Gonzaga’s men, women enter WCC tournament as top seeds

The West Coast Conference basketball tournaments tip off Thursday at the Orleans Arena in Las Vegas.

However, the Gonzaga men and women, as top seeds, won’t be playing until Monday.

The tournament will begin with a women’s first-round matchup between Santa Clara and San Francisco at noon. The tournament concludes Tuesday, March 10 with the men’s championship game.

Continuing the new format of the championship that began last season, seeds 7 through 10 will play Thursday. Seeds 5 through 6 enter the fray on Friday, with seeds 3 and 4 joining play for quarterfinals games on Saturday.

There will be no games on Sunday. The tournament resumes with men’s and women’s semifinals on Monday. The two champions will be crowned on Tuesday, March 10.

Gonzaga finished as the WCC men’s regular-season champion with a 15-1 record, followed by Brigham Young at 13-3. Saint Mary’s and Pacific followed with identical 11-5 records with the Gaels claiming the No. 3-seed by virtue of a tiebreaker.

On the women’s side, Gonzaga (17-1) claimed its 14th regular-season championship over the past 15 seasons with a 17-1 mark. San Diego and Brigham Young had identical 13-5 records, with the Toreros claiming the two-seed by virtue of a tiebreaker.

On Monday, Gonzaga’s semifinal game will air at 6 p.m. on ESPN, with the other semifinal immediately to follow on ESPN2.

On Tuesday, the women’s championship game will be shown at 1 p.m. on ESPNU. At 6 p.m., the men’s championship game will air live on ESPN.