LAS VEGAS (AP) — Gonzaga has dominated the West Coast Conference since coach Mark Few took over at the turn of the century.
The Bulldogs are leaving for the Pac-12 Conference next season and made sure to go out winners.
Mario Saint-Supéry scored 21 points, Tyon Grant-Foster had 20 and No. 12 Gonzaga defeated Santa Clara 79-68 on Tuesday night to win the WCC Tournament.
“It’s a special feeling to go out the right way,” said Gonzaga’s Graham Ike, voted the tournament Most Outstanding Player. “Ultimately, we ended where we started this. It started out with championships and those teams that came before us. We just wanted to continue the success that they had. We were proud we could do that.”
The Bulldogs (30-3) received the conference’s automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament, though the only mystery was what seed they will get. This was their sixth WCC tournament title in seven years and 12th in the last 14.
Santa Clara (26-8) will wait until Sunday to see if it is in the 68-team field, but the WCC appears to be a three-bid league. Gonzaga, Santa Clara and No. 21 Saint Mary’s were in the top 38 of the NCAA’s NET rankings entering this game and in the top 35 in Kenpom.
Four players scored in double figures for the Zags, who made 52.8% of their shots. Ike made all seven of his shots in scoring 15 points.
Christian Hammond led the Broncos with 24 points, and Allen Graves scored 11.
Sash Gavalyugov, who scored 23 points that included the dagger 3-pointer in the closing seconds to beat Saint Mary’s 76-71 in the semifinals, was held to eight. He was 3 of 13, including 2 of 9 from 3-point range.
“Sash had some tough shots tonight,” Santa Clara coach Herb Sendek said. “He does have the ability to make some of those shots, but I don’t know that things were engineered to simply take him out.”
The Broncos made Gonzaga earn this victory. They led 52-50 nearly midway through the second half before the Bulldogs scored seven straight points to go ahead for good.
After dominating the WCC, Gonzaga will see if it can continue to assert itself against San Diego State, Boise State and Utah State in the revamped Pac-12 beginning next season.
That will come later. Gonzaga has yet another NCAA Tournament appearance to place its focus.
“After like 2015, we really focused on NCAA Tournament wins and Final Fours and things like that,” Few said. “The national championship’s going to be the standard that we’re aiming for. But we’ve always talked about taking care of business along the way so that you can get to the prize at the end, which is the NCAA Tournament. These guys have done a good job of keeping their eyes on the prize.”
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