By ALAN SNEL
LVSportsBiz.com
LVSportsBiz.com photos by J. Tyge O’Donnell
Las Vegas was the center of the college basketball world Tuesday night as underdog St. Mary’s slayed mighty Gonzaga, 60-47, to win the West Coast Conference championship at a sold out Orleans Arena and punched its ticket to the NCAA’s Big Dance later this month.
The Mighty Zags of Spokane, the Godzilla of the WCC this season, played poorly throughout the game, registering only 47 points after piling up 100 Monday night in a blowout win over Pepperdine. The packed house at Orleans came in at 7,771 — much larger than the 6,000-seat venue back home in Spokane for the Zags.
The Zags shot the ball miserably in the title game against long-time rival St. Mary’s, hitting only 18 of 48 shots, including a paltry two for 17 from three-point land. They scored 24 points in the first half and, remarkably enough, one point less in the second half. Gonzaga finished 30-3, as the team will still likely be a number one seed in the West Regional when the brackets are revealed.
St. Mary’s receives the automatic bid to the NCAA tournament and certainly knocked out another team that was hoping to attend the Big Dance via an at-large berth. Without the conference tourney title, there was little hope of the St. Mary’s Gaels crashing the March Madness big tournament.
The arena was packed overwhelmingly with Gonzaga fans, wearing their dark blue, bright red and white jerseys. But in the end, it was a handful of Gaels fans who celebrated on the court with the players, coaches and cheerleaders.
Every early March in Las Vegas, the Strip receives an economic jolt from fans and school officials from several dozen universities in town for four conference tournaments as the WAC, Mountain West and Pac-12 conferences now will stage their tourneys at Orleans Arena, Thomas & Mack Center and T-Mobile Arena, respectively.