Projecting the Final WCC Men's Basketball Standings

With a few weeks to go, we predict what the final WCC men's basketball standings

Just a few weeks of regular season play remain before the WCC men's basketball tournament in Las Vegas. Today, let's project the final WCC standings and look ahead to how the tournament bracket could look come tournament time.

Current WCC Standings (Before 2/11/23 Results)

As of this writing, here are the current WCC standings:

Team	Conference Record	Overall Record
Saint Mary's	10-1	21-5
Gonzaga	9-2	20-5
LMU	7-5	17-9
Santa Clara	6-5	18-8
BYU	6-6	16-11
Pacific	5-6	12-14
Portland	5-7	13-14
San Francisco	4-8	15-12
San Diego	4-8	11-15
Pepperdine	2-10	9-17

These standings do not include any results from Saturday (2/11). WCC games don't tip off until Saturday afternoon. The WCC standings are divided into four groups:

1. Saint Mary's and Gonzaga with a big lead ahead of the rest of the conference fighting for first place
2. LMU, BYU, Santa Clara, and Pacific fighting for third place
3. San Francisco, Portland, San Diego falling behind
4. Pepperdine in last place by a wide margin

The Race for First Place in the WCC

Saint Mary's loss to LMU on Thursday created a race for first place between the Gaels and the Zags. If Gonzaga and Saint Mary's win out before their matchup on 2/25, they will be playing for the first seed in the WCC tournament. A Saint Mary's win over Gonzaga on 2/25 would secure the top seed. If Gonzaga beats Saint Mary's in that game, they would tie the Gaels for the best record in the conference.

At that point, tie-breaker rules would determine the top seed. Since Gonzaga and Saint Mary's would have split the regular season series and lost to the same team in conference play (LMU), therefore RPI rankings would determine the top seed. Gonzaga is currently 10 spots ahead of Saint Mary's in RPI, indicating the Zags would likely be the top seed if they beat Saint Mary's.

Projecting the Final WCC Standings

Let's project the final WCC standings using KenPom's predictive analytics combined with the current WCC standings.

Team	Projected Conference Record (W-L)
Saint Mary's	14.0-2.0
Gonzaga	12.91-3.09
LMU	9.08-6.92
Santa Clara	8.95-7.05
BYU	7.67-8.33
Pacific	6.82-9.18
San Francisco	6.39-9.61
Portland	6.34-9.66
San Diego	4.86-11.14
Pepperdine	2.98-13.02

In this scenario, BYU would finish fifth in the WCC regular season standings. The fifth seed in the WCC tournament would face the winner of the 8-9 game.

Projected WCC Men's Tournament Bracket

Here's is a projected view of what the WCC men's basketball bracket would look like if the above standings come to fruition. In this scenario, BYU would face the winner of Portland-San Diego in the second round.

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