Gonzaga Bulldogs vs. Saint Mary’s Gaels prediction and college basketball game preview: West Coast Conference Semifinal.
Gonzaga vs Saint Mary’s Broadcast
Date: Monday, March 8
Game Time: 9:00 ET
Venue: Orleans Arena, Las Vegas, NV
Network: ESPN
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Gonzaga (24-0) vs Saint Mary’s (14-8) Game Preview
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Why Saint Mary’s Will Win
This isn’t the Saint Mary’s team of past years, but it’s getting hot at just the right time with three wins in the past four games thanks to its defense. It leads the West Coast Conference allowing just 62 points per game, and even held Gonzaga in check in the first meting back in mid-January, losing 73-59.
There aren’t a whole lot of mistakes coming from the offense that knows how to slow things down to a dead stop, and there’s just enough work on the boards for a relatively smallish team – at least for the Gaels – to make up for other issues lately. However …
Why Gonzaga Will Win
Saint Mary’s can’t score. It’s been able to get by over the last several weeks on defense, especially from three, but it’s like pulling teeth to get this team to 60 points – it hasn’t scored more than 70 since mid-December.
Granted, that’s just not the Gaels’ style, but all it takes is one big early run from the Bulldogs to put this away.
Put it this way. Gonzaga hasn’t scored fewer than 70 all year and that 73 in the first meeting was one of only two games – a 76-58 win over Pacific the other – when the team was under 80.
In the first meeting, Gonzaga was up 32-25 at halftime and coasted. However …
What’s Going To Happen
In the second game between these two – a 87-65 blowout a few weeks ago – it was 51-24 at halftime.
Yes, Gonzaga has a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament no matter what, and yes, it probably wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world to just take this WCC Tournament off, but that’s obviously not going to happen.
The Gaels will D up for about ten minutes, but the O won’t be able to help out enough to take advantage of any opening. Gonzaga will have this one three minutes into the second half.
Gonzaga vs Saint Mary’s Prediction, Line
Gonzaga 82, Saint Mary’s 61
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Line: Gonzaga -18, o/u: 142
ATS Confidence out of 5: 3
Must See Rating: 2.5
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