Recap and highlights: Gonzaga beats Saint Mary’s 58-51 to win WCC tournament championship

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Mar. 11—LAS VEGAS — Gonzaga, which never led in a Senior Night loss to Saint Mary’s last month, never trailed in Tuesday’s West Coast Conference championship game at Orleans Arena.

That doesn’t mean anything came easy for the second-seeded Zags.

An ideal start put them in front by 13 points after just 6-plus minutes, but the game soon became a tight, tense, physical affair with neither team able to hit from behind the 3-point line.

Gonzaga fended off several Saint Mary’s rallies and dug out a 58-51 victory to take home the championship trophy and cement a spot in the NCAA Tournament with the WCC’s automatic bid.

The Zags relied on defense — SMC committed a season-high 18 turnovers — and sophomore Braden Huff came up big in just his second career start, scoring a team-high 18 points, including a couple of big baskets in the final 5 minutes.

Saint Mary’s (28-5) was trying to become the first team to go 3-0 against Gonzaga (29-4) in Mark Few’s 26 seasons as head coach. SMC won both regular-season matchups but came up short in the title game on Monday and also in 2016 when the Zags won 85-75 at Orleans Arena.

Gonzaga improved to 9-4 against Saint Mary’s in title games at the Orleans Arena.

Khalif Battle added 14 points and Graham Ike chipped in 11 points. Ryan Nembhard had 10 points and six assists.

Mitchell Saxen had 20 points for the Gaels, who couldn’t overcome Gonzaga’s 20-3 advantage in points off turnovers.

GU couldn’t have scripted a better start. Ike’s baseline jumper dropped through after softly bouncing on the rim on GU’s first possession.

Huff added a pair of field goals — one a 3-pointer — and Battle scored six rapid-fire points as Gonzaga raced in front 20-7.

The Zags needed just 6 minutes and 30 seconds to score 20 points, but the offense slowed considerably with a bunch of missed 3-pointers and just 13 points the rest of the half.

GU still led 31-21 with 3:12 remaining but Saint Mary’s rattled off the next eight points, finding success in the paint, the…

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Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/article/recap-highlights-gonzaga-beats-saint-035900997.html

Author : The Spokesman-Review, Spokane, Wash.

Publish date : 2025-03-12 03:59:00

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