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Gonzaga Women's Basketball

Gonzaga women’s basketball team aims for outright West Coast Conference title

Gonzaga forward Kiara Kudron, center, battles Sydney Raggio of Saint Mary’s for a rebound during a Feb. 11 game at the McCarthey Athletic Center. (Dan Pelle / The Spokesman-Review)

Please excuse the Gonzaga women for being greedy.

With two games left in the regular season, the Bulldogs are assured of a share of the West Coast Conference title. That’s not good enough.

“To win it outright, it’s really important,” coach Lisa Fortier said after Tuesday’s practice at the Kennel.

Forward Kiara Kudron was more direct.

“Nobody wants to share this,” said Kudron, who has even more motivation to beat San Diego on Thursday night: It’s also Senior Night and could be the last home game for Kudron and fellow seniors Elle Tinkle and Makenlee Williams.

More than that, GU (22-5 overall, 13-3 WCC) needs to close out the regular season with some momentum heading into next week’s conference tournament in Las Vegas.

GU sits squarely on the bubble for an at-large spot in the NCAA tournament, should it falter in Las Vegas. This week’s ESPN.com prediction has the Zags as a 12 seed, playing Texas A&M in a first-round game in Los Angeles. That’s down one spot from last week, when the same site had GU as an 11 seed and playing in Seattle.

GU also is assured the top seed in the WCC tournament. The Bulldogs have a two-game lead over both BYU and Saint Mary’s. Gonzaga would hold all seeding tiebreakers should it fall into a two-way tie with either rival or in a three-way tie with all three teams at 13-5.

Should BYU and Saint Mary’s finish with identical 12-6 records, tiebreakers would determine which teams holds the Nos. 2 and 3 seeds. Since the teams split their season series, the tiebreaker would go down to performance against the other seeded teams in order.