WCC announces tournament bracket using Ken Pomeroy seeding model for second consecutive year

Gonzaga won’t know of its first opponent in the West Coast Conference Tournament until Saturday evening, but the top-seeded Bulldogs can start to narrow down the list of schools they’ll have to prepare for ahead of next week’s event in Las Vegas.

With COVID-19 creating uneven schedules across the WCC, the conference 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.

Gonzaga was one of three teams in the conference to play only 14 regular-season WCC games, while four other teams played 15 games and three teams played a full 16-game league schedule. The Bulldogs had three games postponed or canceled due to COVID-19 and wound up playing an even number of home and road games, going 8-0 at McCarthey Athletic Center and 5-1 outside of Spokane.

“With an unequal number of games, the WCC partnered with Ken Pomeroy to develop a model that uses a proprietary algorithm that best reflects conference games completed and yields a conference adjusted winning percentage for each men’s and women’s basketball team,” the WCC said in a release. “The conference adjusted winning percentage accounts for the strength of the opponent and the location (home/away) of the game played. The offensive and defensive efficiency metric is not utilized in the algorithm to determine a team’s conference adjusted winning percentage.”

The Bulldogs clinched the WCC’s regular-season championship on Feb. 19 by beating Santa Clara on Senior Night and enter the conference tournament as the top seed with a 13-1 record and adjusted winning percentage of .921. Saint Mary’s, which ended Gonzaga’s 17-game winning streak on Saturday with a 67-57 win in Moraga, enters the tournament as the No. 2 seed with a 12-3 record and AWP of .816.

The Zags and Gaels both earn byes into the WCC semifinal games held on March 7 at Orleans Arena. The first semifinal, involving Gonzaga, will tip off at 6:30 p.m. and air on ESPN while the second, featuring Saint Mary’s, will tip at 8:30 p.m. and air on ESPN2.

Gonzaga’s side of the bracket also features No. 8 Loyola Marymount and No. 9 Pacific, who open tournament play with a 6 p.m game on Thursday. The Lions (.222) and Tigers (.183) were the only WCC teams impacted by Pomeroy’s model, with 3-12 LMU gaining a higher seed despite holding one more loss than 3-11 Pacific.

The winner of LMU-Pacific would play No. 5 BYU (.595) on Friday at 6 p.m. with the winner of that game moving on to play No. 4 San Francisco in Saturday’s nationally-televised quarterfinal game (7:30 p.m., ESPN2).

In the regular season, Gonzaga went 6-0 against the teams on its side of the bracket, winning those games by an average margin of 27 points.

On the opposite side of the bracket, No. 10 Pepperdine (.095) plays No. 7 San Diego (.411) on Thursday at 8 p.m. Either the Waves or Toreros will then advance to play No. 6 Portland (.429) at 8 p.m. on Friday – the winner of that contest advancing to play No. 3 Santa Clara (.673) in Saturday’s quarterfinal.

Gonzaga has won eight of the last nine WCC tournament championships dating back to 2013 and the Bulldogs have won 19 titles since 1995. The Zags beat BYU in last year’s championship game played in an empty Orleans Arena. No restrictions regarding fan attendance are expected at this year’s tournament.

WCC Tournament schedule First round - Thursday Game 1: No. 8 Pacific vs. No. 9 LMU, noon. Game 2: No. 7 San Diego vs. No. 10 Pepperdine, 6 p.m. Second round - Friday Game 3: No. 5 BYU vs. Game 1 winner, 6 p.m. Game 4: No. 6 Portland vs. Game 2 winner, 8 p.m. Quarterfinals - Saturday Game 5: No. 4 San Francisco vs. Game 3 winner, 7:30 p.m. (ESPN2). Game 6: No. 3 Santa Clara vs. Game 4 winner, 9:30 p.m. (ESPN2). Semifinals - March 7 Game 7: No. 1 Gonzaga vs. Game 5 winner, 6 p.m. (ESPN). Game 8: No. 2 Saint Mary’s vs. Game 6 winner, 8:30 p.m. (ESPN2). Championship - March 8 Game 7 winner vs. Game 8 winner, 6 p.m. (ESPN).