Following a week of West Coast Conference basketball jammed with big moments, we begin Sunday by providing these three notable headlines:
— Oregon State’s men, hosting Gonzaga for the first time in 33 years, drew a sellout of 9,301 fans at Gill Coliseum on Thursday night and got a masterful effort from junior forward Michael Rataj, who scored 10 of his career-high 29 points in overtime, leading the Beavers to a 97-89 win over the 16th-ranked Zags.
— The Gonzaga women, powered by record-setting performances by senior Yvonne Ejim and freshman Allie Turner, beat LMU 69-58 on Saturday for their sixth straight victory. After starting conference play with a 1-2 record, the Zags have won six in a row to share first place with Washington State, each at 7-2.
— The NCAA’s NET computer rankings continue to affirm the qualify of depth in the WCC’s men race, with six teams listed among the top 80 nationally. Gonzaga, despite a pair of losses this week, sits at No. 18, while first-place Saint Mary’s has inched up to No. 28. Also in the mix are Oregon State (60), Santa Clara (62), San Francisco (68) and Washington State (78).
LAST WEEK’S BIG THING: Thursday’s schedule gave us six men’s and women’s games decided by four points or less or in overtime. Among them was this women’s back-and-forth thriller between Oregon State and host Santa Clara. The Broncos’ Alana Goodchild made a 3-pointer at the buzzer in regulation, knotting the score at 61-all and forcing overtime. Santa Clara seemed poised to win 72-71 when Malia Latu sank a jump shot with four seconds left in OT. But OSU’s Kelsey Rees fed sophomore Kennedie Shuler, who converted a layup and free throw with one second left for a 74-72 win.
THIS WEEK’S BIG THING, PART 1: The Saint Mary’s men (16-3, 6-0), who have a two-game lead on everyone else in the WCC standings, have sculpted that record against six teams in the bottom half of the standings. Beginning Thursday at home against second-place San Francisco (16-5, 6-2), the Gaels embark on a much more challenging stretch of their schedule with eight straight opponents who currently reside in the upper portion of the conference standings.
THIS WEEK’S BIG THING, PART 2: Washington State (12-8, 7-2) and Portland (17-3, 6-3), two of four women’s teams within one game of each other at the top of the WCC standings, collide Thursday at Pullman, Wash. Both teams are coming off convincing road victories, the Cougars routing Santa Clara 74-47 to stay tied for first place with Gonzaga while the Pilots avenged an earlier loss to Oregon State with an 86-61 triumph. Tipoff is 6 p.m. and the game will be aired on ESPN+.
THE BEAVERS’ BIG NIGHT: It’s been a tough few years for Oregon State, owning a record of 24-68 the past three seasons, then losing its top three scorers to the transfer portal last spring. The Beavers and Cougars became two-year affiliate members of the WCC, and the arrangement is working out nicely for all parties.
Thursday night’s win over Gonzaga at Gil Coliseum almost made up for all the Beavers’ recent challenges. “It’s an unbelievable reward for the crap that we’ve gone through the last three years as a program,” coach Wayne Tinkle told the Corvallis Gazette-Times. “We’ve got a team that plays their (butts) off. They play together. The way this team has gone about its work, they're so deserving.”
OSU shot 58.5 percent — its best mark in 19 years — and got huge contributions from throughout its lineup: Nate Kingz had 20 points and three steals, Parsa Fallah scored 16, Damarco Minor had 15 and Josiah Lake chipped in 11 point and three steals.
Of course, Rataj, the native of Augsberg, Germany, was a monster, scoring 14 of his team’s final 20 points. Sophomore Liutauras Lelevicius made just one basket, but it came on layup off a graceful spin move with 36 seconds left in overtime to push OSU into a 93-89 lead. “He only had two points,” Tinkle said, “but he was one of the happiest guys in the locker room.”
Tinkle credited the Zags with out-playing and out-coaching his squad at times. “The one thing where they didn’t outdo us was with the heart that our guys showed,” he said. “We just showed an incredible will to win.”
CANNOT OVERLOOK THE BRONCOS: The Santa Clara men knocked off Gonzaga at home last season but hadn’t beaten the Zags in Spokane since 2007. On Saturday night, fueled by senior guard Tyeree Bryan’s career-high 35 points, the Broncos (13-7, 5-2) toppled the nation’s No. 16 team 103-99 at the McCarthey Center.
“They’re a good squad, Bryan had it going today,” Gonzaga’s Nolan Hickman said. “Usually dudes who’ve got it going, we try to cut their water off at halftime. He was just hot, so it happens.”
“It was a back-and-forth game so I didn’t really have time to process what happened,” Bryan said after the game, “but it felt good.”
The victory was Santa Clara’s first road win over a Top-25 team since Dec. 4, 1993, when Steve Nash helped the Broncos beat Jason Kidd and No. 13 Cal. Santa Clara’s 18 3-point baskets — seven of them by Bryan — were the second-most in program history and the most Gonzaga has ever surrendered in a home game.
Santa Clara coach Herb Sendek admitted he didn’t have much to say to his team afterward. “Their play said it all,” Sendek said. “Punctuating that, I just added how tremendously happy I am for them.”
GAELS GETTING IT DONE ON DEFENSE: Saint Mary’s has won six straight WCC games by smothering opponents with their defense.
Here are the key numbers: After a 74-50 win at Pepperdine on Saturday, the Gaels are allowing just 53.5 points per game in conference play, winning by an average margin of 26.5 points, limiting opponents to 37.9 percent field-goal shooting and 29.1 percent from the 3-point arc, and winning the rebounding battle by 15.5 per game.
ZAGS WOMEN ON A ROLL: Gonzaga beat Portland for the second time this season, 66-65, thanks to a career-high 35 points from senior forward Yvonne Ejim. The reigning WCC Player of the Year shot 12 for 16 from the field, 11 for 14 at the foul line and added 13 rebounds, two assists, two steals and two blocks.
Ejim scored seven points in the final 62 seconds including a putback off a missed shot from Allie Turner with 9 seconds left to secure the win.
The Zags then pocketed their sixth straight win with their 69-58 verdict at LMU on Saturday. Ejim had 19 points and eight rebounds, and broke Kay Koppelman’s 34-year program record for career rebounds. Ejim now has 985.
But it was Turner who powered the victory, scoring a career-high 23 points (including five 3-pointers) to go with nine rebounds and four assists. It was the most points in a game by a Gonzaga freshman since Courtney Vandersloot scored 20 in 2007. “She was confident, she was composed,” Zags coach Lisa Fortier said of Turner. “She was ready to shoot it when we needed her to shoot it. When she was open, she let it fly.”
TIP-INS: Junior guard Nate Calmese, a transfer from Washington, scored 50 points as Washington State beat San Diego and Portland to improve to 15-5 overall, 5-2 in WCC play. He was 4 for 4 from the free throw line in the final eight seconds to clinch the 65-61 win at San Diego . . . The only other men’s team to win twice in the WCC last week was LMU, which toppled Santa Clara and San Diego . . . Guard Tony Duckett scored a USD freshman record 31 points in the loss to LMU . . . Ryan Nembhard’s 15 assists vs. Santa Clara just missed the Gonzaga record of 16 by Blake Stepp. Nembhard now leads the NCAA with 9.7 assists per game . . . Liz Smith had seven steals in the Pacific women’s 76-64 win over USF.