SoCalHoops College News

A Look At The West Coast Conference
Men's Tournament Bracket--(Mar. 2, 2003)

It's March, and in anticipation of the madness to come this week and the next two, we just received a copy of the men's tournament bracket for the WCC, the West Coast Conference Tournament, which will be played at the Jenny Craig Pavilion on the campus of the University of San Diego, and we have to say that this is one of the most interesting brackets we've seen. Maybe the WCC tournament has always looked like this, but we just took a really close look, and one glance will tell you all you need to know about the importance of seeding, as San Diego and Gonzaga have the straightest shot of nearly any other conference tournament favorites.

The tournament will be held March 6-10. The winner of the championship will earn the league's automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. The tie between LMU and Portland will be broken by the RPI rankings released on Sunday March 2. The better RPI will receive the #6 seed and the other team will receive the #7 seed. Of course, since Portland and LMU will face each other in the first round regardless of seeding, it really doesn't matter, does it?

Here's what the bracket looks like:

San Diego and Gonzaga have, as one would expect, the easiest road to the finals, and they only need to win two games to earn a trip to the NCAA Tournament.  For now, the only game that will be televised is the semifinal featuring Gonzaga, which will be on ESPN at 9:00 p.m.

Obviously, the teams with the longest odds are LMU, Portland, St. Mary's and Santa Clara, all of which will not only have to win four games in a row, but will also have to knock off higher seeded teams in order to accomplish the feat, and while miracles can happen, we think it's pretty unlikely given the conference records of each of these teams. 

Here's a look at the conference, team by team:

No. 1 Gonzaga:  (21-7, 11-2).  Gonzaga finished first in the conference, one game ahead of San Diego at 10-3.  The Bulldogs beat up on Santa Clara yesterday, 71-66, and have been led by Blake Stepp, Ronny Turiaf and Zach Gourde who started yesterday for Cory Violette.  Mark Few has been a consistent winner at Gonzaga, and they look to have the edge in this tournament too.

Gonzaga will play either Saint Mary's (which they beat twice, 56-53 at Moraga, and 73-49 in Spokane),  Santa Clara (Gonzaga beat the Broncos twice, 96-62 at home, and 71-66 on the road) or Pepperdine, which  lost both games, 92-72 in Spokane, and 78-63 in Malibu.  Clearly, while Gonzaga hasn't been blowing out it's last four opponents, they're coming into the tournament on a high note.

No. 2 San Diego:  The Toreros lost yesterday to Gonzaga, in a tough game which saw neither team shoot the ball very well, but which played to a standing-room only crowd.  San Diego, which finishes the season at 16-11 and 10-4, missed out on a chance for a tie for a share of the conference lead with the loss, and with the No. 2 seed, the consensus is that USD will have to play the combination of slightly tougher teams in its half of the bracket in order to earn the rematch with Gonzaga.  USD has been led lately by Jason Keep and Jason Blair, Matt Delzell, Corey Belser and Nick Lewis.

USD will get to play the winner of the games between LMU and Portland  and the winner of that game and USF, and given the way the teams have been playing lately, we're guessing that USF and USD will match up as planned with the seeding. The last meeting between USD and San Francisco resulted in a USD win, 81-63, and the Toreros outscored the Dons 50-33 in the second half of that game...Ouch.  

No. 3 University of San Franciso:  USF (14-13, 9-5) pushed their record over .500 for the first time this season, after starting the season miserably at 1-6, USF has won 13 of their last 20, including seven of its last nine. After a 2-3 conference start, playing without Rico Tucker, they've managed to finish 9-5 and it looks like Phil Matthews' job is secure again, particularly after yesterday's win against Pepperdine in Malibu, giving USF its best league finish since 1985 (which was just a few years after USF revived a program it suspended in the 1970's).  USF swept both Pepperdine and LMU this season for the first time since 1977, and Tucker has been mentioned as a possible first round NBA draft pick in June, which tells you just how dangerous this team really is.   The Dons are led by Jon Cox, Darrell Tucker and Jovan Harris, a transfer from St. Mary's across the bay.   In fact, yesterday's game was really a showdown for the No. 3 seed in the tournament, and had Pepperdine won, they would have gotten the higher seed.  Since Tucker has  returned to the lineup, USF has lost only twice.  USF ended WCC play by winning five of seven road games after failing to win on the road in preconference. This is a tough team and they could wind up being the upset team against San Diego after they face either LMU or Portland.

No. 4 Pepperdine: The Waves (15-12, 7-7) have been the hard luck story of this conference all season.  Picked to win in the preseason, if the Waves didn't have bad luck, they wouldnt' have luck at all...Hampered by injuries all season long,  they've suffered the early season loss of Will Kimble to a previously undiagnosed heart ailment which has ended his playing career after just one game this season; the loss of the point guard Devin Montgomery early in the year to injury;  the loss of Glen McGowan to a knee injury.  Of course they still have Jimmy Miggins, Terrance Johnson, Mike Westphal, Alex Acker, Robert Turner, David Patton, Boomer Brazzle and Derick Grubb, but this is a team that has searched for consistency and struggled for conference wins.  Johnson and Miggins are the shooting leaders,   but this is not the season that anyone, least of all coach Paul Westphal had planned for his talented group of returning seniors,  led by Montgomery, a lightning fast point guard with a deft scoring touch.  The Waves last season finished second in the conference tournament and went to the NCAA tournament where they met Wake Forest, and even after a first round exit, this was to be the year of the Waves....We'll see how they do against either Saint Mary's or Santa Clara.  In the two previous meetings this year with each team, Pepperdine they've split with Santa Clara (losing 73-61 at Santa Clara, and winning 73-69 at Malibu), and against Saint Mary's, the Waves also split, losing in Moraga 74-67, and winning at home in Malibu 72-67.  All close games, all games that could have gone the other way.   In short, anything can happen.  

No. 5 Saint Mary's:  The Gaels of Moraga, coached by Randy Bennett finished 13-14 overall and 6-8 in conference play, one game back of Pepperdine, hence the No. 5 seed.  They managed to finish the conference season on a high note, with a win yesterday at LMU, a five-point game which St. Mary's in control of the No. 5 seed.   Led in scoring by Daniel Kickert, Chase Poole, Frederic Adjiwanou and Samuel Saint-Jean, the Gaels are kind of a dark-horse and will need to pull off the upset win against Pepperdine if they can get past Santa Clara which also finished yesterday on a low note in a loss against Portland.    Against Santa Clara, their first round opponent, St. Mary's has lost both meetings this season, losing at home recently by one point, 57-56, and earlier this season at Santa Clara 66-63.  Again, given the relative parity between the teams, just about anything could happen, and it probably will.

No. 6/7 LMU:

The Lions this year have been another of those teams in the WCC which have perplexed many and frustrated not only their fans, but also themselves at times.  The team finished in 6th place with the loss yesterday to St. Mary's, and gets to play Portland in the first round, a team that  the Lions have split with this season, each team winning the home contest.   The Lions finish the regular season with a record of 10-19 overall and 4-10 in the league.  But as head coach Steve Aggers said following yesterday's loss: "We played hard and competed. Everyone will go into the WCC Tournament with a record of 0-0. It is a new season and we will get our heads back up and get ready for the tournament."   LMU has been led recently by Charles Brown, Brandon Worthy, Sherman Gay and a host of talented guys, like Keith Kincaide, Wes Wardrop, Chris Ayer, Kent Dennis,  and Andy Osborn.    Whether they can put it together for a four-game run through the tournament is the big question, one which they'll have to answer one game at a time, starting Friday, March 7 against Michael Holton's Portland team.

No. 6/7 Portland: Michael Holton's Portland Pilots haven't exactly set the WCC on fire this year with a conference record of 4-10, but they've managed to win some games, beating LMU at home, Santa Clara twice, and getting the upset of the season by knocking off Gonzaga two weeks ago at Gonzaga 72-68.  Clearly this is a team that knows how to play, but they've lost too many games to be considered a good shot to win the conference tournament this year, and while they are capable of taking a game or two if they focus and play hard, the chances of putting together four back-to-back wins is remote:  The last win streak for the Pilots was back in December, consisting of a three game win streak against Portland State, Northern Arizona and Long Beach State, teams that are much weaker than any they could face here.    The Pilots have been led for most of the season by Gardena Serra grad and freshman point guard Eugene Jeter who scored a career high 24 yesterday against Santa Clara, and by LA Wilson grad and freshman Donald Wilson, who scored 13 yesterday and a career-high nine rebounds against the Broncos.  Adam Quick and Casey Frandsen have also helped in scoring for the Pilots.  Karl Aaker and Patrick Galos are the other mainstays of the offense for the Pilots.  Having split with LMU during the conference this year, this is a pick'em game.

No. 8 Santa Clara:  Santa Clara has an identical conference record to Portland, 4-10, but got the 8th and final seed by virtue of having lost to teh Pilots both times the two teams met.   Coach Dick Davey's team has also been plagued by injuries throughout the season, having lost both Kyle Bailey and Scott Borchart early this season; point guard Bakari Altheimer has been playing well lately, but missed several games early in the year due to an injury.  The Broncos have been led lately by Cord Anderson,  Brad Anderson, Jim Howell, and they've also gotten significant contributions from freshmen Travis Neisen and Brandon Rohe as well as Linden Tibbets.  This does not look to be the year for the Broncos, but they have a good stable of talent returning for next year. 

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