Gonzaga women await West Coast Conference Tournament semifinal; opponent to be determined Saturday
The Gonzaga women won’t know until Saturday afternoon who they’ll face in the semifinals of the West Coast Conference tournament.
However, the brackets released by the WCC give the Bulldogs a chance to focus on the likely candidates in a matchup that will go far in deciding their postseason fate.
GU gets a bye into the semifinals after going 15-2 in WCC regular-season games and finishing second in the standings behind BYU. The Zags will play at 2 p.m. Monday at the Orleans Arena in Las Vegas.
Their most likely opponent is third-seeded San Francisco, which played the Zags to the limit in both games this year.
Gonzaga took the first meeting, 55-49 in Spokane on Feb. 7. Two weeks later in the Bay Area, the Zags rallied from six points down with less than a minute to play to win 83-82 on a buzzer-beating layup by Melody Kempton.
USF (10-8) is seeded into the Saturday’s quarterfinals, where the Dons could face Pacific, Pepperdine or San Diego. GU went 6-0 against those teams this year, with all wins coming by double digits.
The stakes figure to be high.
Most experts consider Gonzaga (24-6 overall) a bubble team for the NCAA Tournament, and a loss in the WCC semifinals would damage its chances.
In Monday’s edition of ESPN’s twice-weekly bracket prediction, Charlie Crème has the Zags as an 11 seed and playing in a First Four game against Missouri.
Three days earlier, Crème also predicted an 11 seed for GU, but had them going directly to the field of 64.
College Sports Madness also has the Zags as an 11 seed, facing Oregon in a foursome hosted by LSU. ReapTimeRPI.com predicts a 6 seed for the Zags.
Gonzaga is No. 28 in the most highly regarded metric, the NCAA’s NET rankings, despite a strength of schedule is ranked 46th.
Meanwhile, Washington State (19-9) is No. 58 in the NET but is considered a lock for the NCAAs because of a schedule strength that currently ranks 15th.
The Cougars, who finished third in the Pac-12 regular season, are predicted as an 11 seed by ESPN, ninth by College Sports Madness and sixth by RealTimeRPI.com.
Because the COVID-19 pandemic forced several cancellations during the season, the WCC collaborated with Ken Pomeroy for the second straight year by using the basketball statistician’s adjusted winning percentage model rather than relying on factors such as win/loss record and head-to-head to seed the league tournament.
The WCC will announce its all-conference team and other honorees on Tuesday.