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Gonzaga Basketball

Gonzaga holds steady at No. 2 while Saint Mary’s cracks AP poll at No. 22 to set up ranked WCC matchup

The Gonzaga Bulldogs celebrate after defeating the Brigham Young Cougars 90-57 during the second half of a college basketball game on Saturday, Feb 5, 2022, at the Marriott Center in Provo, Utaho. (Tyler Tjomsland / The Spokesman-Review)
By Theo Lawson theol@spokesman.com(509) 459-5584

Any matchup between Gonzaga and Saint Mary’s is guaranteed to come with a fair amount of intrigue, but the newest AP Top 25 rankings have added another layer of excitement to Saturday’s game between the Bulldogs and Gaels.

Saint Mary’s cracked the AP poll for the first time this season, sliding in at No. 22 after the Gaels won their their seventh consecutive game in West Coast Conference play. Regardless of how Saint Mary’s fares Tuesday against Santa Clara or Thursday against San Diego, Saturday’s game in Spokane will pit the 22nd-ranked Gaels (19-4, 7-1) against the second-ranked Bulldogs (19-2, 8-0) in what will be the WCC’s first ranked matchup this season.

Gonzaga dispatched two WCC opponents by a combined margin of 63 points last week, but the results weren’t enough to move the Bulldogs ahead of Auburn in the latest edition of the Associated Press Top 25 poll.

Though Gonzaga will reside at No. 2 for the third consecutive week, the Bulldogs are beginning to gain some ground on No. 1 Auburn, which pocketed a 100-81 win over Alabama before narrowly winning, 74-72, against a Georgia team that ranks No. 199 in KenPom.

The Bulldogs were garnering 1,475 points in last week’s AP poll with 12 first-place votes. Gonzaga’s road WCC wins – 92-62 at San Diego on Thursday and 90-57 at BYU on Saturday – and/or Auburn’s struggles at Georgia prompted at least one voter to rethink the No. 1 ranking. The Bulldogs received 1,477 points in this week’s poll and 13 first-place votes.

The Arizona team led by former Gonzaga assistant Tommy Lloyd returned to the top-five for the second time this season, moving up three spots from No. 7 to No. 4 after recording a pair of impressive wins, against No. 3 UCLA and No. 19 USC.

The complete top-10 is as follows: No. 1 Auburn, No. 2 Gonzaga, No. 3 Purdue, No. 4 Arizona, No. 5 Kentucky, No. 6 Houston, No. 7 Duke, No. 8 Kansas, No. 9 Texas Tech and No. 10 Baylor.

The Bruins were the only team to drop outside the top-10 after losing to both Arizona schools. A 10-point loss to Lloyd’s Wildcats wasn’t too damaging, but UCLA suffered an 87-84 triple-overtime loss to unranked Arizona State two days later, moving the Bruins outside the top-10 for the first time this season.

While a panel of media voters still give Auburn the nod at No. 1, the AP poll contradicts the order of other ranking systems – most of which have the Zags in the top position and Auburn outside of the top five.

Gonzaga moved into sole possession of No. 1 in the USA Today Coaches’ Poll after sharing the top spot with Auburn last week. The Bulldogs are collecting 786 points with 18 first-place votes while the Tigers collected 782 points and 14 first-place votes.

In both KenPom and the NCAA’s NET rankings, Gonzaga sits at No. 1 with the Tigers at No. 7. According to the college basketball website run by statistician Evan Miyakawa, Gonzaga is the country’s top team while Auburn is 11 spots lower at No. 12. Another site, BartTorvik.com, has GU at No. 1 and Auburn at No. 8.

Joe Lunardi’s latest bracketology reveal still projects Auburn as the No. 1 overall seed with Gonzaga as the second overall seed. The other top two seeds are Purdue and Arizona.