The Problem
There’s a problem- at least for me- in the West Coast Conference. Since joining the conference in 1979, Gonzaga has won 21 conference championship games and 26 regular season conference championships. As for Saint Mary’s, they have 4 conference championship games and 8 regular season championships. However, Saint Mary’s has reached 15 conference championship games. In fact, Gonzaga and Saint Mary’s have played each other in the WCC conference championship game 11 times since 2009. In the other games, it’s been Gonzaga Vs. BYU, who’s no longer in the conference. The problem this year is that Gonzaga is getting underrated. Gonzaga’s lengthy poll streak of 143 weeks was broken this year after losing to Santa Clara, 77-76. This took place earlier in 2024, when the Zags were 11-5. Since then, Gonzaga has gone 10-1, with their only loss coming to Saint Mary’s, which was by 2, but I’ll get to that game later. They’ve taken down Kentucky on the road, and have also beaten San Francisco, who’s third in the conference. However, they still have not reentered the AP Poll since. Gonzaga is playing some of their best ball right now, and we saw that in the win over Kentucky, where Graham Ike had 23 points and 5 rebounds off 10-17 shooting. He did foul out, but the supporting cast of players like Anton Watson and Nolan Hickman both dropping 17 points. Saint Mary’s keeps getting praise, and I understand why. They’ve came back from a 5-5 start to come into Saturday 22-6. I remember seeing a graphic come up during a break in a game, and it showed the most disappointing teams of the year so far. There were 3 teams, but the one that stood out to me was Saint Mary’s. Anyways, they’ve won 14 straight since their loss against Missouri State on December 23rd. They’ve beaten San Francisco twice and also have taken down Gonzaga. Pacific is the worst team in the WCC, but they’ve held them to 28 points and 43 points, which just shows how good Saint Mary’s is. Gonzaga should be ranked, and even though Saint Mary’s is having a good season, they are a bit overhyped and I think Gonzaga is slightly better and should be ranked.
The First Matchup
Gonzaga and Saint Mary’s have played each other once already, with Saint Mary’s coming out on top, 64-62. The game was close throughout, but neither team pulled too far ahead. SMC’s largest lead was 6, while Gonzaga’s was 9. For Saint Mary’s, Aidan Mahaney led the way with 20 points off 7-17 shooting. He also shot 4-10 from deep. Joshua Jefferson had 16 points and 11 rebounds, shooting 50%. Mitchell Saxen had 15 points and Augustas Marciulionis had 11 points, 4 assists, and 2 steals. Alex Ducas took 1 shot, missing it. He played 26 minutes and came down with 5 rebounds. SMC got barely any bench help either, as Jordan Ross shot 2 points for the only bench points. Gonzaga also had just 2 bench points, those coming from Braden Huff. As for the starters, Anton Watson played 40 minutes, dropping a 16-point, 10 rebound double-double. Another starter had a double-double as well, that being Graham Ike. Ike had 12 points and 12 rebounds. He had 4 fouls by game’s end, but he still played 35 minutes. Ben Gregg came close to a double-double, with 7 points and 10 points off 3-7 shooting. Nolan Hickman had 7 points in his 37 minutes, while Ryan Nembhard had 18 points in 40 minutes. The biggest and most notable difference between the team’s play were the assist numbers. Saint Mary’s had 11 assists when the game was over, while Gonzaga only had 5. When you only have 5 assists, it obviously makes it harder to shoot. Gonzaga shot 43.6% from the field, slightly better than Saint Mary’s 45.5%. However, Gonzaga shot 21% from deep, going 3-14. Hickman shot 0-5, while Gregg shot 1-4 from long range. Saint Mary’s hot 39% from deep, going 7-18. Gonzaga’s assists were also not spread out. Watson and Hickman both had 2, while Nembhard had 1. Although Saint Mary’s had 4 different players get an assist, both Jefferson and Marciulionis had 4. Outside of the assists and 3-point shooting, there was very little difference. Gonzaga had 6 more rebounds, while SMC had 2 less assists. They both had the same number of steals, blocks, and fouls. The Gaels had 7 more points off turnovers than Gonzaga, but the Bulldogs had 8 more points in the paint than Saint Mary’s. Overall, it was a close game, which gives me a lot of intrigue into their next matchup.
Next Matchup
Now, I’m not that good at predicting basketball games, as I do much better with football. However, I’m going to try and predict this game. Like I just wrote about, Saint Mary’s got a close win on the road. Now, they try to defend their win at home on March 2nd. Gonzaga plays 2 more games before this matchup, and so do Saint Mary’s. Gonzaga is averaging 86 points per game, while SMC is averaging 74%. If Gonzaga can get their shots to fall, they will win this game. Zaga is shooting 51.4% from the field, while SMC is averaging 46%. SMC is also averaging 74% from the field. Saint Mary’s doesn’t have a lot of scorers, either. Aidan Mahaney leads the team, averaging 14 points per game. Augustas Marciulionis is averaging 12 points per game as well. There are other players that are averaging either over 10 points per game or just under. However, these players are very inconsistent. Take Marciulionis, for example. He scored 22 points on night against LMU, and then 2 straight games with 7 points. After 2 more games with 9 points, he had 25 in another win over LMU. Even Mahaney has been very inconsistent. Against Gonzaga, he had 20 points. He played 34 minutes and shot 7-17. The next game, which was against Pacific, by far the worst team in the WCC, he had 0 points. He played 23 minutes, and shot 0-4. This happened earlier in the season, too. He had 16 points in a loss to Missouri State. Then, against Kent State, Mahaney had just 2 points. He shot 1-6 and 0-5 from deep. If Mahaney and others have a good scoring night, they can win this game. However, they can go cold easily. Like, very easily. Remember, both of these teams have to play 2 more games before playing each other, which could very well impact this game. Because of that reason, I won’t be giving a prediction for the score.
The Solution
The only way that Gonzaga will be ranked again is if they beat Saint Mary’s early next month. I might be wrong if things fall exactly this way. 1. Teams like Washington State, SDSU, Colorado State, Florida, etc. lose on Saturday. That’ll guarantee that one of them will drop out. I doubt Wazzu will drop out even with a loss, as they upset Arizona earlier in the week. 2. Teams just outside the top 25 like Wisconsin and Virginia also lose. That’ll move Gonzaga closer to the top 25. 3rd and finally, Gonzaga has to take care of business themselves and win on Saturday. This might seem like the easiest step, but Gonzaga already lost to Santa Clara this year. That was the loss that ended their poll streak as well. This game is at home, so that should give Gonzaga an edge. If these 3 things happen, Gonzaga will most likely be ranked. However, if just 1 of these things don’t happen, I doubt Gonzaga will be ranked until they beat Saint Mary’s, if they even do that.