03/10/26 11:52:00
Printable Page
03/10 23:50 CDT No. 12 Gonzaga beats Santa Clara 79-68 to win the WCC
tournament in its final appearance
No. 12 Gonzaga beats Santa Clara 79-68 to win the WCC tournament in its final
appearance
By MARK ANDERSON
AP Sports Writer
LAS VEGAS (AP) --- Gonzaga has dominated the West Coast Conference since coach
Mark Few took over at the turn of the century.
The Bulldogs are leaving for the Pac-12 Conference next season and made sure to
go out winners.
Mario Saint-Supry scored 21 points, Tyon Grant-Foster had 20 and No. 12
Gonzaga defeated Santa Clara 79-68 on Tuesday night to win the WCC Tournament.
"It's a special feeling to go out the right way," said Gonzaga's Graham Ike,
voted the tournament Most Outstanding Player. "Ultimately, we ended where we
started this. It started out with championships and those teams that came
before us. We just wanted to continue the success that they had. We were proud
we could do that."
The Bulldogs (30-3) received the conference's automatic bid to the NCAA
Tournament, though the only mystery was what seed they will get. This was their
sixth WCC tournament title in seven years and 12th in the last 14.
Santa Clara (26-8) will wait until Sunday to see if it is in the 68-team field,
but the WCC appears to be a three-bid league. Gonzaga, Santa Clara and No. 21
Saint Mary's were in the top 38 of the NCAA's NET rankings entering this game
and in the top 35 in Kenpom.
Four players scored in double figures for the Zags, who made 52.8% of their
shots. Ike made all seven of his shots in scoring 15 points.
Christian Hammond led the Broncos with 24 points, and Allen Graves scored 11.
Sash Gavalyugov, who scored 23 points that included the dagger 3-pointer in the
closing seconds to beat Saint Mary's 76-71 in the semifinals, was held to
eight. He was 3 of 13, including 2 of 9 from 3-point range.
"Sash had some tough shots tonight," Santa Clara coach Herb Sendek said. "He
does have the ability to make some of those shots, but I don't know that things
were engineered to simply take him out."
The Broncos made Gonzaga earn this victory. They led 52-50 nearly midway
through the second half before the Bulldogs scored seven straight points to go
ahead for good.
After dominating the WCC, Gonzaga will see if it can continue to assert itself
against San Diego State, Boise State and Utah State in the revamped Pac-12
beginning next season.
That will come later. Gonzaga has yet another NCAA Tournament appearance to
place its focus.
"After like 2015, we really focused on NCAA Tournament wins and Final Fours and
things like that," Few said. "The national championship's going to be the
standard that we're aiming for. But we've always talked about taking care of
business along the way so that you can get to the prize at the end, which is
the NCAA Tournament. These guys have done a good job of keeping their eyes on
the prize."
___
Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up
here and here (AP News mobile app). AP college basketball:
https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-basketball-poll and
https://apnews.com/hub/college-basketball
|
