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Gonzaga finally gets over the hump, taking down St. Mary’s in a close game to win the WCC

It’s been a wild year for Gonzaga, and even with such an elite roster and one of the nation’s best point guards, the Zags couldn’t quite get over the hump in close games. Coming into this week’s WCC Tournament, Gonzaga had a 2-8 record in games decided by single digits, with the only wins coming over Arizona State and Pepperdine.

In Monday night’s semifinal, the Zags claimed their first single digit win of the calendar year 2025 by taking down San Francisco 85-76 fueled by 27 points from Graham Ike and 21 from Khalif Battle. It turned out to be all Gonzaga needed in the momentum category to finally get past a Saint Mary’s team that had already beat them twice this season in Tuesday’s championship game.

It wasn’t done the typical way for the nation’s second highest scoring offense though, with the final score just 58-51 in favor of Gonzaga. Gonzaga hit just one of its 15 three-point attempts on the night but held Saint Mary’s to an unbelievable 0-of-16 mark. Gonzaga established itself early on, jumping out to an 18-5 lead six minutes in, but Saint Mary’s crawled back into it, finishing the half on a 10-2 run to trim Gonzaga’s lead to 33-31.

The second half slowed the game down even further, with just 45 total points scored between the two teams. Gonzaga never trailed in the game, but everything was still hanging in the balance until back-to-back Saint Mary’s turnovers with less than two minutes to go. The first turnover was capitalized on by Ryan Nembhard at the rim, and the second was an emphatic exclamation point on the night by Khalif Battle, who finished off a fast break alley-oop from Nolan Hickman. That dunk made it 58-49, Gonzaga’s largest lead of the second half.

The game would finish 58-51, and although the box score wasn’t pretty, Gonzaga got what it needed to win the WCC title game and maybe enough to get itself out of the dreaded 8/9 game in the NCAA Tournament. It was the five starters who did much of the heavy lifting for Gonzaga in the game, as Braden Huff led the Zags with 18 points and Battle, Nembhard, and Graham Ike all finished in double figures.

Gonzaga still has one of the nation’s most polarizing resumes, with predictive metrics inside the top 10, but resume metrics hovering around 40. So, while the Zags won’t even have to think about sweating on Selection Sunday, it will be an extremely interesting watch for everyone to see where Gonzaga is seeded with such a resume. The only thing for certain? No one wants to see this Gonzaga team in its pod come Selection Sunday, as Mark Few’s program looks to reach its tenth straight Sweet 16.

Other Things to Note:

• St. Francis (PA) and Robert Morris claimed automatic bids on Tuesday night with NEC and Horizon title game victories
• Big Ten, SEC, and Big East tournaments get underway on Wednesday afternoon
• Lamar and McNeese meet for the Southland title game with the winner claiming the conference’s automatic bid (5:00 ET, ESPN2)
• Navy and American meet in the nation’s capital to decide the Patriot League title (7:00 ET, CBSSN)
• The Big Sky’s top two seeds, Northern Colorado and Montana, face off in the Big Sky championship game (11:30 ET, ESPN2)