Comments about ‘Who to watch for in West Coast Conference play this winter’

Gonzaga is the clearcut favorite to win the WCC, so BYU, Santa Clara, and Saint Mary's are all looking for at-large bids to the NCAAs.

For BYU to have a realistic chance of getting an at-large bid, BYU will need to finish with no more than 3 regular season conference losses, which means going 3-3 versus Gonzaga, SMC, and SC, and sweeping everybody else. BYU will also need a good OOC win, which means beating Utah State.

A win at Santa Clara this Saturday might be critical, since beating Gonzaga in Provo will not be easy.

The automatic bid for the WCC goes to the winner of the conference tournament in Las Vegas. Anyone can get hot in a tournament and the regular season record only determines seeding. BYU has a chance to beat Gonzaga and anyone else in the conference tourney.

The USU Aggies needed overtime to beat Santa Clara. Let's hope BYU can also get a win at SC this weekend.

BYUs game with Santa Clara will be a really good barometer of how good BYU is and how good Santa Clara is.

I really think BYUs game against SF was the best thing that could have happened, getting a hard fought road win. I think we'll see Carlino, Sharp and Zylstra play at a higher, more productive level as a result of this win.