Can the WCC grab three NCAA Tournament bids?

LAS VEGAS — Part of the madness of March is the incessant debate over which 68 teams will make it into the NCAA tournament's big bracket, a process that culminates every year with Selection Sunday.

BYU had a chance to kick the speculation and arguments to the curb with three wins in four days at Orleans Arena in Las Vegas.

And the Cougars failed — Gonzaga won its fourth-straight tournament title and will advance to its 18th-straight NCAA tournament. It wasn't without an epic semifinal win over the Cougars on Monday night, but the Zags are going dancing.

But what do epic wins mean when a team appears seemingly relegated to the NIT?

Perhaps it shouldn't be that way, Gonzaga coach Mark Few said.

"You hear all this rhetoric on TV, and — holy smokes — these guys are nuts. The eye test tells you BYU is a tournament team, Gonzaga is a tournament team and Saint Mary's is a tournament team," Few said after defeating the Cougars, 88-84, Monday night. "But that's just coaches who have eyes and understand the game, though. I'm proud of my guys and I tip my hat to BYU.

"They are a heck of a team to compete against."

The knock-down, drag-out brawl in Las Vegas ended with a Gonzaga victory, and the Zags (26-7) went on to beat top-seeded rival Saint Mary's, 85-75, the next night to claim the WCC Tournament title.

Gonzaga's streak of 18-straight tournament finals is impressive, and Bulldog fans packed the arena to show their support of it. In March, Las Vegas' west end of Tropicana Blvd. becomes South Spokane for five days — and there isn't an option of only invading Orleans Arena for four days, or three, or two.

Gonzaga fans expect to be around the tournament every day — and the Bulldogs' answered the beckoning of the faithful through Tuesday, even with what many national pundits considered to be a soft resume before championship week.

Saint Mary's, though, matched the Bulldogs in almost every way in Tuesday night's final. The Gaels (27-5) trailed for much of the night, but it wasn't without a fight. Both teams shot above 60 percent from the field in the opening 10 minutes, and SMC's offensive efficiency was only slightly less impressive than the Zags.

"It was a heck of a game," said Saint Mary's coach Randy Bennett, who entered the 2015-16 season with a completely new starting five than the year before. "We played well enough to win offensively, and we weren't close enough defensively. Credit to them; they are a good team. It was a great college basketball game, and it was good to be a part of it."

The Gaels' NCAA fate is now left up to the hands of the selection committee, much like BYU. But Saint Mary's makes a solid case for inclusion in the tournament, or at least an appearance in the First Four games in Dayton, Ohio. The Gaels' RPI ranks 38th country, even after not leaving the state of California before a road date at BYU just a few weeks ago.

Despite a strength-of-schedule that pales to many at No. 165 in the NCAA, the Gaels also have two wins over Gonzaga in the regular season to hang their hats on. They also have a pair of head-scratching losses to Pepperdine, but avenged both of them in the tournament with a resounding semifinal win over the Waves.

Saint Mary's guard Emmett Naar knows nothing is certain when your team doesn't grab the automatic bid. But he also seemed confident his team would find itself on the right side of the bracket Sunday evening.

"We've been consistent all year," Naar said. "Our record is pretty good. I feel like just the way we play, move the ball, we are capable of beating anyone as long as we defend.

"Unfortunately, it is not up to us, so we just have to hope that the committee is for us."

Bennett has sweated through plenty of Selection Sundays, and some have come out favorably for his teams — while others, not so much.

But he didn't dare try to wrestle with the numbers this year.

"I usually have a pretty good feel on it, but it is out of our control so we will find out Sunday," Bennett said. "27-5, one of the top-five records in the country, and we played who is on our schedule and our losses are against pretty good teams.

"We've done what we can, won this league; the only thing we didn't do was beat Gonzaga three times. They are a heck of a team. If we don't get in, there are some really good teams in this country."

Things aren't so clear for BYU. The Cougars (23-10) aren't in famed bracketologist Joe Lunardi's mock bracket on ESPN.com at the moment, but they have wins over likely or assured tourney teams Belmont, Weber State, Gonzaga and Saint Mary's. They also have losses to Portland and Pacific — two losses that, with respect to the Pilots and Tigers, would likely keep them out in many years.

For those reasons, BYU coach Dave Rose took a measured approached when asked about his team's postseason chances.

"There's a lot of emotions in that locker room from a lot of different guys," Rose said. "My message to them was that I'm proud to be their coach, and I hope we can still play together again. We'll see if that happens."

Few's definition of a tournament-caliber team may be typical of a coach, rather than an administrator, pundit or selection committee member. The veteran Gonzaga coach views tournament-eligible teams as those that could match up with any of the top-four seeds across the bracket's four regions.

And he sees those teams in BYU and Saint Mary's, he said, while acknowledging the West Coast Conference may not have played the game the best way this season.

"I think the league has been undervalued; I don't think we played the RPI game very well," Few said. "So many people are going to base it off that, because some of our other teams didn't perform as well in the league as we hoped."

No matter their postseason fate, Few had high praise for the Cougars after being pushed to the brink in three games in 2015-16.

"I tip my hat to BYU," he said. "They are one heck of a team."

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