For the longest time, the Gonzaga Bulldogs have been the face of the West Coast Conference ever since Mark Few took the helm of the program before the turn of the new millennium. While the Bulldogs have dominated the WCC for the better part of the Few era, it’s still worth looking at the rest of the competition in a conference filled with surprising programs come the national tournament proper.

Nitrobetting is ready to dish out some timely assists to our bettors all throughout the 2022 March Madness season. This time, let’s run down the favorites and sleepers to win the WCC conference title, as well each of those teams’ respective odds of winning said title for a huge boost entering the national tournament.

2022 WCC Tournament Preview

.@ChetHolmgren named a @NaismithTrophy Defensive Player of the Year Semifinalist
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Gonzaga Bulldogs

What more can be said about the Bulldogs’ sheer dominance over the WCC to date? Gonzaga, also the consensus top program in the nation in the AP poll, has won seven conference titles over the past nine years and would’ve likely won an eighth had it not been for the pandemic-stunted 2019-20 campaign.

Top-scorer Drew Timme (17.6 PPG, 58.3 FG%) is an elite NBA prospect, and the same could be said about Andrew Nembhard (11.3 PPG, 5.5 APG). Gonzaga is an astounding 13-1 against its conference rivals this season, but should still be wary about its stiffest competition in the group. Which leads us to…

Saint Mary’s Gaels

Often overlooked by the immense success of Gonzaga are the Saint Mary’s Gaels, who were the last team not named the Bulldogs to win a WCC title of late. Head coach Randy Bennett is in his second decade at Moraga and is still giving the Zags all sorts of fits in the conference, recently handing the Bulldogs their first and only loss to a conference rival this season with a 10-point win this past Saturday.

Saint Mary’s, which won the WCC crown in 2019, has a rather stellar 70.7 win percentage under Bennett. Save for last season’s lackluster outing, the Gaels have finished with no worse than the third-best record in the conference since the 2014-15 campaign.

Sleepers

San Francisco Dons

With a 23-8 overall record, the San Francisco Dons are well within the thick of the race for the WCC title. Head coach Todd Golden, a former player from St. Mary’s, has the boys in green and gold back on the upswing after going 11-14 last season.

Unfortunately for the Dons, they’re still a step behind compared to the Bulldogs and the Gaels, whom they have a combined record of 0-4 against this season. Their losses to St. Mary’s were close affairs, whereas they were blown out in their two meetings against Gonzaga.

BYU Cougars

A third straight season of finishing with the second-best record in the WCC is not going to happen for the BYU Cougars, who took a step back in the school’s third season playing in a mid-major conference. The former Mountain West Conference program still possesses a 21-9 overall record to give them some merit as a possible entry into the national tournament ahead.

The Cougars are on a two-game win streak and have won four of their last five games by a combined average of 10.8 points. However, each of their last three losses have come against the three aforementioned teams. This ultimately limits BYU’s chances of staging an upset against the rest of the WCC’s heavyweights, but a 65-24 record to date in three seasons under head coach Mark Pope is still enough to warrant them solid sleeper value as the real dark horse pick out of the conference.

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