The Colonial Athletic Association isn’t the only conference with a men’s basketball tournament beginning today. The West Coast Conference Tournament tips off tonight, also with a chance of Cinderella in the NCAA Tournament.
The tournaments is held at the Orleans Arena in Las Vegas and has two games on each of the first three days. The championship is on Monday night. The bottom four seeds play today and move on to Saturday to face the third and fourth seeds. The winners of those games face the top two seeds in the semifinals.
Those top two seeds are No. 1 St Mary’s and No. 2 Gonzaga. St. Mary’s has the tiebreaker over Gonzaga for the No. 1 seed even though both teams finished 11-3 in the WCC. However, Gonzaga is the tournament favorite. Gonzaga went 22-9 on the season while St. Mary’s went 23-7. Gonzaga has 10 tournament titles, the latest being 2009. St. Mary’s is the defending WCC champions after earning its second conference title last year.
Portland is third in the outright odds as the No. 5 seed with a 7-7 WCC record and went 20-10 on the season. Portland won its only WCC Tournament in 1996. The games tonight include Portland vs. Loyola Marymount at 6 p.m. and Pepperdine vs. San Diego at 8:30 p.m.
West Coast Conference Tournament Match Odds (provided by Ladbrokes)
Portland vs. Loyola Marymount
Loyola Marymount: 5/2
Portland: 1/3
Point Spread: Portland -6
Over/Under: 138
Pepperdine vs. San Diego
Pepperdine: 1/2
San Diego: 17/10
Point Spread: Pepperdine -4.5
Over/Under:129