Previewing the 2024 West Coast Conference basketball season

With the calendar flipping to 2024, the college basketball season moves into its second act with the start of league play. The Zags will spend the next two-plus months traveling facing off against familiar West Coast Conference foes, teams they know and teams that know them better than anyone.

In years past, this was often a time for boring stretches of blowout win after blowout win, but this year things are a bit different. On the men’s side, at least. There’s some real intrigue, and plenty of work to be done in order for the men make it to March.

For the women? Well… if you find yourself wanting those blowout wins, they’ve got you covered.

GONZAGA MEN PREVIEW

If misery loves company, Gonzaga fans should feel right at home in the West Coast Conference this season.

After a lackluster non-conference portion of the season, which has seen the Zags lose on four occasions and manage to pick up a grand total of zero good wins, Gonzaga now embarks on a 16-game league slate that looks to be nearly devoid of quality opposition while also offering up numerous opportunities to stumble.

Simply put, it’s a down year for Gonzaga... but even more of a down year for the WCC.

First of all, it doesn’t help that the league contracted from 10 teams to nine during the offseason. Moreover, it stings that the team that left — BYU — is currently No. 2 in the country according to the NET Rankings.

Not only did the league lose one of its best and most consistent programs, but the teams that remained haven’t been playing their best with any sort of consistency this season.

Archrival Saint Mary’s entered the season with sky-high expectations. The Gaels returned nearly everyone from a team that earned a second-consecutive 5-seed in the NCAA Tournament. They were even voted as the preseason favorites to win the league over Gonzaga. Everything was in place for Randy Bennett’s team to put together its best season yet.

It took barely a week to realize those expectations were more than a bit misplaced.

By Thanksgiving, the Gaels had a losing record. And they weren’t just losing, they were looking awful in the process. The slow but efficient offense that Randy Bennett’s teams were known for had broken apart into a collection of bad shots and hero ball.

The Gaels have recovered some, behind a renewed emphasis on sharing the ball, but it’s far too little, too late for SMC to have any hopes of an at-large bid for the NCAA Tournament.

LMU, Santa Clara and Portland have been on the rise in recent years... just not in 2024.

The Lions are getting a team-high 14.5 points from Gonzaga castaway Dominick Harris, but sit at just 7-7 on the season. Santa Clara ran out to an impressive 6-0 start, but have lost six games since. Portland’s been perhaps the most disappointing team in the entire league, as the Pilots are careening towards the 300s in the NET Rankings.

On the other hand, Pepperdine, San Diego and Pacific haven’t been good in recent years. Unsurprisingly, they’re not in 2024 either.

At Pepperdine, Lorenzo Romar has built another talented roster. He’s good at doing that! Unfortunately, Lorenzo Romar also has to coach that roster. (Ask a UW fan how that goes.)

San Diego’s sitting pretty at 10-5 on the season, but aside from a win over a mediocre Arizona State squad, there’s nothing on the Toreros’ resume worth praising.

As for Pacific... well... at least it could be worse. Barely.

Pacific is No. 356 in the NET. There are 362 teams that play Division I basketball.

See, it could be worse!

Compounding the fact that those three teams (plus Portland) are very bad is the fact that Gonzaga will have to play all four of them at least twice this season. With now nine teams instead of 10, the league’s 16-game schedule fits neatly into a true double-round-robin format.

In recent years, when the league had an unbalanced schedule, the top teams were given the reward of fewer games against the league’s dregs. That’s why for four straight seasons prior to last year, the Zags faced Portland just once a year. The Pilots were easily the worst team in the league, and playing them twice would have damaged Gonzaga’s resume numbers.

That reward is gone this season. The Zags will face Portland in not just one all-risk, no-reward game, but two.

But it's not all gloom and doom in the WCC. There is at least one bright spot shining in the Bay Area.

At 11-4 on the season, it is the San Francisco Dons — not the Zags or Gaels — who sit atop the standings entering WCC play. As of Wednesday, San Francisco is No. 39 in the NET, while Saint Mary’s and Gonzaga are down at Nos. 53 and 57, respectively.

The good news for Gonzaga is that makes San Francisco a coveted quadrant one opponent when the Zags travel to the Bay Area, and again should they face off in the conference tournament. Moreover, if the Dons manage to climb nine spots into the top-30, the game in Spokane moves into Q1 as well.

On the flip side, Gonzaga’s 0-4 in Q1 games so far this year. They’ve yet to beat a good team, but at least San Francisco gives them (at least) one more shot at that in conference play.

GONZAGA WOMEN PREVIEW

While things look a bit wonky on the men’s side, the women’s side of the WCC makes a lot more sense.

Gonzaga’s the cream of the crop, and it’s not even close.

The Zags were picked to win the league in the preseason and nothing they or any conference rivals have done to this point points to any other outcome.

Gonzaga’s No. 15 in the NET Rankings as of Wednesday. Next best in the WCC is Santa Clara at No. 61 and Portland at No. 99. If there is a surprise on the women’s side, it’s that Portland — picked to finish second in the league — sits at a somewhat distant third halfway through the season.

Portland’s still talented, and was the only team besides Gonzaga with multiple preseason all-conference honorees (seniors Maisie Burnham and Emme Shearer), but neither has taken a big enough jump over last season to push the Pilots to their potential. They lost a little bit too much from last year’s NCAA Tournament team to stay afloat at that nationally competitive level.

Santa Clara sophomore Tess Heal (17.5 ppg) has put the Broncos on pace for their best season in over 30 years. Heal earned WCC Newcomer of the Year honors a season ago, and looks to be GU center Yvonne Ejim’s only serious competition for WCC Player of the Year in 2024.

While Heal can light it up any given night, her Broncos as a whole prefer to get things done on the defensive end. Any team in the league could get lucky and pull an upset — a not-as-good Santa Clara team did exactly that last season — but this year’s Broncos are the only team truly capable of slowing down the Zags’ high-octane offense.

The only other WCC team of note looks to be Pacific, with junior center Elizabeth Elliott (14.8 ppg) and senior point guard Liz Smith (14.6 ppg) giving the Tigers a potent inside-out duo with both ranking in the top-five in scoring in the conference.

Beyond that, the rest of the league is pretty bad, but that’s pretty normal in the WCC. It also means the Gonzaga women have a pretty clear path to its 19th regular season championship, and an even easier path to a seventh consecutive trip to the NCAA Tournament.

NEXT UP

Men

Gonzaga vs. Pepperdine (Spokane Arena) • Thur,  Jan. 4 at 6 pm • KHQ & ROOT

Gonzaga vs. San Diego • Sat,  Jan. 6 at 6 pm • KHQ & ROOT

Women

Gonzaga at Portland • Thur,  Jan. 4 at 6 pm • ESPN+