PROVO — Six years into West Coast Conference affiliation, the BYU basketball program seems further away than ever from supplanting Gonzaga as the top team.

"We are a national program," said Gonzaga assistant Donny Daniels, who has been a part of four teams (Utah and UCLA) to reach the Final Four.

Having yet to win the WCC regular-season or conference tournament championships, the Cougars have been reduced to trying to hold off Santa Clara for third place in the standings this year. The Bulldogs, meanwhile, come into the Marriott Center for Thursday’s game against BYU riding a 22-game winning streak as the nation’s top-ranked team.

Already wide, the gap between the two teams is growing. The same goes for the other eight teams in the WCC.

“Significant,” is the way former BYU coach Steve Cleveland described the difference between Gonzaga and the rest of the WCC.

Some BYU fans like to refer to the team’s stature in the second-tier conference as part of the Big Three, which would include Gonzaga and Saint Mary’s. At best for BYU, at least for now, it is the Big One and two others. The Saint Mary’s contingent might argue it is the Big Two and then BYU.

Both teams beat Gonzaga in Spokane last season, but as crazy as it sounds, considering they made the Sweet 16 last season and sent two players to the NBA, the Bulldogs are substantially better this year. In rolling to a 10-0 conference record, Gonzaga has won by an average of 28 points.

Last month, the Bulldogs drilled Saint Mary’s by 23 points in the consistently sold-out, 6,000-seat McCarthey Center, which is named after alumni and former Salt Lake Tribune owners Phil and Thomas McCarthey. Against Santa Clara and San Diego, two teams that have beaten BYU, Gonzaga won by 31 and 36 points, respectively.

Related:

Gonzaga ranked No. 1 in nation ahead of WCC clash at BYU

When the Associated Press released the latest college basketball top 25 rankings, a West Coast Conference team was No. 1.

“I don’t think there’s been that much separation between the three teams over the last few years, but this year there seems to be more separation,” Cleveland said.

The difference this season, Cleveland said, is Gonzaga’s massive size. In addition to two 7-footers, Przemek Karnowski and Zach Collins, all wing players in the rotation are at least 6-3.

Three transfers — Nigel Williams-Goss, Jordan Mathews and Johnathan Williams — have directly contributed to Gonzaga becoming elite defensively. Opponents in 14 games this season have failed to reach 65 points.

“The reason that this team is different than any other Gonzaga team is because they can guard,” Cleveland said. “Their athleticism on the wings makes this a special team.”

Since joining the league in time for the 2011-12 season, BYU has finished in second place twice. During that time, Gonzaga has three regular-season titles and Saint Mary’s has two.

BYU has made the NCAA tournament three of the five years in the WCC, winning the play-in game in 2012 and compiling an overall record of 1-3. Over the last five years, Gonzaga as has seven wins in the NCAA tournament, reaching the Sweet 16 last season and the Elite Eight the year before.

Interestingly, the Cougars had more success under Dave Rose in the Mountain West, which is considered better than the WCC. After making the NIT in Rose’s first season in 2005-06, BYU then played in the NCAA tournament for its final five years in the Mountain West. Led by Jimmer Fredette, the Cougars won a total of four NCAA tournament games in 2010 and 2011, reaching the Sweet 16 for the first time in 30 years in their final MWC season.

Since Mark Few was promoted to head coach in 1999, Gonzaga’s program has been phenomenal. The Bulldogs have made the NCAA tournament every season, winning at least one game in all but three years. They have six Sweet 16 appearances under Few.

"This run is yet to be written, but our team is really playing as a cohesive unit," Daniels said.

Related topics