Facebook
Fark
Digg
Reddit
StumbleWCC TOURNEY:
Tourney win puts Gonzaga in familiar territory
Bulldogs rout Saint Mary’s in Las Vegas to cap undefeated season in league
Gonzaga University volunteer assistant and former player Alex Hernandez dances inside a circle of players after their win over Saint Mary’s College during the WCC Men’s Basketball Finals at the Orleans Arena in Las Vegas on Monday. Gonzaga took the championship with a score of 83-58.
Monday, March 9, 2009 | 10:55 p.m.
Sun archives
Gonzaga earned its 11th consecutive NCAA appearance Monday night with an 83-58 win over Saint Mary’s in the West Coast Conference championships at the Orleans Arena.
It was the first year in WCC history the conference tournament was played on a neutral site. Las Vegas drew a tournament record 28,131 in overall attendance.
“It was terrific, it’s probably the best thing the league has done in my 20-plus years here,” said Gonzaga coach Mark Few. “It’s big time, presents the league well and obviously the fans are going to come. And beyond all that, it’s fair, which is the greatest thing.”
The blowout featured every aspect that helped the Bulldogs to a perfect 16-0 conference record this season. Leading scorer Josh Heytvelt was one of six different players who scored in double figures, finishing with 17 points. The team shot 54.8 percent from the floor, while limiting the Gaels to just 28.8 percent. By four minutes in, it had taken a nine-point lead and never trailed once the entire contest.
It’s been games like this that have many picking Gonzaga to make a deep run in the NCAA tournament, including the coach.
“It was a great performance and I can’t see many teams playing better down the stretch,” Few said. “We played great this weekend and if we play like that in the NCAA tournament we’re going to go a really long, long ways. I don’t know if we will, I hope we will. We just got to keep it rolling.”
Although Gonzaga only needed to win two games to win the championship as the conference’s top seed, the weekend couldn’t have been better for the Bulldogs. After routing Santa Clara in the semifinals, they moved up two spots in the national polls to No. 12. Gonzaga has won eight of the last 12 WCC tournament championships.
“I think we’re peaking at the right time,” said junior Matt Bouldin. “We’ve been working on the areas where we needed to improve and we’re making strong steps to get better. I thought our momentum was great coming into this weekend.”
On the other side, the chance of Saint Mary’s earning an NCAA bid took a step back following the lackluster performance. The team’s leading scorer, Patrick Mills, returned to practice just a week ago after a nine-game absence due to a broken right hand suffered on Jan. 29.
After a 12-point night in a semifinal win over Portland, Mills struggled in the WCC final, finishing with five points on 2-of-16 shooting from the floor. Diamon Simpson led the Gaels with 19 points and nine rebounds. Omar Samhan added 17 and nine rebounds.
The fate of Saint Mary’s now lies in the hands of the NCAA selection committee, which will award the final tournament bids on Sunday. If the Gaels are selected, it would be the first time in school history they would make back-to-back appearances.
“We’ll say some prayers on Saturday night,” Samhan said. “I’d love to be in the tournament again but we wouldn’t have to worry about it at all if we had taken care of business tonight.”
Discussion: comments so far…
Comments are moderated by Las Vegas Sun editors. Our goal is not to limit the discussion, but rather to elevate it. Comments should be relevant and contain no abusive language. Comments that are off-topic, vulgar, profane or include personal attacks will be removed. Full comments policy. Additionally, we now display comments from trusted commenters by default. Those wishing to become a trusted commenter need to verify their identity or sign in with Facebook Connect to tie their Facebook account to their Las Vegas Sun account. For more on this change, read our story about how it works and why we did it.
Only trusted comments are displayed on this page. Untrusted comments have expired from this story.
No trusted comments have been posted.
Post a comment
Most Popular
- Viewed
- Discussed
- E-mailed
- Photos: Scott Disick celebrates his 29th birthday at 1 OAK in the Mirage
- HOA scandal cuts wide swath across Las Vegas Valley
- Man suffers bullet wound when stopping burglary attempt
- Photos: Surrender’s 2nd anniversary with Skrillex, ‘Le Reve,’ Paris and Floyd
- Nearly 40,000 have voted early in Clark County
Everything Under the Sun
Blogs
The Kats Report
With Shenandoah project stalled, Wayne Newton hits back legally (7 Comments)
Las Vegas Philharmonic says search for new music director to begin 'immediately' (1 Comment)
Where does a Playmate play when she turns 21? Vegas! (3 Comments)
Ice Ice Billy
The road to six-toed cats and Mayor Bubba
The Kats Report
David Itkin tells L.V. Philharmonic officials he's on his way out (14 Comments)
Diamond Dave sells it well as Van Halen pours out the power at MGM Grand (2 Comments)
Entering debut at Tryst, Nick Hissom is a model for a rapid rise to prominence (3 Comments)
- Locally owned and independent since 1950; Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, best news website in the nation & DuPont Award for broadcast journalism
Nice win, Gonzaga. I wish you guys were in the Mtn West. Of course, you'd have 4 or 5 losses this year in our league.
Hey Lenny,
You are right that it is a good thing that they are not in the Mt West. The Zags would clean house.
WCC --See you next year!
Gonzaga is 0-1 against the Mtn West this year, goofball. BYU, UNLV and UNM would beat them too. Gonzaga are the Duke of the mid-majors... OVER-RATED. Beating on the likes of Santa Clara and Pepperdine doesn't make you a powerhouse.