Some college basketball pundits and prognosticators felt before the season began that the Saint Mary’s Gaels might knock Gonzaga off its perch as the best team in the West Coast Conference. After three weeks of action, that belief has been punctured.
Saint Mary’s is losing games left and right. Gonzaga clearly looks like the team to beat in the WCC. The Zags look like a genuinely strong team. They might not be as good as they were in the 2021 and 2022 seasons in which they were a No. 1 seed — that is a different conversation — but they are still the class of their conference and a definite top-20 group.
Gonzaga enters Saturday’s game against USC in Las Vegas with a 5-1 record. The Zags’ only loss is to No. 1 Purdue. They beat UCLA on a neutral court, which is a significant indication of how good they are. This is not the best Gonzaga team in recent years, but it is still a team which should expect to be in the Sweet 16 and gain a chance next March of making a run to the Final Four.
USC wants to be where Gonzaga is. The Trojans can do something about that against Mark Few and the Zags. Saturday’s game starts just after 7 p.m. Pacific time in Las Vegas on ESPN.
Visit our friends at Fighting Irish Wire, Buffaloes Wire, and Ducks Wire.