WCC Tournament format changes

The West Coast Conference announced that beginning in 2014, the format of both the men's and women's basketball tournaments would be changing, in large part due to the addition of the University of Pacific to the conference. The new bracket, which again will not be put in place this coming season, is above. Click the image to view in full.

West Coast Conference adds 10th member

The West Coast Conference announced today that the University of the Pacific would be joining the league, beginning with the 2013-14 academic year. Click here to read the conference's full release.

WCC teams victim of transfers

Anthony Ireland fights for a loose ball with San Francisco's Perris Blackwell, who is expected to leave the USF program.

Both San Francisco and Portland took blows today, losing key players who have decided to transfer away from their respective programs. The Dons took the biggest hit, as their second-leading scorer Perris Blackwell will be leaving the program.

According to ESPN, Blackwell, who averaged 12.7 points and 6.1 rebounds this season, has been granted his release by the University. 

Then, sophomore Tim Douglas of the Pilots, also announced his transfer. He averaged 8.5 points per game this season.

Saint Mary's ends impressive regular season with exclamation mark

Congratulation to Saint Mary's for their overtime victory over Gonzaga tonight to win the West Coast Conference championship. It was an incredible basketball game, but Matthew Dellevadova and the Gaels pulled it out in the end.

Props also have to be given to Gonzaga, who played its butt off, highlighted by a game-tying three by Elias Harris with four seconds remaining in overtime to force the game into the extra period. Gonzaga and Saint Mary's both hate and respect each other tremendously, you can tell by the way they play, and it sure does make for some exceptional basketball.

Both teams will be a threat when the Madness begins, as it's time to become a "WCC" fan for us Lion faithfuls. According to ESPN's Joe Lunardi, BYU will likely make the Tournament as well.

LMU, on the other hand, will wait to hear its fate, but after falling to No. 118 in today's RPI rankings, NIT no longer seems likely for the Lions. CIT seems probable.

LMU to face San Francisco or Portland Friday

The first game of the men's bracket has wrapped up, and Portland was able to hold off a winless Santa Clara team 74-70 to advance into Thursday's game against San Francisco. The Pilots shot an impressive 56.8 percent and were led by Ryan Nicholas (pictured) who had 24 points. Portland and San Francisco will face off at 6 p.m. Thursday, followed by San Diego and Pepperdine at 8 p.m.

LMU will face the winner of the 6 p.m. game on Friday at 6 p.m.

The loss ends an awful season for Santa Clara, whose off-the-court troubles led to a 0-16 regular conference season. Before the season even began, Santa Clara lost big man Marc Trasolini to injury, a huge blow to the team's offense. Then, a couple of games into the WCC season, Kevin Foster, one of the best scorers in the league, was arrested for apparent drunk driving, and was therefore suspended by the team for the remainder of the season. Props to need to be given to the team that remained, however, as despite not winning a game, the Broncos did not roll over, and played a number of close games against some of the league's best teams.

LMU highly represented in conference awards

Head Coach Max Good was honored today with his first West Coast Conference Coach of the Year award, the WCC announced. Good guided the Lions to a 19-win season that included three wins over nationally ranked teams. The award is the first for an LMU coach since 1996.

The Lions were also strongly represented in the WCC's All-Conference team, as both Anthony Ireland and Drew Viney were honored with a place on the 10-man team. Ireland was second in the conference in scoring, averaging 16.7 points per game in conference play, while Viney ranked sixth with his 15.4 ppg.

All awards were voted on by the nine team's head coaches. Matthew Dellavedova became the second straight Saint Mary's player to win Player of the Year.

Tournament bracket revealed

The West Coast Conference just released the bracket for next weekend's tournament, and the Lions will play the first of the two quarterfinal games on Friday. LMU will take on either San Francisco, Santa Clara or Portland at 6 p.m. Friday evening, and the game can be seen live on ESPNU. Full bracket is below (click to enlarge).

Wild, Wild West Coast Conference

I received two texts this past weekend, both asking the same question, about two separate West Coast Conference men's basketball games. They both read, "Who do we want to win, again, in this game?"

That is because the WCC men's basketball standings are closer than they have been in years, and with six of the nine tournament seeds still up for grabs with just one week left before the conference tournament begins in Las Vegas, it is hard to know exactly how to root for your team, especially if you're a Lions fan.

The Lions have secured a fourth seed, and therefore a first-round bye, at the tourney, but there is still a decent shot they can snatch the third seed away from either Gonzaga or (more likely) BYU. While that would allow LMU of playing the second seed, not the first, in the semifinals, what may be more important is it would give the team a much easier quarterfinal matchup; basically, avoiding a very hot San Francisco team.

Here is the easiest, and most probable, way for the Lions to steal the third-place spot. All of the following things would need to happen.

• LMU would need to win its final two conference games against Santa Clara and San Diego. Both are at home and against teams the Lions have previously beat. Odds are definitely in LMU's favor here.
• Saint Mary's would need to win its final two games. The No. 1 team in the conference is set to face Portland and San Francisco. Portland should be easy, but the Dons could definitely test the struggling, limping Gaels, especially since the game is on the hilltop in SF. The odds, however, do have to be in Saint Mary's favor here. And therefore, also the Lions' favor.
• Gonzaga needs to win its final two games. This is the trickiest part, as Gonzaga will most likely beat San Diego Saturday, but will first face BYU in one of the biggest games of the season Thursday. Luckily for the Lions, the game is in Spokane, a place where the Zags have not lost yet this conference season. 

Why this works for the Lions: If the above happens, the best BYU could do this weekend is go 1-1 (having lost its game to the Zags Thursday). That would leave BYU and LMU tied in the standings. Because the two teams split their head-to-head matchups, LMU would beat BYU in the tiebreaker based on the fact that it had the "bigger" conference win, defeating the No. 1 Gaels over BYU's biggest conference win, defeating the No. 2 Bulldogs. 

There are a lot of scenarios still possible, but the above seems both the most likely and easiest when it comes to figure out who to root for this weekend. It is important, however, to mention that if Saint Mary's and Gonzaga TIE for first-place in conference, I am pretty sure BYU would then beat out LMU in the tiebreaker for third place, as it would have matched LMU's biggest win and tops LMU in the next tiebreaking category (RPI).

Either way, Thursday and Saturday should be a lot of fun. Can't remember who to root for or just want to follow along with the action? Follow The Bottom Line on Twitter at @thebottomlinejp.

Ireland recognized as conference Player of the Week

Congratulations to Anthony Ireland, who just earned WCC Player of the Week honors for the second time this season. Ireland led the Lions to two victories this past week, one of the road over No. 16 Saint Mary's and one at home in a Sears BracketBuster game over Valparaiso. He averaged 17.5 points and 6.0 assists in the two games.

WCC Standings Update

Tough day for the top teams in the WCC, as Saint Mary's lost its non-conference BracketBuster game to Murray St. and Gonzaga was upset for the third year in a row by San Francisco. BYU, however, did secure a win over Santa Clara. The standings for the Top-4 (who have all secured themselves first-round byes at the Tournament) now stand as follows:

St. Mary's     12-2

Gonzaga       11-3

BYU            11-3

LMU            10-4

Santa Clara's Foster out indefinitely after DUI

Santa Clara's already-tough season just got a lot worse, as it seems that Kevin Foster's absence from the team's lineup is likely for longer than just the Broncos loss to LMU on Monday. Bay Area news sources are reporting that Foster is "out indefinitely" after his "his weekend arrest on suspicion of driving under the influence." Read more here and here.

The Broncos were already dealt a blow earlier this season when big man Marc Trasolini tore his ACL. He will miss the entire season.

This news doesn't do much for West Coast Conference competition, as Santa Clara is currently last in the standings.

Hamilton wins first WCC Player of the Week award

After leading the Lions in scoring in each of their first two games this season, Ashley Hamilton was honored Monday with the year's first West Coast Conference Player of the Year award.

Hamilton averaged 19 points, 4.5 rebounds and 2.0 steals while hitting 13-for-26 from the field, 10-for-12 from the free throw line and 2-for-3 from long range over the Lions' first two games. Hamilton matched a career-high with 23 points in LMU's first win over UCLA since 1941.

Quotes from Good

For those who couldn't tune in, here are some quotes from LMU Basketball Head Coach Max Good from today's WCC Tip-Off event that I felt stood out.

• Concerning finding some offense while Drew Viney is out with his injury, Good said, "We're going to have to do that a little bit by committee. CJ Blackwell, JD DuBious, Anthony Ireland will have to step up along with all our post players. We have to get a little more out of each of them. From a pure shooting standpoint it'll be tough to replace him."
• About being picked to finish sixth in the pre-season coaches poll, Good said, " It's not one we're pleased with. We've got to prove them wrong. It's accurate based on our performance from last season."
• When asked if he expects to improve in terms of winning close games, Good said, " We not only expect it but we're going to demand it. We will be better at every phase of the game that we can control."

Furthermore, Good noted:

• Anthony Ireland has really improved his shooting, but still wants him to get the ball to other guys. He doesn't love the idea of the point guard position contributing a high percentage of the team's points.
• Quincy Lawson has been the pleasant surprise thus far this season in practice
• Admitted that he didn't deal with all the injuries well last year, and takes responsibility for the disappointing season
• Godwin Okonji will start at the center position

WCC Preseason All-Conference Team, Coaches Poll

To kick-off today's West Coast Conference Basketball Tip-off event, the conference announced this year's Preseason All-Conference Team.

Brandon Davies, BYU

Matthew Dellavedova, SMC

Kevin Foster, SCU

Rashad Green, USF

Elias Harris, GON

Rob Jones, SMC

Nemanja Mitrovic, POR

Robert Sacre, GON

Drew Viney, LMU

Michael Williams, USF

In addition, this year's coaches poll:

1) Gonzaga 

2) St. Marys 

3) BYU 

4) USF 

5) Santa Clara

 6) LMU 

7) Portland 

8) Pepperdine 

9) USD

WCC to hold Men's Basketball Tip-Off event at YouTube

The West Coast Conference will hold its 2011-12 men's basketball tip-off event at neighboring YouTube headquarters on Thursday. The event will give WCC fans the ability to interact with all nine head men's basketball coaches through three different mediums, all available on WCCsports.com.

Update: For the one-on-one interviews, the WCC website is now showing that Max Good will be live on-air at 2:30 p.m.

Read more here, on the WCC website.

New WCC logo

BYU officially joined the West Coast Conference at 11 a.m. today and with it, the conference rolled out a new brand identity. The logo is below.

If I'm being honest, it's a bit underwhelming in my opinion ...

What does everyone think?

WCC ups exposure with long-term partnership with ESPN

As announced today by both the West Coast Conference and ESPN, the WCC and ESPN family of networks have agreed upon an eight-year contract extension that will run through the 2018-19 school year. According to terms of the agreement, the WCC will receive a minimum of 48 annual men's basketball appearances on the ESPN networks. Over the past three seasons, the Conference has appeared on ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPNU an average of 38 times per season.

In addition to continuing coverage of the Zappos.com West Coast Conference Basketball Championships (with the semifinals on ESPN2 and the championship game broadcast on ESPN), the quarterfinal matchups will now appear on ESPNU, an agreement that will begin this coming season.

"We are elated to reaffirm our long term partnership with ESPN for another eight years," West Coast Conference Commissioner Jamie Zaninovich said in the conference's press release. "ESPN has played a critical role in helping build and extend our brand as a premier national basketball conference, and this agreement will ensure that more West Coast Conference events will be telecast across more national television platforms than ever before."


In the terms of the deal, all nine WCC schools (with the addition of BYU in 22 days) are guaranteed at least one nationally televised appearance.