Cliches Have Backs To Wall In Wcc Finale

The cliches don’t exactly fit this game.

At the very least, they need to be modified slightly.

This is for some of the marbles.

A portion of the enchilada.

Katie, you don’t have to bar the door, but kind of keep an eye on it willya, hon?

Heading into the week, it appeared likely that Gonzaga and Santa Clara’s men’s basketball teams were on a course that would create a collision for the West Coast Conference title tonight at the Martin Centre.

But the Broncos were dumped at Portland on Thursday, while GU notched its sixth straight win to take a full-game lead into tonight’s regular-season finale.

The worst the home team can do now is come out of it with a loss and a conference co-championship.

It remains vital to Santa Clara, however, since it can swipe half the enchilada and also get the top seed to the WCC tournament with a victory.

The game is a sellout, and GU coach Dan Fitzgerald said it’s the first time he’s had fans calling with offers to “pay top dollar” for a ticket.

So, plenty of drama remains, because a number of issues are at stake:

Postseason positioning.

The thinking here is that GU, with 19 wins (17 against Division I foes) and at least a portion of the conference championship, is very close to sewing up an NIT bid.

A win tonight lifts the Bulldogs to the 20-win barrier and gives them an impressive two-game cushion in a conference considered the 11th-best in the country.

The school has already filed its bid to host an NIT game at the Spokane Arena, pointing to the fact that 8,400 paid to see the GU-Washington State game there on the day after Thanksgiving.

“I think we’re probably in, but who knows?” Fitzgerald said. “So much of it depends on (conference) tournament upsets.”

Surely, the Bulldogs would prefer an NCAA invitation, which would

accompany a second-straight title in the league tournament.

But a win over Santa Clara tonight, coupled with first- and second-round wins in the WCC tourney would add up to 20 D-I pelts on the saddle horn, meaning an NCAA at-large bid might not be out of the question.

Santa Clara drew an invitation with 21 wins last year.

Individual honors.

Fitzgerald never gives out an MVP trophy. It seems inappropriate to single out one player after preaching teamwork all season, he explained.

But the WCC does, and junior center Paul Rogers may be on the threshold of collecting it.

The favorite for the honor most of the season was certainly Santa Clara’s brilliant Steve Nash, who was league MVP last year and was tabbed by The Sporting News as the second-best point guard in the nation.

But the 7-foot Rogers has been so consistently powerful, averaging 18.3 points and 9.4 rebounds in conference games, that a GU title might lock it up for him.

Nash has been so visible nationally, and such a good representative of the conference, that coaches might find it politically difficult to vote for anyone else.

But his scoring is down more than four points a game, and while his assist-to-turnover ratio of 71/45 in conference games is solid, it’s not more impressive than the 78/40 ratio of GU’s Kyle Dixon.

Nash has been a targeted man, certainly, carrying the weight of high expectations. No one who saw it, though, could forget the way he torched the Bulldogs in Spokane last year, pumping in 35 points after halftime.

Validation.

Before the season, Fitzgerald saw his club racking up between 14 and 17 wins and maybe taking fourth or fifth in the conference.

That seems pessimistic now, but also remember that this is a cup-is-half-empty guy who repeatedly fights off nightmares that his team plays a full game without scoring a single point.

“I never predict how many (wins),” associate head coach Dan Monson said. “Because I’m the staff optimist and I’d probably say 27.”

Not quite.

But with 101 wins in the last five seasons, the Bulldogs have proved that this GU Golden Age is no fluke. It is a system that works.

“You don’t overachieve; I think that’s a contradiction in terms,” Fitzgerald said. “What happens is that sometimes you just achieve higher than you thought you would. What we’ve got with this group is a lot of guys who don’t know where their ceiling is. And that is very admirable.”

Closure.

Gonzaga has five seniors playing their final game in the Martin Centre.

For the bulk of them, their next basketball uniform will bear the logo of their local pub.

“This will be a great game, but not so much for guys like Nash and Rogers, they’re going to be playing a lot more basketball,” Fitzgerald said. “But for (others), this is just about it, and for them to be in the position to play in a game like this is really exciting. Really rewarding.”

And that should make it worth the price of admission.

Even if it’s not for all the marbles.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo