Gonzaga opens 18-game West Coast Conference schedule on road, closes with tough four-game stretch

In order to accommodate two new members as part of a revised 18-game scheduling format, the West Coast Conference had to rearrange some things and do away with others.

The biggest takeaway Gonzaga fans may have had when pulling up the 2024-25 regular-season WCC schedule that was released Tuesday morning?

The Bulldogs won’t close with a regular-season finale against defending league champion and longtime rival Saint Mary’s – something that’s become a staple of GU’s schedule for much of the last decade.

Aside from that, Gonzaga’s four games against two new conference foes – Washington State and Oregon State, who are joining the WCC for the next two years as affiliate members – may have been the biggest highlight of the 18-game slate released on Tuesday, as well as a strenuous four-game stretch the Bulldogs will navigate toward the end of the season.

Gonzaga’s conference opener at Pepperdine on Dec. 30 may be more riveting than usual, as transfer wing Michael Ajayi makes a return to his former school after averaging a WCC-high 17.2 points as well as 9.9 rebounds for the Waves last season.

The WCC may have accommodated GU’s final nonconference game when placing the Bulldogs in Malibu to open the conference season. Two days before the Pepperdine game, Gonzaga had already set up a neutral-site nonleague clash with UCLA at the brand new Intuit Dome in Los Angeles.

Gonzaga returns to Spokane for a home opener against Portland on Jan. 2 before returning to Southern California two days later to play Loyola Marymount on Jan. 4.

The Bulldogs have only two multiple-game home swings on the 2024-25 WCC schedule, the first of those taking place on Jan. 8 when they host San Diego, followed by a Jan. 11 game against Washington State. That’ll mark the first meeting between the Zags and Cougars since the schools discontinued their nonconference series in 2015.

Gonzaga will be back on the road, briefly, for a Jan. 16 game against Oregon State. The Bulldogs are 0-11 all-time against the Beavers, but haven’t played OSU since 1991 and could enter the mid-January meeting as a significant favorite.

To close out the month of January, Gonzaga will host two opponents at the McCarthey Athletic Center – Santa Clara (Jan. 18) and Oregon State (Jan. 28) – and take another road trip to the state of Oregon, this time to face Portland on Jan. 25.

February will open with the always-anticipated road game against Saint Mary’s, which edged Gonzaga twice last season to win the WCC regular season and tournament titles. The first meeting between the teams will take place on Feb. 1 in Moraga.

The Zags will play three of their next four games at home – Feb. 6 against Loyola Marymount, Feb. 13 against San Francisco and Feb. 15 against Pepperdine – while squeezing a single road game on Feb. 8 against Pacific. 

Gonzaga’s closing four-game stretch could be as difficult as any the school’s faced in recent memory. It features three road games and four games against schools that should round out the top five, in some order, of the preseason WCC poll.

The Bulldogs open the swing on Feb. 19 against WSU, which lost all but one of its rotation players from last year’s NCAA Tournament, and enters the season with a first-year coach, David Riley of Eastern Washington.

Saint Mary’s, which handed Gonzaga its lone home WCC defeat last season in a game that culminated with controversy surrounding a few late officiating calls, makes its return trip to Spokane on Feb. 22. 

Gonzaga will close out the regular season in the Bay Area, facing Santa Clara on Feb. 27 and San Francisco on March 1. The Broncos pulled off an upset of the Bulldogs when the two met at the Leavey Center last year and the Dons bring back most of their key pieces from last year’s team that played in the postseason NIT.

The WCC Tournament will be held at the Orleans Arena in Las Vegas for the 17th consecutive, taking place March 6-11.

Tipoff times and television information for regular-season WCC games will be announced at a later date.