The No. 1 team in the nation will now have to wait and see if they get the No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament as the Gonzaga Bulldogs beat the Saint Mary's Gaels 65-51 in to claim the WCC tournament championship.
Gonzaga wins 2013 West Coast Conference basketball tournament: Zags heading to tournament for 15th straight year
The top team in the nation took care of business, winning the WCC tournament for the third time in the past five years.
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Junior forward Kelly Olynyk scored 21 points and grabbed 12 rebounds and senior forward Elias Harris added 19 points for the Bulldogs as they defeated Saint Mary's for the third time this year. It was the 31st win of the season for Gonzaga, extending the school record set on Saturday.
The intensity of the rivalry between the two teams was apparent from the beginning as the teams traded baskets back and forth for the first ten minutes. But junior Gael’s guard Jordan Page went down with a knee injury and Gonzaga pounced, taking a 38-29 lead going into halftime.
Saint Mary’s and Gonzaga have now met in the WCC tournament final the past five consecutive years, with Gonzaga holding a 3-2 edge courtesy of the win tonight.
Junior guard Stephen Holt led the Gaels with 19 points, but Saint Mary's struggled from behind the arc, a key part of their game. The Gaels were 7-26 from the three-point line, and star point guard Matthew Dellavedova was held to two points on 1-8 shooting. Without the outside shot, the Gaels had no answer for the Zags interior players, who combined for 46 of their 65 points as the team shot 57 percent overall.
Now Saint Mary’s will have to wait for their name to be drawn on Sunday, although most bracketologists predict an at-large berth for the Gaels. For Gonzaga, they will wait and see if their top-ranking polls translates to the tournament seeding, as they are hoping for their first number one seed in school history.
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