SAN BRUNO, Calif. – Zeryhia Aokuso and her Saint Mary’s teammates aren’t buying into the West Coast Conference preseason women’s basketball coaches poll. Neither are Emma Trawally Porta and the San Francisco women.
Conference play among the women is under way, and so far, the Gaels and Dons have flipped the coaches’ early projection on its head.
Saint Mary’s, picked eighth in the 11-team race, is 3-0 in league play for the first time in five seasons and tied for first place. USF, tabbed sixth, is right there at the top after starting 2-0 in WCC games for the first time since 2016-17.
No one is surprised by Portland, which was picked third in the WCC and has run its program-record, season-opening win streak to 14 games, including 3-0 in WCC play. Washington State, ranked second by the coaches, is 2-0 in conference play. But the Gaels and Dons are flirting with the unexpected.
Aokuso, the reigning WCC Freshman of the Year, sank a turn-around jump shot at the buzzer in overtime Saturday night, lifting the Gaels (7-5, 3-0) to an 80-78 win at Pacific. Saint Mary’s rallied from a 16-point deficit to win its third overtime game of the season.
Maia Jones scored 23 points and Emily Foy added 15, as the Gaels’ bench showed some muscle with 46 points, and leading scorer Kennedy Johnson put up 12 points. Aokuso, who missed the first four games this year and started slowly after offseason knee surgery, had her best game so far, totaling 16 points, five rebounds, three assists and three steals.
The Gaels escaped Pacific (5-8, 1-2) with a win despite a dazzling performance by Tigers’ senior Liz Smith, who made a 3-pointer at the buzzer in regulation to force the extra period and wound up scoring a career-high 30 points. Anaya James contributed 17 points and seven assists, becoming just the second Pacific player to post 500 career assists.
USF, meanwhile, leaped out to a 72-47 lead after three quarters at LMU and breezed to an 85-73 victory. Senior Debora dos Santos had 21 points for the Dons (5-6, 2-0) while Naudia Evans notched 25 points and seven assists for the Lions (6-5, 0-3).
Key to USF’s recent success has been Porta, a 6-foot-1 graduate student from Tiana, Spain, who came to the Hilltop this season from Detroit Mercy. Porta is averaging 16.0 points and 7.7 rebounds over the past six outings, and the Dons are undefeated since she joined the starting lineup three games ago.
That includes an 18-point, seven-rebound contribution to USF’s 73-58 win over WCC heavyweight Gonzaga the week before Christmas. The victory snapped the Dons’ 17-game losing streak to the Zags and ended Gonzaga’s 22-game win streak in regular-season conference play.
“It has a lot to do with my teammates,” Porta said of her recent success. “They push me in practice every day and they also encourage me to be confident and enjoy basketball.”
USF point guard Luana Leite, a senior from Porta Feliz, Brazil, flirted with a triple-double, posting season-high totals of 12 points, 10 assists and seven rebounds against Gonzaga and said the Dons’ assignment was to build on the big win.
“It’s been a long time since we beat them. It’s a new start for us because it’s the first game in the conference,” Leite said. “We’ve got to keep focused, keep the energy up and do it again and again and again.”
So far, so good.
PILOTS KEEP WINNING: Portland remains among just eight unbeaten women’s teams in the country after an 81-54 rout of Santa Clara on Saturday. The Pilots (14-0, 3-0) have won every game by double digits, thanks in part to a pressing defense that is generating 23.1 turnovers per game to create an average of 25.6 points.
Alexis Mark had 14 points and 13 rebounds against Santa Clara and Lainey Spear scored 14 points to lead a Portland bench that contributed 33 points.
GONZAGA’S NON-CONFERENCE GAUNTLET ENDS: The No. 14 Gonzaga men played their fifth game against a top-25 opponent on Saturday, falling 65-62 to No. 22 UCLA (11-2) in the first college game played at the Intuit Dome, the new Inglewood, Calif., home of the Los Angeles Clippers.
The Zags (9-4) went 2-3 in those five games, losing by a combined margin of just 10 points in the past three to Kentucky, UConn and UCLA — owners of a combined 25 NCAA championships.
“Obviously we feel like we’ve been in a bunch of close games that we felt like we should have won all of them,” senior point guard Ryan Nembhard, who had 16 points and eight assists, told the Spokane Spokesman Review. “We’ve got to close out these games and learn to win these close games.”
Coach Mark Few was disappointed his club couldn’t get over the hump. “We’re playing a great schedule and great teams,” he said. “And you’re in position to win and in college basketball, you hope you can make a play, make a shot and get a stop at the end.”
LAST WEEK’S BIG THING: San Diego sophomore Santiago Trouet posted a 17-point, 14-rebound double-double on Saturday in the Toreros’ 68-55 loss to Grand Canyon. A week earlier, the 6-foot-10 native of Buenos Aires, Argentina corralled 20 rebounds against UC San Diego, the third-highest total in program history and the most in a game by a USD player n 42 years.
THIS WEEK’S BIG THING, PART 1: The unbeaten Portland women face two challenging games this week, hosting WCC newcomer Oregon State (5-8, 1-1) on Monday night and Gonzaga (6-8, 1-2) on Saturday afternoon.
THIS WEEK’S BIG THING, PART 2: Each team plays in the meantime, but Saturday’s 4 p.m. (ESPN+) game between USF (11-3, 1-0) and Washington State (11-3, 1-0) at Pullman, Wash., matches two teams that figure to be in the WCC men’s race for the long haul.
FEW NOMINATED FOR NAISMITH HALL: Gonzaga’s Few, owner of the highest winning percentage (83.1 percent) among active college coaches, is a first-time nominee for the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame. Honors for players and coaches — at all levels across the globe — do not get any bigger than this.
Few has compiled a record of 725-147 in 26 seasons at Spokane, guiding the Zags to two Final Fours since 2017, five Elite 8s and 13 Sweet 16s. Gonzaga has won or shared 22 of 25 regular-season WCC titles under Few.
Part of the coaching staff that directed Team USA to an Olympic gold medal in Paris last summer, Few will receive the John R. Wooden Award "Legends of Coaching" Award in 2025. He and his wife Marcy also have raised millions of dollars or cancer research.
Other nominees this year include Carmelo Anthony, Sue Bird, Sylvia Fowles, Dwight Howard, Maya Moore, Doc Rivers and Amar’e Stoudemire.
Current Naismith members with WCC connections include Dennis Johnson (Pepperdine), KC Jones (USF), Steve Nash (Santa Clara), Pete Newell (LMU), Bill Russell (USF), John Stockton (Gonzaga) and Phil Woolpert (USF).