Last Night's Happenin's

St. Mary's put up a tough fight in the second half, but fell short of a come back against fourteenth ranked (in the coaches' poll) Gonzaga. The Zags jumped out to a twelve point first half lead and was able to hold off a late surge by the Gaels in the second half. With the victory, the Bulldogs should remain a three seed in the next bracket. This is a pretty crushing blow to the Gaels at-large bid hopes. They may have to win out in conference play to have a chance. With a pair of games against the third best WCC team, Portland, and a game at Gonzaga, this could be a tall order. To have a chance, along with winning the rest of their WCC games, they must, at the very least, split with Portland and win at Gonzaga or maybe just sweep Portland and play the Zags tough in Spokane. That said, they will stay in the last eight out in the next bracket.

In the miserable Pac-10, Arizona State romped Oregon in Eugene, 76-57. This knocks the Ducks out of the top 60, while vaulting the Sun Devils up to the 60 spot. This makes them the second best Pac-10 team. AZ State still has a lot of work to do in conference play just to make the last eight out.

Cal picked up a solid road win at Washington State to go to 11-5 and 3-1 in conference play. They would probably be the front runner to win the conference tournament if it weren't for the inexplicable loss in overtime AT HOME(!) to UCLA (gross!), who has been just dreadful this season. Their other four losses: Syracuse (neutral), at New Mexico, at Kansas, and Ohio State aren't that bad, so they could very easily still make the field if they can get on a run in conference play. They have a showdown in Washington on Saturday; the winner of this game will make the next bracket as the favorite to win the conference.

Speaking of the Huskies, they beat up on Stanford last night to improve to just 2-3 in conference play. They remain the favorites to win the conference because they are ranked the highest (47) in the top 60, mainly because of their win at home against Texas A&M (#30), which is, sadly, the best non-conference win of any Pac-10 team (at least of teams that are eligible for postseason play; USC actually has a pretty solid OOC resume with wins against Tennessee and UNLV (neutral floor)).

There were no changes to the top 60 as a result of last night's games, except for Oregon falling out of the ranks and Arizona State jumping up to 60.