Projecting the WCC Men's Basketball Tournament Bracket

With just one weekend to go, we take a look at what the WCC tournament bracket could look like

Just one weekend of regular season play remains before the WCC men's basketball tournament in Las Vegas. Today, we'll project the final WCC standings and look ahead to how the tournament bracket could look come tournament time.

Current WCC Standings

As of this writing, here are the current WCC standings:

Team	Conference Record	Overall Record
Saint Mary's	13-1	24-5
Gonzaga	12-2	23-5
Santa Clara	9-5	21-8
LMU	8-7	18-11
San Francisco	6-8	17-12
Pacific	6-8	13-16
BYU	6-9	16-14
Portland	5-9	13-16
San Diego	4-10	11-17
Pepperdine	2-12	9-19

The Race for First Place in the WCC

Saint Mary's loss to LMU a few weeks ago created a race for first place between the Gaels and the Zags. If Gonzaga and Saint Mary's win out before their matchup on 2/25, they will be playing for the first seed in the WCC tournament. A Saint Mary's win over Gonzaga on 2/25 would secure the top seed. If Gonzaga beats Saint Mary's in that game, they would tie the Gaels for the best record in the conference.

At that point, tie-breaker rules would determine the top seed. Since Gonzaga and Saint Mary's would have split the regular season series and lost to the same team in conference play (LMU), the third tie-breaker rule would determine the top side: NCAA net rankings.

Note: this article was updated from RPI rankings to NET rankings.

Projecting the Final WCC Standings

Let's project the final WCC standings using KenPom's predictive analytics combined with the current WCC standings.

Team	Projected Conference Record
Saint Mary's	14.4 - 1.6
Gonzaga	13.6 - 2.4
Santa Clara	10.5 - 5.5
LMU	8.5 - 7.5
San Francisco	7.1 - 8.9
BYU	6.7 - 9.3
Pacific	6.6 - 9.4
Portland	5.7 - 10.3
San Diego	4.4 - 11.6
Pepperdine	2.6 - 13.4

In this scenario, BYU would finish sixth in the WCC regular season standings. The sixth seed in the WCC tournament would face the winner of the 7-10 game in the second round.

Projected WCC Men's Tournament Bracket

Here's is a projected view of what the WCC men's basketball bracket would look like if the above standings come to fruition. In this scenario, BYU would face the winner of Pacific-Pepperdine in the second round.

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