Saint Mary’s ends Gonzaga’s monopoly of WCC crowns
Aidan Mahaney scored 23 points, Mitchell Saxen had 19 points and 15 rebounds, and No. 21 Saint Mary’s led nearly the entire way to beat No. 17 Gonzaga 69-60 on Tuesday night in Las and interrupt the Bulldogs’ stranglehold on the West Coast Conference Tournament title.
Gonzaga (25-7) had won four WCC championships in a row and 10 of 11, with Saint Mary’s winning in 2019 the one year the Bulldogs didn’t claim the trophy.
The sharp-shooting Mahaney was a major reason the Gaels (26-7) prevailed. He made 9 of 15 shots, including 5 of 7 from 3-point range. WCC Player of the Year Augustas Marciulionis scored 13 points.
Anton Watson led the Zags with 18 points and Ryan Nembhard had 13 points and 11 assists.
The game was close throughout — Saint Mary’s largest lead was 11 points — but the Gaels managed to stay in front almost throughout. Gonzaga used an eight-point run to finally take the lead with 7:41 left, but that advantage lasted only 22 seconds and was answered by a seven-point spurt by the Gaels.
Both teams came in surging. Saint Mary’s now has won 23 of 25 games, and the Gaels ended Gonzaga’s nine-game winning streak.
• Trey Townsend scored 38 points as top-seeded Oakland (23-11) earned its first NCAA Tournament bid in 10 years with an 83-76 win over sixth-seeded Milwaukee (20-15) in the Horizon League championship game in Indianapolis.
• Tahron Allen scored 22 points and No. 6 seed Wagner (16-15) allowed only four points in the final eight minutes of a 54-47 victory over top-seeded Merrimack (21-12) in the championship game of the Northeast Conference Tournament.
• Reyne Smith scored eight of his 23 points in overtime and top-seeded Charleston (27-7) earned an 82-79 win over No. 7 seed Stony Brook (20-15) to claim the Coastal Athletic Association Tournament.
• California has signed coach Mark Madsen to a two-year extension through the 2029-30 season after he led an impressive turnaround in his first season with the Golden Bears.
Madsen, a two-time NBA champion with the Lakers, took over a program that went 3-29 under Mark Fox last season and led Cal to a 13-18 mark heading into the first round of the Pac12 Tournament tonight against Stanford. loss coming to Big 12 regular-season champion Oklahoma.
Audi Crooks scored 25 points to lead fourth-seeded Iowa State (20-11), which committed 20 turnovers to just seven for the Longhorns, who turned all those miscues into 23 points.
• Kennedy Dickie scored 16 points and third-seeded Portland (21-12) shocked top-seeded No. 14 Gonzaga (30-3) in the West Coast Conference Tournament title game for a second straight year, this time ending the Bulldogs’ schoolrecord 24-game winning streak with a 67-66 victory in Las Vegas.
The win came 13 days after the Pilots lost 90-40 at Gonzaga in a regular-season finale. The Pilots won last year’s championship game 64-60.
Emme Shearer hit a 3-pointer with 1:39 to play to give Portland a 67-64 lead.
• Natalie McNeal had 32 points and eight rebounds and No. 2 seed Green Bay (27-6) scored a 64-40 victory over No. 1 seed Cleveland
State (29-5) in the Horizon League Tournament title game in Indianapolis.
• Paige Meyer had 18 points, Tori Nelson scored seven of her nine during a 14-0 fourth-quarter run and South Dakota State (27-5) earned its 12th trip to the NCAA Tournament with a 67-54 win over North Dakota State (21-11) in the Summit League Tournament championship.
• Stanford star Cameron Brink will finish her collegiate career this season and enter the WNBA draft.
The nation’s No. 1-ranked shot blocker announced her decision on social media.
Brink could have returned for a fifth year of eligibility granted by the NCAA to athletes competing during the interruption from the COVID-19 pandemic.
The 6-foot-4 Brink is Stanford’s second-leading scorer at 17.8 points per game and the leading rebounder, averaging 12.0 boards — ranking her third in the nation. She has blocked 109 shots this season and is averaging 3.52 per game, both top marks in the country.
She has swatted 406 shots for her career.