WCC conference tournament preview

This is part 9 of a 32-part series.

Standings:
Gonzaga 16-0
St Mary's 11-5
BYU 11-5
San Francisco 9-7
Loyola Marymount 8-8
Santa Clara 8-8
San Diego 7-9
Pepperdine 6-10
Pacific 4-12
Portland 0-16

Format:
Get ready for some convolution.  This lasts 5 days, from March 7 to March 12, with a BYU-triggered off day on Sunday.  It's a ladder format, as the top 2 seeds have byes to the semifinals.

Matchups:
1) Gonzaga vs.
4) San Francisco vs.
5) Loyola Marymount vs. 8/9) Pepperdine/Pacific

2) St Mary's vs.
3) BYU vs.
6) Santa Clara vs. 7/10) San Diego/Portland

The stakes:
Good God, the kowtowing to Gonzaga.  Just look at that stupid format above.  Go to hell, WCC.

Gonzaga will be a 1 seed.  Their exact rank is still fluid, but I can't imagine them falling, even if they lose.  I just don't think there's no combination of wins that results in 2 SEC teams getting to the 1 line....and the ACC won't have 3 teams on the 1 line...and I can't see the B1G champ or Big 12 champ getting enough quality wins to get there either.

No one is in play on the bubble.  I entertained St Mary's briefly, but @New Mexico St is probably going to be their only win over a tourney team on the resume.  They made a good faith effort to schedule up, but lost to LSU and Mississippi St (okay), and Utah St (less okay).....and Irvine, Harvard, and WKU (oops).  This should be a NIT team because of the computer numbers though.

BYU and San Francisco are probably NIT bubble teams.  USF actually swept BYU, but BYU has the stronger resume in every other facet.  I think there might be room for both teams, but it wouldn't surprise me if the NIT committee treated them as an either/or situation.  My money is on BYU in that situation, but I would probably prefer if both teams make the NIT.

The WCC deserves it as a whole, at least.  They're currently 8th in CNET, and they had a pretty solid non-con, all things considered.  Several teams did pretty good (no one besides Gonzaga did great, but the rest of the conference did a good job of raising the floor of the conference, if that makes sense).  This conference probably underachieved...having 2nd place have 5 losses was a killer.  If someone separated at the top to join Gonzaga, it would've made for a really interesting situation.