

Against the other two teams in the pod, BYU and USF posted a 3-1 record and Pacific recorded an 0-4 record. The Tigers were awarded the No. 7 seed. BYU and USF move through the tiebreaker process to determine the No. 5 and No. 6 seed. They split their two games against each other during the regular season. The next tiebreaker is each team’s record vs. teams in descending order of the conference standings.

Both BYU and USF lost twice to Gonzaga (tied for first place), Saint Mary’s (tied for first place) and Santa Clara (third place). Against fourth-place LMU, the Dons were 1-0 and the Cougars were 1-1.

With an unbalanced conference schedule, the number of games against an opponent may be unequal. In this case, the conference tiebreaking policy establishes that fewer losses do not prevail if the teams have the same number of wins and the team with fewer games could equal or surpass the loss total of the other team.

Against Pacific (tied for fifth place), BYU and San Francisco were both 2-0. Against eighth-place Portland, ninth-place San Diego and 10th-place Pepperdine, one team recorded a 1-0 record and the other team recorded a 1-1 record. Once again, in each of these cases, the conference tiebreaker policy establishes that fewer losses do not prevail if the teams have the same number of wins and the team with fewer games could equal or surpass the loss total of the other team.

The final determination is the NCAA Evaluation Tool on the day following the conclusion of the conference regular season schedule, which awarded BYU (No. 89 in the NET) the No. 5 seed and San Francisco (No. 121 in the NET) the No. 6 seed.

The opening round on Thursday will feature the No. 8 seed Portland battling No. 9 San Diego in the first men's game at 6 p.m. PST, followed by No. 7 seed Pacific facing No. 10 Pepperdine at 8:30 p.m.

BYU will play the winner of Portland/USD on Friday at 6 p.m. PST and USF will play the winner of Pacific/Pepperdine on Friday at 8:30 p.m.

On the women's side, due to the Portland-BYU women's basketball game being rescheduled for today, the WCC women's tournament bracket will be announced following the completion of that game.

The men’s and women’s tournaments will be held from March 2-7 at Orleans Arena in Las Vegas. The first two rounds of the men’s tournament and the first four rounds of the women’s tournament will be televised on the WCC’s regional sports network partners, NBC Sports Bay Area, NBC Sports California, ROOT Sports NW, Bally Sports West, Bally Sports SoCal, Bally Sports San Diego, as well as BYUtv. These games will also be available online on the WCC Network.

ESPN will televise the quarterfinals and semifinals of the men’s tournament, and the championship games of both the men’s and women’s tournament.

WCC MEN’S AND WOMEN’S BASKETBALL TOURNAMENTS

Thursday, March 2 — Women’s and Men’s First Round

Noon — Women’s Game 1: No. 8 seed vs. No. 9 seed (RSNs/BYUtv/WCC Network)

2:30 p.m. — Women’s Game 2: No. 7 seed vs. No. 10 seed (RSNs/BYUtv/WCC Network)

6 p.m. — Men’s Game 1: No. 8 Portland LMU vs. No. 9 San Diego (RSNs/BYUtv/WCC Network)

8:30 p.m. — Men’s Game 2: No. 7 Pacific vs. No. 10 Pepperdine (RSNs/BYUtv/WCC Network)

Friday, March 3 — Women’s and Men’s Second Round

Noon — Women’s Game 3: No. 5 seed vs. Winner Game 1 (RSNs/BYUtv/WCC Network)

2:30 p.m. — Women’s Game 4: No. 6 seed vs. Winner Game 2 (RSNs/BYUtv/WCC Network)

6 p.m. — Men’s Game 3: No. 5 seed BYU vs. Winner Game 1 (RSNs/BYUtv/WCC Network)

8:30 p.m. — Men’s Game 4: No. 6 seed San Francisco vs. Winner Game 2 (RSNs/BYUtv/WCC Network)

Saturday, March 4 — Women’s and Men’s Quarterfinals

1 p.m. — Women’s Game 5: No. 4 seed vs. Winner Game 3 (RSNs/BYUtv/WCC Network)

3:30 p.m. — Women’s Game 6: No. 3 seed vs. Winner Game 4 (RSNs/BYUtv/WCC Network)

7 p.m. — Men’s Game 5: No. 4 seed LMU vs. Winner Game 3 (ESPN2)

9:30 p.m. — Men’s game 6: No. 3 seed Santa Clara vs. Winner Game 4 (ESPN2)

Monday, March 6 — Women’s and Men’s Semifinals

Noon — Women’s game 7: No. 1 seed vs. Winner Game 5 (RSNs/BYUtv)

2:30 p.m. — Women’s Game 8: No. 2 seed vs. Winner Game 6 (RSNs/BYUtv)

6 p.m. — Men’s Game 7: No. 1 seed Saint Mary's vs. Winner Game 5 (ESPN)

8:30 p.m. — Men’s Game 8: No. 2 seed Gonzaga vs. Winner Game 6 (ESPN2)

Tuesday, March 7 — Women’s and Men’s Finals

1 p.m. — Women’s Basketball Championship: Winner Game 7 vs. Winner Game 8 (ESPNU)

6 p.m. — Men’s Basketball Championship: Winner Game 7 vs. Winner Game 8 (ESPN)