West Coast Conference fans will be treated to a dramatic buzzer-beater for the final week on the regular-season calendar.
The top three teams in the standings — ninth-ranked Gonzaga, Santa Clara and Saint Mary’s — will collide in a pair of titanic, nationally televised matchups in Moraga. Who could ask for more?
The Broncos (23-6, 14-2) and Gaels (25-4, 14-2), who have been playing one another since 1909, will meet Wednesday (8 p.m., CBSSN) in a duel of teams tied for second place. The first-place Zags (27-2, 15-1) meet Saint Mary’s on Saturday (7:30 p.m. ESPN), the latest in a two-decades long series of showdowns at the top of conference.
Gaels head coach Randy Bennett has been doing this for a quarter-century but said he has not encountered this scenario.
“It’s never come down to this,” he said. “It’s come down to the last game before. But it’s never come down to playing the other two best teams in the last weekend. Everything’s on the line: Conference championship, top seed (in the conference tournament), chance to increase your chances to go to the NCAA Tournament. For all of us, it’s all on the line.”
The Gaels are three-time defending regular-season West Coast Conference champions. They shared the crown with Gonzaga in 2022-23 and won it outright the past two seasons. A fourth straight title would be unprecedented in their history. Add it up and they are an impressive 60-6 in conference play dating back to the start of that four-year run.
Two of those six defeats came in the past month and a half, on the road at the hands of the Broncos and Zags. So Bennett understands nothing is promised this week. “It’s definitely fun and it’s definitely scary,” he said. "It’s just intense.”
Saint Mary’s and Gonzaga are accustomed to clashing for the championship. Even so, these are remarkable storylines:
— The two have finished in the top two of the West Coast Conference standings in 13 of the past 14 seasons and 16 of the past 20
— Saint Mary’s or Gonzaga has either won or shared the regular-season crown the past 25 years
— The past 14 West Coast Conference tournament titles have been won by either the Gaels or the Zags
“It’s hard for any program to stay good for that long,” Bennett said. “And two of them in the same league is an incredible story.”
Bennett’s sole focus early this week was Santa Clara, which broke an eight-game losing streak in the series with their 62-54 home victory over Saint Mary’s back on Jan. 17. The Gonzaga game won’t carry the same punch for the Gaels if they don’t take care of business vs. the Broncos.
“They have a good team,” Bennett said of the Broncos, who have set a program record for conference victories. “They play a different style so they force you to do some things that if you don’t do well, you won’t win. They have bigs, they have a bunch of guards, they’re deep.”
Bennett said the Gaels won’t attempt to reinvent themselves for the rematch but merely try to play better. “They hit 10 and a half threes a game in league, so you better do something about that,” he said. “They just have better players than they’ve had that play together better than they have. We have to do what we do at a higher level.”
Santa Clara’s defense did a solid job to limit Gaels star Paulius Murauskas and it held SMC’s three starting perimeter players to combined 6-for-33 shooting.
There will be no peeking ahead to the Zags, Bennett promises. “We’re pretty good at talking the talk of one step, one punch, one round at a time. That’s kind of how we’ve operated,” he said. “The byproduct is the wins, the record. The process is just keep stacking days.”
Gonzaga will tune up for the Gaels with a Wednesday night home game against Portland, a team the Zags are certain to take seriously. The Pilots are responsible for the only blemish on Gonzaga’s conference resume, an 87-80 upset on Feb. 4 that was fueled by freshman point guard Joel Foxwell’s 27-point, 8-assist performance.
Bennett knows the Gaels will get Gonzaga’s best shot, as always. The teams have split 10 matchups since the start of the 2022-23 season, but there was a time the gap between the program was a huge chasm.
Saint Mary’s was 2-27 in 2000-01, the year before Bennett took the reins. It took the Gaels until his fourth year to finally beat Gonzaga.
“We got ‘em at our place — I remember the game like it was yesterday,” he said of the 89-81 victory in January 2005 that was made possible by senior guard Paul Marigney’s 30-point outburst. “That’s one of our biggest wins ever. We had to break the ice. You’ve got to get the belief.”
The Gaels have had belief ever since, with 16 seasons of at least 25 victories and 11 NCAA Tournament bids, including the past four in a row. Bennett is comfortable saying Gonzaga’s example forced his program to raise its game.
“They had a tremendous amount to do with us chasing them and that made us better,” he said. “People say you shouldn’t give them any credit — they’re the No. 1 winningest program in college basketball over the last 25 years. It’s crazy. No shame in that.”
Bennett talks with affection about Gonzaga coach Mark Few, whom he calls a friend and whose run in Spokane began two years before he took charge in Moraga. Both men are 63 years old and they will square off for the 71st time on Saturday. Their 30 meetings over the past 10-plus seasons are unmatched by any coaching tandem in the country.
“We grew up together, really,” Bennett said. “We were part-time assistants, making no money. You don’t have that many guys around anymore who came up with you, and he’s one of them. Knowing his kids, him knowing mine. Just caring about a fellow coach.”
That respect helps explain why winning three straight conference crowns is so meaningful. “It’s because of who we’ve had to go through to get there.”
The quest for a fourth straight championship, however, is fueled by a desire to keep striving for greater excellence. “The motivation,” Bennett said, “is we’re trying to do something that’s never happened here.”