WCC Tournament pick: Gonzaga vs Saint Mary's prediction, odds
It was always inevitable that Gonzaga and Saint Mary’s would meet in the West Coast Conference Tournament final.
The two Pacific-based behemoths cruised through their respective semi-final matchups, with the Gaels dispatching Santa Clara by 14 and the Bulldogs scorching San Francisco by 12 in a game that was never really in doubt.
So, now comes the rubber match. Mary’s won the first meeting in Spokane by two in early February, but Gonzaga lit it up in the rematch, winning by 13 in Moraga.
The Zags are laying 3.5, and I think the Bulldogs are the better bet to clinch their auto-bid to the NCAA Tournament.
(9 p.m. ET, ESPN)
The Zags have been on a tear.
The Bulldogs haven’t lost since that game against Saint Mary’s, ripping off nine straight wins, including a game against Kentucky at Rupp Arena.
Specifically, the Zags have turned around the offense, scoring over 1.3 PPP during the stretch, with Ryan Nembhard finding his groove in ball screens while Graham Ike has soared as a post creator.
In the final regular-season head-to-head meeting between these two, Nembhard and Ike decisively won both battles against their counterparts, August Mahaney and Mitchell Saxen.
The Zags scored 50 points on 48 ball-screen and post-up sets, a 1.04 PPP mark impressive against the Gaels’ vaunted drop-coverage defense.
The main thing that stuck out in that matchup was the absence of Mary’s wing, Joshua Jefferson, among the team’s best on- and off-ball defenders.
He’s so important on that side of the ball, as evidenced by his on-off splits.
He was similarly crucial in Mary’s regular-season win over Gonzaga, earning KenPom Game MVP honors by scoring 16 points on 7-for-14 (1-for-3) shooting, four assists, and 11 rebounds.
He came through huge as a ball-screen initiator, scoring seven points on seven possessions.
So, predictably, the script flipped in the second meeting.
Mary’s couldn’t generate efficient offense or stops without their all-important two-way wing.
Unfortunately, with Jefferson sidelined for the year with a knee injury, I don’t see the Gaels overcoming his loss and figuring out how to compete with the red-hot Bulldogs.
Gonzaga -3.5 (-110, DraftKings)
