Snake Bitten Zags?

The West Coast Conference tournament has not been kind to the Gonzaga University women’s basketball team in recent years.

OK, it’s been downright cruel.

But Bulldogs coach Kelly Graves doesn’t want to discuss any kind of curse or bad karma that might have been hanging over the last four GU teams he has brought to the WCC’s premier postseason event, which is playing out at the University of Portland’s Chiles Center.

“I don’t look at it as a jinx, or anything,” said Graves, who is in his seventh season as Zags head coach. “I don’t feel like Marty Schottenheimer – too much.”

Still, the fact remains that Graves’ Bulldogs have come into the last four tournaments armed with either a No. 1 or No. 2 seed, only to suffer some kind of disappointing and, in some cases, downright weird loss.

In 2003, for example, second-seeded GU was tied with third-seeded Santa Clara late in regulation of a classic semifinal when Anne Bailey launched a shot from the right corner, just as the power in San Diego’s Jenny Craig Pavilion went out. To this day, no one can be certain whether Bailey’s potential game-winning shot went in. But it wasn’t counted, and Santa Clara went on to beat the Bulldogs 60-59 in overtime.

The next year, the Zags, seeded No. 2, lost a 61-58 heartbreaker to top-seeded Loyola Marymount in the title game.

In 2005, after finishing its WCC regular-season schedule a perfect 14-0 to claim the top seed to the tournament, GU lost senior guard and WCC player of the year Shannon Mathews to an injury during a semifinal win over Loyola Marymount, only to fall to third-seeded Santa Clara in the championship game the following day.

Last year, despite being the host team and earning the No. 2 seed after trying top-seeded Santa Clara for the regular-season title, the Bulldogs were humbled by seventh-seeded San Francisco 75-67 in the tournament’s opening round.

Jinxed?

Graves doesn’t think so, and he can point to logical reasons behind each hard-to-take loss.

In looking back to the Zags’ lights-out loss to SCU in 2003, for instance, he refused to speculate about Bailey’s phantom shot, noting that it was a game still considered by many to be “one of the best ever played in the conference,” and pointing out that the Broncos needed a buzzer-beating heave from just inside the half-court line to seal the win.

The following year, Graves recalls, his team has a chance to tie LMU with a late 3-pointer, but couldn’t get the shot to fall.

The injury to Mathews in 2005 was devastating, to be sure.

“But injuries happen,” Graves reasoned.

Last year’s first-round loss to USF – in Graves’ mind, at least – wasn’t nearly as big an upset as it seemed.

“The way I look at last year,” he explained, “is that we were 11-3 and tied for the (regular-season) championship, but we weren’t very good. We were the lowest-scoring team in the team in the conference, so our margin for error wasn’t very great.

“I thought we did a great job just to go 11-3 and put ourselves in that position.”

Stephanie Hawk, the Bulldogs’ 6-foot-3 senior forward, who was recently named the WCC’s co-player of the year, has been a part of the last three GU teams that have come up short in the conference tournament.

“It’s been difficult, not being able to win this thing,” admitted Hawk, who finished with 15 points and a team-high nine rebounds as the top-seeded and regular-season champion Zags dumped host and eighth-seeded Portland 68-55 in Thursday’s first round. “But each year there seems to be a lot of talent on every team in our league, so it doesn’t surprise me that there have been a few upsets and tough losses.

“Sooner or later, though, it’s going to click for us, and we’re going to finish the deal.”

Hawk considers the title-game loss to Santa Clara following the injury to Mathews in 2005 and last year’s opening-round slip-up against USF as the two biggest disappointments of her career.

“Shannon’s year kind of hurt more than anything,” Hawk said. “I think if she would have been healthy, we would have been able to finish the deal. But the injury was so sudden, we didn’t have time to practice and figure out to play without her.

“And last year was a real letdown, too, after tying for first in the conference and then letting San Francisco come into our house and, basically, run all over us.”

So what might happen to ruin the Bulldogs title hopes this year?

“We can’t worry about it,” Graves said. “We don’t dwell on the past, because it’s different with every opponent and every situation. We’ve always taken a one-game-at-a-time approach and have never really thought about a long-term approach.

“But I’ve got to think that if we keep putting ourselves in this position, good things will happen at some point.”